SONOFF ZBMINI Extreme - what happens when HA is down?

Hardware
1

As the title says - what happens when my HA crashes, I’m not home and my wife is unable to fix things. Will the light work or is the light as good as dead when zigbee doesn’t work?

2

No idea. But the regular Sonoff ZBMini works when HA and/or Zigbee2MQTT is down, so I would guess it continue to work flipping the switch.

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3

Depends on if you’ve wired S1 & S2 to a switch.

If yes - local control works fine.

In the UK, I find mounting modules behind ceiling roses better as there’s no need for the complexity of no-neutral devices which don’t work with all load types (The MiniR4M is great for this - and uses Matter for multiple control systems).

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4

I’m getting pretty lost tbh. So I can control the light both manually using the wall switch the zbmini is connected to as well as using ZigBee? And the relay doesn’t ever lose power regardless of what I do with the wall switch so it won’t interfere with the network?

5

That is the whole point of such devices.

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6

Thanks, Francis!

7

There’s a BIG “IF” here that’s not been called out.

IF you install a no-neutral module behind a mechanical switch,
AND you connect the module to the original LIVE and LOAD wires in the wall,
AND you connect the mechanical switch to the module S1 and S2 terminals,
THEN the module will be powered via the load, and controllable via HASS and the mechanical switch.

  • You may need to change the switch to “momentary” (push ON, not ON/ OFF), or configure the module for a latching ON/OFF switch.
  • You may need to change the load as it needs to pass a enough current to operate the module (as there is no Neutral). Old incandescent bulbs were fine, LEDs can e very troublesome.

My advice is buy a LED ceiling light fitting, and install a module inside the case on the ceiling as that way it has easy access to LIVE, NEUTRAL, LOAD, and SWITCH all in one place. The Sonoff MINI4RM works well in the typical rectangular LED ceiling lights from jungle-based on-line retailers…

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8

IF you install a no-neutral module behind a mechanical switch,
AND you connect the module to the original LIVE and LOAD wires in the wall,
AND you connect the mechanical switch to the module S1 and S2 terminals,
THEN the module will be powered via the load, and controllable via HASS and the mechanical switch.

Thanks, that’s the idea from what I’ve read/seen.

My advice is buy a LED ceiling light fitting, and install a module inside the case on the ceiling as that way it has easy access to LIVE, NEUTRAL, LOAD, and SWITCH all in one place.

You lost me there. But that’s probably because my knowledge of electrical wiring is almost non-existant.

I’m gonna get some help installing those, so maybe they will know.

Thank you

9

Another thing I realized - it’s probably a bad idea to use zbmini with a zigbee smart light, right? Because other devices might connect to the smart light which will be turned off by the zbmini, messing with the network.

And, I asked in another threat, that one cannot force a mains connected device not to be a router, right?

10

Two switched devices in series would be a bit pointless - creating an AND to get light.

Small devices like bulbs tend not to expose complex controls like Zigbee routing as they are so cheap and have no useful UI.