Single Sonoff ZBMini ghost switching, sort of (being turned on by light.turn_off)

I have noticed some odd intermittent ghost switching with one of the Sonoff Zigbee Minis. My network has plenty of these switch on it and this is the only one with any issue. I have tried to repair the switch to my network a few times with no joy.

It’s difficult to replicate but seems to happen after manually switching the light on via the light switch. After that turning it off (via switch or HA) will be immediately followed by it being turned back on.

What’s strange is that when it’s an automation (Node Red), the light is turn off and on by light.turn_off service:
Screenshot 2020-12-23 at 08.38.07

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How did u bridge it? With what bridge I mean

I’m using ZHA with the sonoff ZigBee dongle - https://www.itead.cc/cc2531-usb-dongle.html

I will try the sonoff zigbee bridge and a dedicated Rapsberry with this dongle u mentioned :slight_smile: Hope it’ll be possible and stable as I bought 9!!! Zigbee ZBMINI :stuck_out_tongue:

To be fair I have about 9 as well and this is the only one with any issues. All the other have been flawless.

Just added it as a light to my philips Hue bridge … Pairing easy … I can switch it on and off via entity. Will no add a switch to see if this refelct the on off state… pushing the button to toggle the rleay will nt update in home assistant / Hue

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I just replaced the switch and the issue is still happening :thinking:

i switched to sonoff zigbee bridge and tahoma flased and ZHA integration

Sorry for the big old bump but did you ever find a fix for your ZBMini?

I have the exact same issue with the latest home assistant version.

It’s really annoying as HA thinks the device is off but it’s still running. A completely “ghost” event it seems. It doesn’t always happen but seems to happen more when it’s been running for a while. It can do it with an automation or manual turn off event.

Where you powering just a light or something else?

I was wondering if it was faulty as I have not used them before, but you mentioned you replaced it.

It is the only device I am having an issue with now.

Hey man,

I wish i had good news for you but i don’t. I still have this issue. I ended up putting in a work around that will poll the state of the light after a trigger and force it to the correct state.

I’ve recently bought a different switch to try but have yet to get round to installing it.

I also get sporadic problem with a couple of other ZBMINIs where they will immediately toggle themselves back to their previous state when they’re switched manually at the wall. There was also one night where the one in our bedroom turned on a few times overnight for no reason. That hasn’t happened again but it was very frustrating.

All this being said I have 11 of them and I only ever have issues with 3 of them. Those 3 are all on the same electrical circuit so i wonder if that could be related.

Hope this helps even though i suspect that it doesn’t.

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Thanks for getting back to me. For anyone else reading this I fixed it by forcing a number of power off’s and then for extra measure added a 100ms delay and powered it off again in the automations. Messy but it works.

However, the other night I had a completely random power on with no reason logged, the same as you got actually… which made me remember this thread :slight_smile: so I have now turned on debugging too. Perhaps a rogue radio signal… weird! I can imagine having that happen in a bedroom would be frustrating…

Overall they don’t seem like the best product in the world, I was going to make my own thermostat relays with them but I will for sure setup some failsafe methods around them…

I have the same problem in 2 of my Sonoff ZBMinis - they start switching on and off quite a few times in rapid succession on their own. It happened early morning today and the following are the log entries:


The only common thing I can see on the 2 switches is, they are the only ones that have 2 switches to control. Has anyone seen and managed to fix this problem?

I have a Raspberry Pi 4 with the latest HA and Sonoff Zigbee co-ordinator.

I had a doubt that my wall switches could be the cause as they are over 10 years old and the ZBMinis use low voltage for manual switching. I have replaced the wall switches with new ones and there are no more random on/offs since I have replaced.

Hope this will be of help to someone :slight_smile:

Have exactly the same issue but only with relays that control pumps and fan. Have not clue what may be the reason…

can somebody recommend an alternative hardware which is more reliable?

Hi, I recently bought 2 Sonoff ZBMinis and I have exactly the same issue with both of them. I am using HA running on dedicated PC and ZB SkyConnect. Both minis are behaving very weirdly. When I switch it ON or OFF, no matter if by phisical switch or remotely, it quite often imediatelly returns back to its previous state. Sometimes it also lost the actual state in HA (In HA show OFF when it is ON or oposite). I have connected a standard 60W bulb. It is doing no matter how far it is from ZB bridge (close or far). It is very frustrating, since I am not able to understand the reason of this behaviour. Are the minis wrong, or there is something wrong in my setup? I just started with using of ZB components so I have no expirience with ZB. I have connected yet only one smart bulb and it is working with no issues. Please do anybody have some advice?

An update on my situation.

One of my ZBMINI’s completely developed a fault where using the manual switch would not work but switch via HA would. This was the same switch I’ve mentioned before that would often switch itself back on when switched off.

Needless to say I replaced it and took the opportunity to swap it for an Aqara T1 which has performed flawlessly for the last few months.

So for me it was very much a ZBMINI problem.

Hi there,

Could you kindly send me a screenshot of your automation?

I still haven’t had a full grasp of the method you mentioned :smiling_face_with_tear:
Much appreciated :+1: :+1: :+1:

All of this might not be required but I can assure you it will always turn off with this :rofl:. I went for a it’s either this works or return it (after going through the pain of fitting it and hiding it in the ceiling!).

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