SONOFF ZBMINI-L Zigbee 3.0 Smart Switch by ITead works without neutral wire?

I have now tested with only one 9w bulb and still i cant see any flickering (maybe i’m just blind, I wear glasses though)

Maybe it’s with the bulb itself…? Maybe consider a different make/model of bulb and see whether the flickering persist?
But, wait - so far I assumed led bulbs, but then you said “led lights”. So what kind of led light exactly you are using?

Not expert here. But I have seen YouTube videos suggesting adding a dummy load to the circuit… Not sure how large the load should be, or how hot the load will become… So if you plan to add something in the wall / in the ceiling… please be careful.

Its a G9 fitting bulb - flickering is maybe not the right description. If its on then it’s fine, when off the led continues to emit light although very very dim with a pulse. Will try with a bulb with a higher wattage.

No experience with the zbmin-L, but it’s an old issue for no-neutral switches. They have to leak current, and some LEDs are sensitve enough to light up.

A different bulb can often resolve the issue. Higher wattage may not be necessary.

Lutron has shipped a fake-load cap with their Caseta no-neutral switch for years. My guess is the zbmini-l probably leaks less current than Caseta, but may still impact very sensitive loads.

I had the issue with older Philips bulbs in my recently purchased house. Swapped the bulb out and all is OK. The older Philips non-smart led bulbs were “100 watt” equivalents, so I’m guessing they were 13-15 real watts. The replacements that worked were 8 watt leds.

I bought two ZBMINI-L and tried to make them work with two-way switches, but unfortunately they don’t work as expected. I wired them correctly but most of the time the physical switches don’t work but sometimes they do. Not reliable at all. Does anyone else have the same problem and is there a fix?

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Can you paste how you have wired the switch with a small Schema ?

Tried both schemes, both has the same effect; pushing the physical buttons sometimes works, but most of the times not.

The switches are connected like this:
schema_1

Mine is wire like this :

61a0bd905cc57e6272da2adfd6ef6a90ea2410e3_2_690x443

And I have the update FW 1.1.1 on my ZBMINI-L

I have had it wired excactly like that. I don’t think the firmware is updated though, how did you manage to update it?

If i remember correctly Lin and S1 are connected together so it probably makes very little difference.

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Zigbee2MQTT propose me to update via OTA.

Updating the ZBMINI-L fixed my issue, thanks for pointing out to use Zigbee2MQTT for updating.

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Has anyone been able to integrate it with ZHA (Home-Assistant Zigbee) ? or it only works with zigbee2mqtt ?

I am wondering if it’s the location of the swith or my integration, cause doesn’t seem to find it. It’s in my outdoor shed, not too far but farther than the others, the zigbee door sensor works fine. Doesn’t work to get it all out for what is really worth.

Either should work at this point.

Based on what you said, it’s more likely a location thing. Options to figure out are 1) move the zbmini-l to somewhere next to the coordinator, so that to rule out integration issue or bad unit; 2) get another main powered zigbee device (most zigbee smart plugs - I have seen someone recommend IKEA repeaters also) as a relay between your coordinator and your outdoor shed, if possible

FYI, @MagicDomo posted a ZBMINI-L related quesion in other thread → https://community.home-assistant.io/t/sonoff-zigbee-zbmini-l-philips-hue-bulb-switch-doesnt-work-when-bulb-is-off/461594

My educated guess answer based on experince; Sounds like due to how the ZBMINI-L is designed as no-neutral hardware switches to work it needs to leak/passthrough some electrical current just to operate but that will not work if the bulb does not also leak/passthrough enough electrical current (to keep the light on for the ZBMINI-L itself so to speak). My guess is that you will not be able to use any “no-neutral” hardware switches in-line with any smart lightbulbs that way. If that is the case then your only option is to feed power to the ZBMINI-L separately so they are not connected in series after each other as that will break electrical power for one of them.

FYI, you are not supposed to purposely cut power (ON and OFF too often) to any mains-powered Zigbee devices for example smart lightbulbs when they are a part of a Zigbee network because they are normally used as Zigbee Router devices (also known as Zigbee repeaters and Zigbee range extenders)? If you keep cutting power to Zigbee Router devices then it will screw up your Zigbee network mesh as it normally only updates the routes between routers once about every 24 hours in a normal environment.

ZHA will not know the status is you have cut the power because the device have not used Zigbee to report that it has been powered off (as it really has not), though the “last seen” should not be updated no more.

Really, if you plugin mains-powered Zigbee devices for example smart lightbulbs to a power circuit with a manual switch like a ceiling lamp-socket with a wall-switch then you are supposed to first disable that manual switch, bypassing that wall-switch wall-switch and usually replace it with a battery-powered Zigbee switch/remote with a wall-mount instead or install a "smart switch module like the Philips Hue Wall switch module without built-in relay behind the wall-switch in order to convert that wall-switch into a smart remote switch, or replace the whole wall switch with a smart wall switch (still bypassing power for the smart lightbulb).

The alternative is to only install a smart wall switch or switch module with built-in relay like the ZBMINI-L and do not use a smart lightbulb but instead use only dumb lightbulbs that are dimmer compatible.

FYI! @veitw has reported a new possible issue with the SONOFF ZBMINI-L to ZHA Device Handlers here when using the ZHA integration → https://github.com/zigpy/zha-device-handlers/issues/1841

I’m experiencing same problem. When I turn the ligth off, sometimes it turns on once and then turns off, other times it keeps turning on and off. No automation in place yet as well.

Anyone have a solution for this ?

I’m experiencing the same.

I have 8 zbmini-l devices and they all work well except for 3 of them.

Here is my experience:

I connect it all up correctly. My zbmini-l devices is inside my ceiling though, not behind my switches, and I run cables to the S1 and S2 from the switch.

If I turn on the lights at the switch, it all works immediately, no delays. The lights stay on.

When I turn off the switch, the device seems to automatically turn the lights on and off in a random fashion. Usually around the 2-minute mark.

It does not happen with all of them, just the 3, and im unsure why.

just an FYI I was having issues with the unit needing to be repaired, sometimes it would last a week before needed it with the built in zigbee. I upgraded to Zigbee2MQTT and I have not had an issue. The whole zigbee network seems to run a lot better and I get better visibility.

My zbmini-l worked fine for couple of months usong ZHA, and then one night i try to turn it on using HA, but i was unable to do so. After investigation i have found that device drop from my zigbee network, so i deleted it and re add it to my network. But from that day switch works in strange way after turn on, (no difference using HA or light swith) lights randomly turn off after 30min to about 1:30min after turning on, firmware on device was 1.0.5 and last night i update firmware to 1.1.1 and for now, i dont have random turn off and its works like before.