Zigbee Aqara Door Sensors Report No Changes to Home Assistant (HUSBZB-1 on ZHA)

Configuration Zigbee
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Hi Everyone,

I’m brand new to Home Assistant. I wasn’t able to wait for Home Assistant Yellow to launch, and I didn’t want to run the backbone of my house from an SD card, so I opted to buy an up-cycled HP T530 Thin Client with Home Assistant pre-installed. It arrived today and I’m doing basic setup.

To support Z-Wave and Zigbee, I thought it would be a good idea to get the HUSBZB-1 Dual Protocol USB Stick, which I plugged into my machine before rebooting HA. ZWave setup was simple (though I haven’t tested a device yet, to be fair). ZigBee via ZHA was a bit more painful as I had some challenges pairing my Aqara sensors.

I do not have an Aqara hub, I specifically purchased these sensors because I saw a review from another Amazon user that said these things connected up to HA no problem and worked amazingly without the Aqara hub. After a few minutes I was able to successfully pair my first sensor (great) and see its battery status, that it’s closed, etc.

I thought that was the end of it, but now I have a sensor which appears to not report anything back to HA. I open the door, I leave it open for minutes at a time in fact, and the Logbook shows nothing for this sensor.

I then read a few people say they had better luck with Zigbee2MQTT. Fine, I’ll install all of that. So I installed Mosquito Broker and Zigbee2MQTT per their websites instructions, found the serial info for my ZigBee adapter, and punched it all into the config. I tried to start Zigbee2MQTT but it just hangs on “Starting zigbee-herdsman (0.14.34)”.

Googling this leads to another long rabbit hole that ultimately results in my discovery that the HUSBZB-1 is not officially supported by Zigbee2MQTT and is listed as “experimental”. Some posts on GitHub suggest I may be able to flash the latest firmware and do some advanced YAML config to get it working, but then I become out of my depth because I know nothing about docker. To be frank - I barely figured out how to use SSH / Terminal via the Web UI.

I know this is long winded but I want to make sure you have the background and see that I’ve made an effort, but I’m throwing my white flag up - help please! Did I make a mistake in buying the HUSBZB-1 dual adapter? Should I return it in favor of something supported by Zigbee2MQTT? Or is there a totally different reason why my sensors aren’t reporting changes?

Thanks in advance!

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If you got ZHA working and able to pair 1 sensor, then I believe you problem is interference.

Get a long usb extender cable, 2 meter, and ensure that you stick is placed far for any computer or Wi-Fi transmitter.

For zigbee devices, the rule is to pair them on the final physical spot. Especially with aqara when you get more routers in your zigbee network.

If you have some bulbs or plugs, enable those before the battery sensors. Will make the zigbee mesh much stronger.

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@MorganM this may seem like a dumb question, but are you certain that you have the two pieces of the door sensor, the transmitter and the magnet facing each other correctly? I discovered it myself when one of my door sensors got knocked off it’s backing due to a sagging door, and I attached it upsidedown and all of a sudden my sensor was stuck in an “open” state. There is actually a huge difference between the magnet distance from the transmitter on one side versus the other.

I don’t have the same setup as you as I have a RPi with a ZigBee hat and I’m using Zigbee2MQTT and all 3 of my Aqara door sensors work wonderfully.

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Hi both,

Thanks for your input and recommendations. Turns out that my issue appears to be resolved simply by moving the USB Stick from the USB port on the front of the T530 to a port on the back.

Not sure why that makes a difference, but issue resolved!

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Good it works. Then I believe it is interference. You should invest in a usb extender cable as there might be different problems later

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I actually tried this first and it made no difference, I used a 10 ft USB extender and dragged the USB into the middle of the room and it still didn’t work :triumph:

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OK, then the error was in relation to some USB port settings. Would still recommend that you use you good long USB extender cable, to avoid problem going forward. As a example, I have 6ft cable and have put the coordinator close to the sealing with the RPi and my Wifi accesspoint close to the floor.

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Just bought the same usb device and then literally read your post, got to the end and thew a sigh of relief. What a roller coaster. Glad you got it working.

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