Zigbee remote having faulty control over some specific devices

Configuration
1

Hi everyone!
I have a 4-button Zigbee remote at my desk and I want to use it to control multiple devices (a fan, a backlight behind my monitor, the ceiling light, and the Google Hub volume level). Most of these actions are working correctly. Some of them are configured with a single press and others with a double press on different buttons. But some of the configured actions only work 10 or 20% of the times I press the assigned button.

It seems that for some reason this remote is having issues controlling specific devices, I need help trying to solve what’s happening here. The devices work well outside of this automation, and the remote is sending all the button presses to HA.

I had this remote and this issue for months, but only now I’m starting to understand that the remote is not faulty, there’s something in Home Assistant preventing this remote from performing well with all the devices.

(I am using this blueprint to configure automations)

This is the Pin Light action, it toggles a Sonoff/Tasmota switch and it works 100% fine every time I press it:

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This is the Hallway Bulb action, it toggles a Wiz bulb and it works 100% fine every time I press it:

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But then there are some actions that won’t perform as well. Here I pressed the same button 6 times, waiting 3 seconds between each press. This press should toggle a Zigbee switch each time, but it only did it once. Home Assistant seems to be correctly receiving the button presses, and the automation seems to be receiving that event, but it fails to perform the switch toggle action.

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If I copy the YAML of the action and paste it in Developer Tools > Actions, the light switches on and off correctly every time I click the Perform Action button.

data: {}
target:
  entity_id: switch.backlight_switch
action: switch.toggle

This doesn’t happen with this device only, it also happens with a fan which I’m trying to toggle from a button on the same remote. It only works once in a while.

I tried switching buttons, using short press / long press / double press, emptying all actions and only leaving the remote for this specific action. I also tried using Switch: Turn on and Switch: Turn off actions on separate buttons. Also tried selecting the device or the entity inside the actions. None of these are helping. Also tried changing batteries. I am within 2 meters of the Zigbee antenna (a Home Assistant Yellow).

So please, if anyone has a clue of what could be happening here, I’d be grateful!

Thanks!
Rodrigo

2

Hi Rodrigo,

My guess, based on my experience with a little 6 button like that is the buttons are cheap crap. I got one from Ali, 3 buttons were completely intermittent sometimes not working or multi clicking on their own. They replaced it, now I have 2 that do that…

Open it ans spray in there with contact cleaner maybe. I just deal with it with mine.

3

Hi @Sir_Goodenough, thanks for your reply.
I understand the idea that it could be a hardware issue on the remote, I did think of this idea for many months before posting this. But how would you explain the fact that the same button works 100% of the times flawlessly with one wi-fi switch, but then it only works 10% of the times with a Zigbee switch? I mean, I am setting the exact same physical button (button number 2) to perform the same action (call switch.toggle) and it works on one device but doesn’t on the second device. Every time the action is received by HA and it is pased on to the automation, but then the automation doesn’t perform the same way.

Specifically, looking at the last image I posted, the logbook shows that the automation reacted with “button 02 triggered”. Yet the action (“Backlight turned on by automation…”) is only deployed once after many clicks.

Here’s the screenshot of the same button acting 100% correctly on a different device:

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R.

4

How do you get the button to

AND also

The button does one or the other.

5

Well, the buttons themselves seem to be working. All four of them. I am saying this because every time I press a button, I immediately see the entries in the logbook with the ZHA logo indicating the button number (1 to 4) and press type (0 for single press, 1 for double press, 2 for long press which I won’t use since it means a >5s press).

Considering this, do you still think that it could be a problem on the remote side? Could you explain why?

The thing that is not always happening is the action that should be derived from the automation after clicking the button. Initially I also thought it was a faulty remote problem, but after looking at the logbook and trying with different devices I was confused (and still am, that’s why I’m here :rofl:). I then thought that somehow the remote could be “jamming” the Zigbee network or something, so I tried adding a delay before the action, but it didn’t solve anything. Also, the zigbee switch can always be controlled from the HA interface wth no issues whatsoever

I believe the origin of this issue could be some kind of bug in the blueprint for the automation? I don’t know how to debug that, so any help trying to understand this would be appreciated.

Thank you!
Rodrigo