Recommended Zigbee in-wall switches, dimmers and roller shutter controllers for ZHA

Hardware
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I’m building my smart home based on the ZHA integration - so far the results are impressive and I managed to bind together both the cheap Aqara stuff thanks to the ZHA quirks (cube, wireless switches, temperature sensors) and the standard-compliant things like Osram bulbs or Aqara smart plugs (surprisingly that thing doesn’t require the quirk, good job Xiaomi). Now when it’s more or less settled that I’ll go with Zigbee, I’m looking forward to finally invest in the light switches, dimmers and the roller shutters, as they are the device types that requires the most interference in the actual house - due to fact I want them to act as the routers and extend the range of my Zigbee mesh network, I already know that I’ll have to spend some time pulling the N wires to my wall switches. :grinning:

The problem is that I’m looking for a standard-compliant solution that would work with raw ZHA and Digi Xbee WRL-15128 S2C module, without Zigbee2MQTT which seems to support more devices. Since I want to get the standard doorbell-like monostable buttons for it so that they fit the interior, I’m looking for a module I could put behind the switch and wire all the cables to it. The Ubisys seems to be the the leader when it comes to such solutions for the switches, dimmers and shutter controls - their devices are fully compliant, support OTA updates and certified by the Zigbee Alliance. The problem is their price - €100 for a single wall switch is the cheapest thing they have and it beats even the Fibaro products I already considered expensive and which was one of my reasons I went with Zigbee instead of Z-Wave.

There are some Tuya in-wall switches and dimmers available on the market (ignore the Polish description, you can see the parameters in the pictures on the devices themselves):



They are reasonably priced - 60 PLN is €14, I could get bunch of those for a price of one €100 Ubisys switch! What’s more, they seem to be quite well thought out - not only they can have the button attached but also pressing the button multiple times resets the module and allows for reconnecting with the network, without necessity of burrowing into the wall in order to press that tiny reset button on the module itself. :stuck_out_tongue: They mention to use Zigbee 3.0 - however, is the sole mention of Zigbee 3.0 the guarantee of standard compliance? The fact that some devices like Aqara mini switch are mentioned on the Zigbee Alliance page and still have a ZHA quirk implemented makes me doubt that - not to mention that I can’t find those Tuya devices on the Alliance page at all. However, I have the Tuya-branded temperature sensor which identifies itself as RH3052 and works flawlessly with ZHA, without any custom quirks.

Did anybody try those switches with the ZHA and could confirm if they work or not? Also, could somebody recommend the similar in-wall device for controlling the shutters which is priced more reasonably than the €150 shutter controller from Ubisys?

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If you don’t mind some diy, there is zigup. Several other diy things around too.

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Actually, I’ve planned to get into the DIY Zigbee stuff at some point - it’d be a great chance to hop into the world of Arduino and Xbee programming and learn something, as well as smarten that IR remote controlled ceiling fan. :grinning:

However, since I’m rather on the beginning of my smart home journey, I’d prefer to stick to the pre-made solutions for now - ideally find the way to have it guaranteed that the Zigbee device I buy complies to the ZCL specification so that Home Assistant won’t have a problem with discovering what the particular device can do. I still remember how I connected Aqara lightbulb to my OpenHAB setup (OpenHAB doesn’t have the quirk custom device handler mechanism HA has) and reported that it has the shutter controls. :stuck_out_tongue:

I remember reading somewhere that Zigbee 3.0, apart from the security enhancements, was supposed to bring the similar level of certification Z-Wave has. The problem is the matter of trust - I’ll very much rather trust a person on the forum who says that the particular device is working for them than its Chinese manufacturer printing Zigbee logo and “Zigbee 3.0” on it.

The closest two things I found are Zigbee Alliance site and the following one: https://zigbee.blakadder.com/. The problem is that all the mentioned in-wall switches/dimmers/shutter controllers on the Alliance site seem to either not be available for purchase anymore or they are ridiculously expensive Ubisys ones. The latter site has quite a comprehensive list of devices, but is still quite misleading - for example, the Ubisys switch’s page says that it’s confirmed to work with Zigbee2MQTT and Deconz, which doesn’t confirm but also doesn’t deny if they work with, let’s say, ZHA.

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@konpon96, look at this blog post from HejDom, especially the comments below. Some people do use these devices with HA and Zigbee2MQTT.

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I’ve stumbled upon this blog and this article. Decided to give it a try and bought the 2-gang switch without N wire. Connected 2.5 W LED light bulb to the switch and both of them to mains (simply by connecting the cable and plugging it to the wall socket, for the sake of easy experimenting), all in accordance with the manual. I’ve experienced something weird - namely, there is something like a “leak” of current through the switch to the light bulb. The bulb was lighted up immediately after plugging the switch to the mains, but not on its full power. Also, the indicator light on the switch wasn’t blinking and the switch itself wasn’t reacting on my button pressed, shortening COM and S1/S2 inputs. Not to mention that it wasn’t detectable in HA. I’ve tried with 40W halogen bulb and this time it worked - managed to connect it with HA, change its state with a button and through HA page etc, which was great. Since all my home lights are LED and I’m not willing to go back to halogens for my lights to become smart, I’ve tried 4 W LED bulb. What’s interesting, it worked - however, after plugging it again, the current leak happened again and since then neither of L1 and L2 outputs are working.

In the beginning I thought that was caused by the bulb to have only 2.5 W power consumption (other similar switches require at least 3 W), but I think I might’ve broken it by connecting the wall socket’s N wire to the L input of the switch. Should’ve checked it first. :sweat_smile:

Got the 1-gang and 2-gang dimmers as well - they work great, recognized by HA, use monostable doorbell-type button for controlling, no necessity of burrowing into the wall to reset it since it can be done by pushing one of the buttons long enough. The only thing I wish it had is some button for configuring the minimum brightness - right now the brightness goes all the way down to zero, saw some dimmers having a “set minimum” physical button on the switch for configuring that, but it’s a very minor inconvenience. :grinning:

I’ve also bought the 2-gang switch with N wire and that one is working flawlessly (recognized by ZHA etc) and doubles as a Zigbee network router. The only problem is that it requires bistable button to be attached, which in my opinion is utterly stupid - by modifying the switch state with the button and with the HA panel, one might end up with a double wall button in two different states (first pressed down and the second one not) but with both of its lights in the same state. That’s why I liked the idea of the switch without N wire - unfortunately it works only as Zigbee end device and doesn’t extend the coverage, but it works with monostable button. As much as I find it great that those no-name switches work with ZHA without any quirks and seem to be compliant with ZCL, not supporting the monostable buttons is a big turn off for me. :frowning_face: I’m browsing all the compatibility pages, Aliexpress etc but can barely find other in-wall Zigbee switches - found some on Allegro which were almost as expensive as Ubisys ones:

No information about the compatibility, nobody is even bothering in buying them - could it be shady seller (95,7% of positive reviews on Allegro is really not that good), the price or maybe both? :thinking: Did anybody stumble upon or had experience with the in-wall switches with the N wire support that are working with the monostable buttons that won’t make my home look like a cheap patchwork smart one?

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That is basically how devices without a neutral wire work - even when off the circuit still needs a small amount of current to work. With most bulbs it is not enough current for the bulb to glow.

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First thing, devices without a Neutral connection are working as part of the circuit, they do have a parasitic drawn as some calls it. If you undo the bulb, they stop working immediately as you have an open circuit.
LED bulbs tends to light up slightly, when that kind of current passes through them. It is kinda normal. And that is the reason why the devices without N are not operating as a repeater as well. It is better to use any device with a Neutral connection as they are always powered on and can function as a repeater.

The life doesn’t stop at Zigbee, you can use Wifi or Zwave as well with HA. The Sonoff Mini flashed with Tasmota can operate with monostable buttons, and integrates well with HA through MQTT. There are plenty Zwave single switch relays on the market as well, Fibaro ones has options to define what kind of physical switch you want to use. Or you can buy ZemiSmart or YaguSmart zigbee switches with touch or push buttons.

And I haven’t mentioned yet the Aqara Zigbee module which can be an alternative for your previous choice as well, and it is about the same size as the Sonoff Mini.

https://allegro.pl/oferta/przelacznik-dwukanalowy-wlacznik-aqara-zigbee-9666294450

Or the ones with Switch buttons built in:

https://allegro.pl/oferta/aqara-przelacznik-scienny-zigbee-xiaomi-homekit-9409359551

https://allegro.pl/oferta/aqara-przelacznik-scienny-zigbee-xiaomi-homekit-9409441300

The list on https://zigbee.blakadder.com/ gives a good idea what Zigbee modules switches you can find, but many of them most likely not available on the Polish market.

Always look at the reviews. 5 bad reviews, 2 from the same buyer regarding late delivery. It is not a bad seller at all…

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The reasons you’ve mentioned are the reasons why I would prefer to stick with the N line embedded solutions, even if it means the necessity of pulling the neutral wires to the wallboxes. :smiley:

I want to stick to Zigbee for the mesh network it builds and the effective range. Especially when it comes to the wall-embedded things like switches - since there are so many of them around the house, sticking to one solution would result in a fantastic coverage throughout the whole building. I have three floors, basement, garden and quite thick walls, so it’s a perfect use case for mesh network and not a good one for the star topology Wifi and the solutions utilizing it like Tasmota. Also, I don’t really want my Wifi network to be polluted with ton of devices like wall switches and creating a separate network with separate router to tame them, configuring the peerings… well, doesn’t sound like a reasonable solution for turning the light on and off. :smiley: Not to mention that I tend to reconfigure my network regularly which is already a lot of work without walking around the house and resetting all the light switches. I simply don’t see the Wifi as something for my use case and conceptually as a smart home communication solution at all - more like cheap and dirty workaround if somebody has just one Xiaomi Wifi smart bulb and doesn’t need a hub or necessary evil if one wants to integrate with things like Xiaomi vacuum cleaners.

The wall switches, roller shutters and stuff like that is actually this particular case where Zwave solutions shine. Especially Fibaro, with its broad portfolio and switches which support both monostable and bistable buttons. I’ve considered making my Home Assistant hub combine Zigbee and Zwave, but that would mean losing the advantage of even coverage throughout the whole house. I’m not discarding that case and still might end up with getting Zwave USB dongle and Fibaro in-wall devices. However, since the wall switches and roller shutter controllers will be the biggest expense, I want to be absolutely sure I exhausted all the other possibilities.

I’ve been reading about the Aqara module and although it requires custom quirk handler due to Xiaomi’s non-compliant Zigbee channel implementation, it looks like a decent device and works with ZHA thanks to the handler. Two things I don’t like about it is the fact I have to dive into the wall to reset it when there is such necessity - or at least I didn’t find any mention if that’s possible by long-pressing or multiple press of the attached buttons - and that it doesn’t fit the European wallboxes, which means that I would have to make a bigger hole in the wall and use the square Chinese wallbox or model and 3D print custom one. The same problem applies to Aqara wall buttons. However, if I ever changed my mind, I would end up with Chinese-type wallbox and necessity of a lot of dirty gypsum work to restore the wall to the European standard. :joy: There seem to be rumors about the round Aqara module coming up, but since they seem to be around for a few years already, at this point I treat them more like legends.

You are right about the seller, my bad experiences with the ones below 98% of positive reviews kicked in. :smiley: However, considering the deficiency of Zigbee modules which are in the sweet spot between cheap non-compliant and Ubisys level of super expensive, I guess one cannot just reject potentially good module because of its seller. The longer delivery time is not that big of a deal - after all I buy stuff on Aliexpress where patience is a must. I keep browsing Allegro and Aliexpress for the modules and noticed some new Zigbee in-wall dimmers, which look better than the one I bought (they have a possibility of limiting a minimum brightness) but no signs of something new in terms of switches and roller shutter controllers.

Actually, a roller shutter module which I’ve purchased on Ali has arrived few days ago. It’s not ideal for my use case, since it’s not an in-wall module, but it’s always something to try and learn from. However, due to the fact I have a lot of work recently, I still didn’t have an opportunity of mounting and checking it - also a reason why it took me some time to respond here. :frowning: Once I do so I will certainly share my experience on that one here - maybe it will help somebody to make a decision, especially if they’re fine with those touch buttons.

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You will see after time, that Zigbee is not superb than any other solution. It is really prone to interference. Wifi, Bluetooth, and USB 3.0 (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/io/universal-serial-bus/usb3-frequency-interference-paper.html)

The star topology doesn’t apply to Zwave, as the modules (nodes) provides hops for the messages to the central controller. The same as Zigbee would do, but Zigbee should have something called self-healing, what I have seen to fail many times due to interference…

As you mentioned you have multiple floors and thick floors, you might want to look at the Tasmota Zigbee2MQTT solution with Sonoff Zigbee Bridges, or satellite HA instances on multiple RPis. (Zigbee - Tasmota)
You can use it for each floor, as a separate network, and don’t need to worry about the the thickness of the floor, if you have proper Wifi coverage around your house.
https://allegro.pl/listing?string=sonoff%20zb%20bridge

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Interesting discussion, I will follow it.

I’m looking for a solution for bistable buttons - 2 way - without neutral working in zigbee with ZHA (1 and 2 gangs)

I found this : https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/4001178298316.html?spm=a2g0w.12010612.8148356.11.4f27522bGqjoYz

I don’t clearly get what “no neutral” implies. Will I be able to activate these relays from HA if switch is off (and electrical circuit open) ?

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No neutral means, that the module does not require a neutral wire to power itself, but it has to be part of the circuit with the load (lamp). As it part of the circuit, it has to be always closed to power the module. When the light off (assumed that the circuit open), it is actually still closed, but the module does a parasitic load only, and not enough current passed through to make the bulb light up.

The switch with the no neutral module is basically changing the state of the module and does not control the circuit to be open/closed. It does the same way as a zigbee command would do. Some modules allow yo set what triggers a state change from a switch, being open/closed (change) or if open then state off, if closed then state on. I don’t own any of these zigbee modules to try them, so I cannot tell how they actually behave. But I assume the first, change of the switch causes change of state.

I hope it is clear now. (Or just clear as mud…)

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Just found this one on amazon as i´m looking for a relay switch thats able to work behind a hue bridge as zigbee hub.


Never heard of KKmoon before but i may give it a try.
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You might want to explain what you mean by this sentence.

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I´m looking for an exact replacement for the fibaro double relay switch just using zigbee so beeing able to connect to a hue bridge used as my zigbee controller.

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Ok, now I understand. But I am not sure that these would work with a Hue bridge.

Look at this list here for compatibility:

If you are looking for dual relays then I have serious doubts that any would work with a Hue bridge.

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I have those, both with and without neutral:

Those “no neutral” modules reside on the live wire in the light switch wall socket and are supplied with power due to the parasitic drawn mentioned by @GSzabados. The module can be also attached to a doorbell-type monostable button for turning the life on and off when you don’t want to use Home Assistant (also to reset the module when you long press the button). Although this seems to be much simpler solution than the modules that require the neutral wire connection, from my experience it has several drawbacks:

  • The relays without neutral wire are Zigbee end devices and do not extend the Zigbee mesh network range unlike the relays with the neutral wire which are valid Zigbee routers
  • They allow for much smaller loads than the modules with neutral wires - up to 100W or something unlike the ones with neutral which allow for over 1000W. Shouldn’t be much of an issue with modern LED lights, but if your LED strip is long, it might require more than 100W (not to mention the old bulbs)
  • If your attached light consumes too little power (less than ~4W), the module might not work
  • If you happen to mess up the live and neutral wire when connecting the module, the module might stop working permanently. Sounds incredibly dumb, but that’s precisely what I did, since I’ve been testing it by attaching the cables outside the wall and then plugging it to the wall socket for testing purposes. :smiley: This way it’s very simple to mess up the live and neutral wires when you plug the cable in the wrong orientation - for normal electrical appliances it doesn’t make the difference, but those relays were explicitly told to be attached to the live wires. Since I’m not an electrician, I can’t really say why my module broke. However, the fact is that since I did it, I can’t make it work anymore. :stuck_out_tongue:

As I said, the advantage of this particular relay model without neutral wire is that it works with the monostable buttons. The model equipped with the neutral wire works only with the bistable buttons, which is just stupid - my button on the wall can be pressed and it won’t magically “unclick” itself if I open Home Assistant and turn the light off. :stuck_out_tongue:

However, looks like Aqara decided to make the legends come true and released the European version of their in-wall relay module:

From what I see, there is only 1-gang version available, in two variations - with neutral and without neutral wire. According to FAQ on their page, it works with both monostable and bistable buttons which is controllable from the software - not a fan of that, this setting is probably another custom Zigbee channel and won’t be available from the ZHA. On top of that the bistable button setting is a default one - I don’t know why all manufacturers hate the monostable buttons so much. :upside_down_face:

I bought the neutral wire equipped module and should get it soon since it was already shipped (from my country, not China). Can’t wait to have it tested - Aqara has already proven they can produce a ZCL-compliant device (their smart plug) so maybe this one won’t require custom ZHA device handler either and the monostable button support would be possible to activate by issuing custom command (saw such option somewhere in HA). Fingers crossed.

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Thank you for your insights, i will go ahead and buy one, lets see if i can get them to work.
Actully i´m looking for an even simpler way for installations where there would not be enough room in the wall. Do you know if there is a complete replacement for the in wall switch, in my case Busch Jäger, with one that has zigbee already builtin but still directly wired to the lamp.
Something like the aquara in wall switches but working with hue :wink:

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Okay, so I’ve got my Aqara module. Nicely built, as all Aqara stuff and most importantly works perfectly with HA, just like the smart plug I mentioned - no need for ZHA device handler for its basic functionality. Here is the screenshot of the device screen, with the entities which are of the same types as the ones in the smart plug (power consumption, on/off toggle and some field which is always unknown):

Screenshot from 2020-10-14 20-12-56
Screenshot from 2020-10-14 20-12-56302×805 31 KB

Long pressing attached button doesn’t reset the module, so it’s a slight disadvantage from my point of view, but not a huge one. Unfortunately there is no entity for switching the button mode between monostable and bistable - I kinda expected that to be honest, but seeing it not being there is always a bit disappointing. :frowning:

Connected it to Aqara hub with the Aqara app, also to check if there were any firmware updates (none yet) and immediately after adding the module I was given an option to choose the type of the button that was connected to it. After reconnecting it to Home Assistant I went through the “Manage clusters” menu in the ZHA device screen which has the list of clusters, their attributes and commands but didn’t see anything that would look like a button mode. There must be a way to communicate with the module and tell it what button it should work with, but Aqara might’ve went with some custom implementation since HA didn’t discover any manufacturer-specific clusters. The compliance documents from the Zigbee Alliance page didn’t help or tell anything about the custom cluster either (or maybe I just don’t know how to read them). Wondering if that’s something that could be debugged by somebody equipped with a Zigbee sniffer and taken care of with the help of ZHA device handler quirk? Having a dedicated entity for switching a button mode sounds a bit excess, but being able to issue a command from the “Manage clusters” menu to a cluster that would change a button mode would be fantastic - it’s configuration thing after all and is not done all the time.

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Hi @konpon96, it’s been a while since you reported here, thanks for the detailed write ups.

Anything new you have to add since you last wrote?

I’m on the lookout for similar devices (dimmers, actually) and have been looking at this model (QS-ZigBee-D02-TRIAC-2C-LN 2 gang dimmer with N):

Those only work with push buttons (monostable switches), as it would be pretty weird to operate with a rocker one. Why would switches (as opposed to dimmers) only work with bistable ones is beyond me.

Here’s a post from hejdom about them:

Was wondering if anyone has experience with those above? Or maybe similar ones?

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Hi @Saviq, unfortunately I didn’t have much time to continue with my Zigbee endeavours recently. :frowning: So far the only one I saw was the new Aqara switch, but its monostable button support works only with Aqara Hub - they don’t expose configuration capability in a way ZHA could see it. :frowning: I guess it’ll be necessary to write a custom ZHA handler for it to work, since I doubt Xiaomi will release a firmware update that will suddenly expose this setting in a compliant way. Maybe once I have a bit more free time I’ll research how to develop the handlers and how to reverse engineer the signals exchanged by Aqara hub and the switch. I thought that I’ll just wait for the new Zigbee devices to pop up on the market, in hope that there will be one having all the features I’m looking for like the monostable button support and ZHA compliance.

As for the Tuya dimmer, I have both 1-gang and 2-gang versions of it:

IMG_20201228_184208
IMG_20201228_1842084608×3456 1.14 MB

I described them in one of my beefy posts above - the reason why I didn’t write much about them in comparison to the switches is that dimmers simply work flawlessly. :grinning: Not only they are properly discovered by ZHA, work with monostable buttons (as all smart home switches and relays should) but they also allow for resetting the module without digging into the wall - just long press the light switch. The only feature I saw in other Zigbee dimmers which is not available in the Tuya one is possibility to configure minimum light output - it just dims the light to zero and then goes up. One of the models I saw with the minimum light output capability is one below. However, I don’t have it and I cannot say if it works properly with ZHA: