Just to let people know that I bought and installed the cheapest Zigbee switch I’ve ever seen. I just ordered more because they are on-sale for $6.
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In my experience, the cheaper the Zigbee devices, the worse the performance (like dropping off the network, not using Zigbee 3.0 correctly, not meshing nice with other devices, battery drain, false triggers or just bad build quality). Like the turn knob on the home page, I bought two of them over a year ago from AliExpress. Straight to the trashcan with both of them, they were incredibly inaccurate and also had connection issues.
I learned my lesson a few years ago when I tried around all kinds of cheap sensors, just to end up binning them all and buying quality sensors (like Hue motion sensors). Would have been cheaper just to get the good stuff from the beginning. Also better of my sanity lol.
Now not all cheap Zigbee devices are trash, but you have to realize they are cutting price by also cutting quality and R&D. The smart plugs are pretty decent on that site (got one from Amazon and performs good).
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Interesting. I like to check out new products which might save me money.
That said, their web site leaves a lot to be desired. The page about one device talks about WiFi and mains power for what appears to be a Zigbee battery powered sensor.
At least the pictures are pretty humorous, with the sensor poorly photoshopped into stock photos, way out of proportion.
Unfortunately, the site doesn’t let me see the shipping costs without creating an account. One can only assume they have something to hide. No thanks.
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I bought an LED bulb from them on AliExpress once - it died within a few weeks and then something was loose inside the enclosure. So, good luck.
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I bought a bunch of toys to play with, so I don’t care if they die early…
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All appear to be re-badged generic products.
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Yeah I agree. Even odds says they like to drop off networks, we’ll see. but for the price…
…I’ll absolutely let Stephen check these out for us. 
We’ll find out. I installed this behind a wall switch. The switch controls my driveway light because the PIR on it timed out too fast. I am also replacing the PIR with an MMwave sensor.
So, in a month or so, if I remember to, I’ll report back if it still works.
Wonder if you feel the same if they burst in flames…
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I’ve only melted one. About three years ago I melted down a Sonoff Basic switch. The problem is the cheap screw terminals they used in the Basic. These screw terminals are NOT rated for 14 gauge solid core wires. They do not stay tight. And loose wiring is the cause of many electrical fires. The Sonoff Basic was intended to be used in 16 gauge appliance cords, like a lamp. If you have any IOT switch with screw terminals, check the tightness of the screw terminals annually. If you have one that has been in service for more than a year, I’ll bet you a lunch that you can tighten them by a quarter- or even a half-turn.
This is another reason that I would never use one of these at the rated power. 75% is my limit.
The terminals on these cheap switches feel more robust than the Sonoff Basics’ terminals, but I haven’t looked for the specifications on them. A #14 solid wire clamps nicely.
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Interesting, most of my zigbee devices either battery powered or ac powered are tuya devices or re branded tuya devices. I never ever had problems with it. Nothing melted, no fires so far, no wired disconnections or drops from the network… well nothing. I have problem only with one room that obviously has some kind of interference either because of bluetooth or something else.
Maybe I’m just lucky.
When I buy it, I like to check did the seller stated its 3.0 zigbee devices. And as I see they usually are.
In the past esphome compatible products like shelly type switches were sold under $3 shipped on aliexpress.
Exactly my mileage with random and cheap ZigBee products.
I switched to esphome only devices now and they all have a great performance and no limitations that I experienced with to ZigBee ones.
Today I’m happy and 100% ZigBee free!
Yes, the bottom has dropped out of the zigbee, matter, wifi and bluetooth chip market. Well on the way to near zero, not sure how that will bode for the various companies. It is going to be tougher and tougher to market a device for home that does not have some type of ‘remote’ operation function, whether proprietary or via one of above standards.
It looks like 90+ % of companies are using one of 3 or 4 vendors silicon and radio firmware. These chips and basic firmware are pretty solid, so I think that will be least of the worries for most devices we buy. I think the issues will come in two main areas, the RF design of the device (poor design messing with device function and possibly other devices) and the ‘custom’ application functions the vendor puts on top of the basic radio firmware in order operate their device and ‘differentiate it’ (again poor design, not to standards, messing with device operation and possibly other devices on the network). The whole power safety and ‘greenness’ of the device are whole other topics.
Good hunting!
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Sensors never will melt. The problem comes when you are using a switch module to control line voltage devices. Loose terminals can easily introduce a few ohms resistance to the circuit. But that resistance has to dissipate heat. A connection resistance of 5 ohms in a circuit drawing 10 Amps, like a space heater for example, will be dissipating 50 Watts at the junction.
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I don’t think it will ever get there. The CSA (Connectivity Standards) gets a certification fee, so any product maker that claims their product is certified still has this cost to add to their product.
‘Promoter and Participant Members’
‘White label or rebrand a Certified Product via the Certification Tool and use the Alliance Certification trademarks for $1,500 USD per product’
What do you think. I am throwing out that this ‘Aubess’ product could be manufactured in quantity for USD 3 or less each, they could do a run of 50,000 units for USD 150K.
Your USD 6 switch looks like a Sonoff knockoff on the outside. No circuit board design required, just a undergrad college student with KINCAD to copy the Sonoff schematic, hope they did not change RF characteristics or put the high voltage lines too close to low voltage lines 
. Same to copy the physical box. I am guessing they are using the Telink TLSR8258 Zigbee 3.0 chip that the Sonoff uses. I bought qty 5 of those chips for USD 2.93 each. The Telink USB debugger and firmware downloader cost me USD 35 a while back, however I think Aaron Christophel showed how to flash this chip with ESP32. I am thinking any CSA fees as per quote above from the CSA web site, pretty low cost from what I remember the old days where the fees were in USD100k range for anybody to make a product. The Telink IDE, compiler, tools, SDK are free on the web. Far from the USD 10k the same still costs for the Texas Instruments CC253x development kit. The code for the Sonoff first gen products, including this switch, is included in the Telink IDE package as ‘demo’ code…, just need to change a few constants for company name, product id,and recompile. If you look at the usually 3 to 4 ‘knock offs’ of most of the zigbee and wifi(tuya) devices coming to market right now, the ‘zigbee’ model and product numbers/codes are pretty mysteriously similar. I’m pretty sure companies like Telink will put ‘your’ firmware in a chip purchase of 100 SoCs or more.
'I don’t think it will ever get there. ’ Not sure what the value of ‘there’ is, however it seems mighty close to zero compared to days gone by.
