Zigbee 8 Button Wall Controller Advice needed

Evening all,

I am probably being stupid but I have just brought 2x 8 button controllers Vesternet Zigbee Wall Controller - 8 Button and I have paired them to Home Assistant through Sky Connect but when I try to create automations using Device as Trigger the only options I get for them are “Device Offline” / “battery level changes” and “identify has been pressed”.

With the other type of controller I had it lists all the different actions/buttons so not sure why I am missing.

When I go into the device page and I press a button I can see events fired:

Bed Switch On event was fired

19:19:32 - Now

Bed Switch Off event was fired

19:19:11 - 21 seconds ago

Bed Switch Move With On Off event was fired with parameters: {'move_mode': 1, 'rate': 50}

19:13:58 - 6 minutes ago

Is anyone able to advice please? Thanks.

Perhaps you need a blueprint:-

Hi I have the same controller. Can you help me please get it working? I’m new to all this. I have ZHA running but should I be using Z2M instead? I have got the short press buttons working using the blueprint linked here. I had to change the device name in the blueprint using the file editor. I can’t work out how to get long presses working. Thank you

I have imported both the 8 and the 4 button versions. Neither of them I can get to work. The vesternet switch I am trying to use as the input device has been paired on Zigbee and shows up as a device. However, I cannot enter it in this blueprint.

Its not guaranteed to work, it all depends on the device signature and how the blueprint detects it, and whether you are using ZHA or Z2M.

I’d start by seeing it its even sending events. Assuming you are using ZHA for your zigbee devices, go to the developer tools and click on the events tab.

On the right hand side, choose zha_events, then in the listen to events box put

state_changed

Then click start listening.

Then click some buttons on your device, does anything show up ? (Note that other things might also send events, so you need to be sure its your problem device thats showing up).

Hi @Rofo,

I have the exact same Vesternet 8 button switch, but can’t get the blueprint/automation to work with z2m.
Your suggestion to listen to the events works great and all button presses are registering! :+1:

When I import the blueprint and create an automation to map the commands to the buttons, all looks good.
I can map actions to the buttons all right, but then nothing happens when I press the buttons on the remote.

If I run the automation from the GUI and look at the traces, I get an error message.

Error: UndefinedError: ‘dict object’ has no attribute ‘to_state’

Any idea what I could try next?

Thanks in advance!!

Same problem here. Device, in this case ROBB version white (ROB_200-007-0), is recognized in HA when connected through Z2M.
Tried different sketches, but non seems to work. I modified the black version of, but nada.

I think it will result in two devices in the trash can… :expressionless:

Before you do that, check which version of Z2M you’re on. Version 2.0.0 and later removed support for _action entities by default.
You need to enable Home Assistant legacy triggers in Z2M to get them back (or switch to the other supported methods), as explained in the breaking changes.

I checked and are indeed running version 2.1.

Would turning this on be enough?
"
homeassistant:
legacy_action_sensor: true

Would turning this on be enough?

Yep, that should do it. Not sure if you’ll need to restart Z2M for the change to take effect, but there’s plenty of threads here and in the Z2M issues on github if you get stuck.

Next time, read the release notes :wink:

Thanks!

Next time? Buy something that actually works in HA. The list of issues with this device is pretty long (and you are the first to actually point out the issue…)

Got that thing working, finally…

How?

  • Turn OFF " Home Assistant legacy action sensors" in the Zigbee2MQTT settings under “home assistant integration”
  • Reset the device multiple times before adopting it in Zigbee2MQTT
  • Push all buttons at least once directly after adopting to make them visible
  • Still non of the blueprints are working (at least the three I tried), but with some elbow grease the buttons are now assigned manually

The odd thing was that I only saw a limited amount of buttons, typically only ‘1 on’ and ‘1 off’, but with the push button trick came available