Zigbee switches switching off after two minutes

WebThings
#1

Hi,

I have a few zigbee switches that switch power for lights and can be controlled from the webpage, but if they are known about by the webthing-gateway they switch off after 2 minutes. If I remove them from the gateway they work, but obviously are no better than traditional switches.

The log of me adding it to it switching itself off is:

2021-01-18 18:05:15.603 INFO : Successfully created new thing Front Door
2021-01-18 18:05:15.639 INFO : date-time-adapter: AddonManagerProxy: recv: {‘messageType’: 8207, ‘data’: {‘deviceId’: ‘zb-60a423fffed98535’, ‘device’: {‘title’: ‘Front Door’, ‘@context’: ‘https://webthings.io/schemas’, ‘@type’: [‘OnOffSwitch’], ‘description’: ‘’, ‘href’: ‘/things/zb-60a423fffed98535’, ‘properties’: {‘on’: {‘name’: ‘on’, ‘value’: False, ‘visible’: True, ‘title’: ‘On/Off’, ‘type’: ‘boolean’, ‘@type’: ‘OnOffProperty’, ‘links’: [{‘rel’: ‘property’, ‘href’: ‘/things/zb-60a423fffed98535/properties/on’}], ‘profileId’: 260, ‘endpoint’: 1, ‘clusterId’: 6, ‘attr’: ‘onOff’, ‘attrId’: 0, ‘fireAndForget’: False, ‘bindNeeded’: True, ‘configReportNeeded’: True, ‘initialReadNeeded’: True}}, ‘actions’: {}, ‘events’: {}, ‘links’: [{‘rel’: ‘properties’, ‘href’: ‘/things/zb-60a423fffed98535/properties’}, {‘rel’: ‘actions’, ‘href’: ‘/things/zb-60a423fffed98535/actions’}, {‘rel’: ‘events’, ‘href’: ‘/things/zb-60a423fffed98535/events’}, {‘rel’: ‘alternate’, ‘mediaType’: ‘text/html’, ‘href’: ‘/things/zb-60a423fffed98535’}], ‘layoutIndex’: 16, ‘selectedCapability’: ‘OnOffSwitch’, ‘iconHref’: None}, ‘adapterId’: ‘date-time-adapter’, ‘pluginId’: ‘date-time-adapter’}}
2021-01-18 18:05:17.674 INFO : zigbee-adapter: Cancelling pairing mode
2021-01-18 18:05:17.692 INFO : date-time-adapter: AddonManagerProxy: recv: {‘messageType’: 4100, ‘data’: {‘adapterId’: ‘date-time-adapter’, ‘pluginId’: ‘date-time-adapter’}}
2021-01-18 18:05:17.698 INFO : date-time-adapter: date_adapter.py:51 INFO cancel_pairing
2021-01-18 18:06:01.342 INFO : date-time-adapter: date_property.py:53 DEBUG Device: DateTime Property: even = True (False)
2021-01-18 18:06:01.345 INFO : date-time-adapter: date_property.py:53 DEBUG Device: DateTime Property: minute = 6 (5)
2021-01-18 18:07:01.428 INFO : date-time-adapter: date_property.py:53 DEBUG Device: DateTime Property: even = False (True)
2021-01-18 18:07:01.431 INFO : date-time-adapter: date_property.py:53 DEBUG Device: DateTime Property: minute = 7 (6)
2021-01-18 18:07:08.200 INFO : zigbee-adapter: zb-60a423fffed98535-switch property: on profileId: 0104 endpoint: 1 clusterId: 0006 report value: off (0)
2021-01-18 18:07:22.035 INFO : zigbee-adapter: zb-60a423fffed98535-switch property: on profileId: 0104 endpoint: 1 clusterId: 0006 report value: off (0)

But I’m not really sure what that is telling me.

There are no rules, macros or any thing else for this switch. It’s just been readded. I have some zigbee power plugs which work fine but these switches seem to consistently switch off after 2 minutes.

Any Ideas?

#2

I’ve been tempted to buy some zigbee wall switches, but have not as yet. Can you share what switches you have? And are they one-to-one with the light they supposed to turn on or many-to-one?

#3

They are Yagusmart Zigbee Smart Wall Light Switches, which work without a neutral wire. In theory they can be many to one in that they can act as slaves to other switches, but I’ve not got that far yet far. I’m waiting for another one to be delivered, to set that up but also need to sort out the going off issue, as I don’t think the rest of the household will be happy with a 2 minute limit on the lights being on.

Apart from the going off after 2 minutes issue, the only down side to them is they are quite deep so don’t fit in a standard U.K. light box.

#4

It seems this is a problem with the switches as I got the same problem when I installed another home automation server, the same behaviour is seen. So there is some problem with these switches and possibly the combination of these switches and a Conbee II USB hub.

So I’m looking for new no neutral switches.

#5

I contacted Yagusmart about this and the issue is the switches only work with their hub (which for my money means they are not really zigbee), however they are sending me a hub for free so if that can be made to work with the webthings gateway then that could be the solution but I’m not especially happy about it.

I have also tried a Moes switch, this actually works which is an obvious bonus but is so deep that it won’t fit in a UK light switch box. So until I redecorate and can fit much deeper boxes this will have to wait.

#6

You’ll find the vendors of most Zigbee devices will tell you the same thing, and it’s usually not true. It is possible they’re doing something non-standard though, many Zigbee devices have quirks that need working around in the Zigbee adapter. It might be possible to work around if someone has the time and skills to do that.

I’m curious how the no-neutral works? The best I’ve found are Den Automation (now [Den Devices](https://dendevices.com/ since they went bust and were relaunched), which do fit in a UK wallbox. They use a large capacitor which charges up (so you can’t remotely switch it on and off quickly in quick succession). Unfortunately Den decided to invent their own proprietary protocol over 802.15.4 rather than use Zigbee so they really don’t work with a Zigbee adapter and they haven’t published an API for their hub yet.

#7

The no neutral appears to work just fine, both for the Yagusmart switches and the Moes switch. Neither need a capacitor, they just work out of the box. The documentation for the Yagusmart switches includes the documentation for their wifi swtich, which does require a capacitor.

It’s a bit of a concern vendors inventing their own not really Zigbee protocols, while claiming to be Zigbee, as mixing and matching won’t then be possible and if I have two different Zigbee networks I won’t benefit from the mesh networking.

#8

The hub arrived and the switch would stay on while paired to it, but to use the thing required agreeing to a RTU which gave Yagusmart my data, which I was not going to do. So it and the switches are going back.