Zigbee lights randomly turning on all day

Sawtaytoes · March 31, 2026, 9:49pm

I’ve noticed a Home Assistant and Zigbee light group keeps turning on throughout the day for months.

I have the ZBT-2 now, but I had this same issue with the ZBT-1 that I replaced a few weeks ago.

I thought it was because my motion sensor was spotty but that’s not it. I thought maybe another automation was triggering the lights to turn on or that the lights are in multiple Zigbee groups, but that’s not it either.

After a bunch of checking through activity logs, it seems like the Zigbee controller is doing it.

Light Configs

Light Group helper

Here’s the light group helper “Master Bathroom Hallway Lights” (I use helpers as a consistent abstraction layer as I don’t only use Zigbee):

This particular group only has the Zigbee light group.

Zigbee light group

I have two lights in this fixture. Here’s the Zigbee group:

I checked, and these lights aren’t listed in my other Zigbee groups either.

Logs

Home Assistant light group

Looking through the logs, most times, it turns on and off via the automation (correct), but then sometimes, it says “turned on triggered by state of Zigbee Controller”.

For instance, I turned it off manually a while ago, and it came on again! And this wasn’t triggered by my motion sensor as it didn’t go through the automation:

turned on triggered by state of Basement Network Closet Zigbee Controller Master Bathroom Hallway Lights turned on
4:09:47 PM - 8 minutes ago

turned off triggered by action Light: Turn off
3:58:11 PM - 20 minutes ago - [REDACTED my name]

turned on triggered by state of Basement Network Closet Zigbee Controller Master Bathroom Hallway Lights turned on
3:24:47 PM - 53 minutes ago

turned off triggered by automation Control Master Bathroom Hallway Lights triggered by state of Master Bathroom Hallway Occupancy Sensors
3:14:01 PM - 1 hour ago

turned on triggered by automation Control Master Bathroom Hallway Lights triggered by state of Master Bathroom Hallway Occupancy Sensors
3:13:14 PM - 1 hour ago

turned off triggered by automation Control Master Bathroom Hallway Lights triggered by state of Master Bathroom Hallway Occupancy Sensors
3:10:58 PM - 1 hour ago

turned on triggered by state of Basement Network Closet Zigbee Controller Master Bathroom Hallway Lights turned on
3:09:47 PM - 1 hour ago

turned off triggered by automation Control Master Bathroom Hallway Lights triggered by state of Master Bathroom Hallway Occupancy Sensors
3:01:38 PM - 1 hour ago

turned on triggered by automation Control Master Bathroom Hallway Lights triggered by state of Master Bathroom Hallway Occupancy Sensors
3:01:07 PM - 1 hour ago

Zigbee light group

Looking at the Zigbee light group, I thought I might see more details about how the lights keep turning on, and this is what I saw: “turned on”. It doesn’t tell me why, but it’s clear the group itself is turning on.

turned on
4:09:47 PM - 20 minutes ago

turned off triggered by action Light: Turn off
3:58:11 PM - 31 minutes ago - [REDACTED my name]

turned on
3:24:47 PM - 1 hour ago

turned off triggered by automation Control Master Bathroom Hallway Lights triggered by state of Master Bathroom Hallway Occupancy Sensors
3:14:01 PM - 1 hour ago

turned on triggered by automation Control Master Bathroom Hallway Lights triggered by state of Master Bathroom Hallway Occupancy Sensors
3:13:14 PM - 1 hour ago

These logs don’t help either.

Questions

I know there’s a way to link up Zigbee devices without a controller, but I’ve never done that. Is it possible I have devices linked up that way without realizing?
Is the controller not getting the correct state of the light group and keeps resetting it to whatever value it wants?
Is this a Home Assistant Zigbee issue? I found two other instances where this is happening:
- February 2026 (a month ago) - Why are my lights randomly turning on for no reason? How do i debug this? (Zigbee/Aqara)
- March 2020 - ZHA Lights Turning on Randomly?

It’s only happening to this light group, not the individual lights, so my first guess is something between the Zigbee controller’s state and Home Assistant.

Sawtaytoes · March 31, 2026, 10:06pm

Doing some more research, it appears it’s not both hallway lights turning on, but one of them:

I think the state of this light isn’t changing.

I actually turned it off in Home Assistant just before taking that screenshot, but it’s still showing on. That’s probably the issue. This light is defiant, so it keeps making the Zigbee group’s state change to “on” even if the other light isn’t on.

I tried a bunch of commands like changing the brightness and color, but the numbers in Home Assistant didn’t change.

Power cycling the light

Going to the physical fixture, I had to stay away from the motion sensor, and I was able to see it turned on. I flipped the light switch off-on-off-on, and then it worked! I had the light up on my phone, and all the commands I’d executed previously all executed immediately one after the other.

Now the light is able to be controlled. But this isn’t the first time I’ve power-cycled the fixture this month. I wonder if the whole time, this light is the actual issue. It might be overheating in that fixture and no longer responding to Zigbee commands, that’s why it’s having this issue.