[OBSOLETE] Xiaomi Zigbee Outlet (Steps to Pair any Xiaomi Zigbee device!)

@cindjones, I have 2 of these plugs. One showed up straight away, the other took a while to show up in the logs. For me if it didnt show up in the first few minutes I would unplug the plug and start the process again.

@a4refillpad you mentioned I think that these plugs interfered with your Orbivio sensors.What should I be looking for to ensure that all is good.

I have the two plugs just plugged in currently in the same room for the last 4 days. Both are still responding to on/off events and providing temperature readings?

Has anyone come up with a smaller 3 pin UK option yet :slight_smile:

Hi @KellyDarren,

I seemed to fix my issues with the orvibos and the outlets by creating a piston that ensured that the outlets were always powered on. I have a very large number of orvibo door contacts around 30 (at last count) and every day one or two were dropping until I did this. I also power cycle the outlet to keep it talking to the hub every hour just in case it “falls asleep”.
Now I do not get any dropouts at all from the orvibos. In fact I do still have some intermittent problems with the ST motions instead, which I’m hoping to find a fix for, but the orvibos are 100% steady now. :slight_smile:

From my observations I think the outlets eventually “fall asleep” (don’t have a technical description) and when that happens it still receives packets but don’t relay. Luckily when they get into this state they also switch off the relay so it is easy to catch it in this state and reactivate it by switching on again. Seems to be very random how long it takes to get into this state but you could easily monitor it by creating a piston. The orvibos don’t seem to mind this temporary glitch but the ST sensors, are less forgiving it seems and I get random dropouts of my 28 ST sensors.

I only use my outlets as repeaters, so maybe if someone were to actively use the outlet as a switch it would not get into this state. I have no experience of this if this is the case or not.

@a4refillpad - I appreciate the detailed information. Cheers.

I have been testing the plugs for quite some time now. Turning them on during the evening and off during the night.
I don’t have many types of door sensors, only two Orvibo’s and about 15 Xiaomi’s. Both Orvibo’s don’t like the Xiaomi plugs, or my Osram plug. After a while the Orvibo’s don’t report an opening when opened once. Then they seem to wake up and the second opening is reported.
The Xiaomi door sensors don’t have this problem with the Xiaomi plugs as repeater, they just work and have done so for a few weeks now without skipping a beat, even when the Xiaomi plugs are off (during the night).
I’m re-testing the Osram plugs with the Xiaomi door sensors now.
In my setup, the Orvibo’s don’t like being repeated, or both plugs don’t want to repeat the Orvibo’s, but repeat the Xiaomi’s just fine.

If the Orvibo’s are connected to the hub directly, all is fine.

Have you tried with the piston as I detailed in my previous post? I no longer have any orvibo issues since such an arrangement.

I created the piston awhile ago, but i have a few of those plugs in use, so i need to turn them on/off.
I now have purchased a few Neo Coolcam zwave plugs to replace them (which are pretty good and small).

Now i have some spares to test them. But i have most Xiaomi door sensors and shelved the Orvibo’s for now.

I still have a problem the the Xiaomi outlets and all my 28 ST sensors. I have on average one sensor dropping off a day. I know the outlets are the cause because when I unplug the outlets half of my ST sensors just stop responding so they are clearly using the outlets.

I understand. I had that problem when i used the Osram with the Orvibo’s.
But i don’t have this issue with the Xiaomi door sensors using the plugs as repeater strangely enough.
I did the same test by unplugging the Xiaomi plugs.
It somehow looks like specific brands plugs only repeats specific brands sensors.
zigbee != zigbee, Weird.

That’s actually a zigbee feature. @JDRoberts knows the ins and outs more but zigbee has a lot of flavours including bespoke customisations from manufacturers like Xiaomi. The fact that they currently work is actually a surprise to everyone.

I knew there are two flavors home and light, but didn’t know of any others. I’m slowly making a move to zwave on all my plugs and in-wall switches, these are more common here and easier to get. (And compatible with other systems than ST). Only my sensors are zigbee now (except 2). The xiaomi actually work VERY well, i like them alot. Other manufacturers could learn from these cheap tiny sensors. Built quility is sometimes better than those which cost almost 10 times more.
Hopefully they stay connected from now on.
These xiaomi sensors could be a reason for many to buy the ST in the first place.

The plugs are also very responsive and work well. Only thing is that other brand zigbee sensors might not get repeated.

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Zigbee is always zigbee, but the standard allows for different "profiles,"including manufacturer proprietary ones.

These are not all able to communicate with each other, they don’t even use the same addressing schemes.

SmartThings uses the Zigbee Home Automation profile (ZHA 1.2). Devices using other zigbee profiles may be able to join to the network, but their communications may not be understood, or they may frequently drop off because they don’t receive a handshake message they are expecting.

There a lot of different ways to explain this, but I think one of the easiest is to think of zigbee as a post office and the different profiles as different languages. The outside envelope for different messages may look similar, have a specific format, and have enough information to pass the letter on to its destination. But the contents inside could be written in Chinese, Russian, English, etc. A person who can speak one of these languages doesn’t necessarily understand any of the others.

That’s not a perfect analogy, but it is good enough to explain why two zigbee devices might not be able to work together even if they’re on the same network.

Zigbee design prioritizes energy efficiency. If a feature isn’t needed by a particular profile, it was usually cut. A limited set of choices meant less energy required to process each message.

The ability of individual manufacturers to design their own profiles was considered a plus, particularly by companies with major security requirements. Essentially they got to write their own messages with their own secret codes, knowing that no one else would be able to read them. It’s one of the reasons that zigbee became popular with security systems. But it’s also the reason why you can’t usually use a control4 zigbee device with a SmartThings system. They are both using zigbee, but they are using incompatible profiles.

The following is an engineering document which explains how one transceiver manufacturer tries to deal with different zigbee profiles. Most people can just skip this, but those with a firmware-oriented technical background who want to see a practical example should find this interesting:

http://www.telegesis.com/download/document-centre/application_notes/TG-APP-R3xxInterop-202.pdf

Anyway, long story short: the zigbee standard allows for multiple profiles, and they are not all compatible with SmartThings. Look for Devices certified for ZHA 1.2 and you’ll have the best chance of getting them to work with SmartThings.

(By the way, the zigbee alliance is working on a meta profile, zigbee 3.0, which would combine many of the individual profiles into one, and add additional IP addressing support, but it’s not widely adopted yet and it won’t be backwards compatible. And the zigbee standard will still allow for manufacturer specific profiles.)

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Thanks JD, it makes sense.

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Hey all,

I’ve only just received my SmartThings V2 hub today and am trying to pair a Xiaomi Zigbee Outlet.

I’ve added the device handler via the IDE and have selected “Add a Thing” on my iPhone. I’ve held the button on the socket for a few seconds until the little LED starts flashing blue.

Unfortunately, I don’t get any message in the logs …

Any advice you might have which would assist in solving this problem be genuinely appreciated - I’m at a loss as to how I might connect the Xiaomi outlet.

Thanks in advance! :slight_smile:

That’s the live log, you need to check the hub log

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Confirmed.

Login to the IDE, select “My Hubs”, scroll down, selct events. Look there.

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Oh how very silly of me … thanks so much.

Over the last week I’ve been using Rave’s Xiaomi Zigbee Outlet device handler with no issues whatsoever - the outlets stayed on the network, functioned perfectly with the routines/pistons I’d set up and even accurately updated their status when I used the physical switch.

Then I noticed that one of them didn’t switch anymore - well, to be honest, the device handler appeared to be switching the device (as in, the plug status light came on when I switched on the device via the SmartThings app, and off when I switched it off) but to my dismay, the power remained on irrespective (almost as though the internal relay was stuck in the “on” position).

“How bizarre” I thought, and switched the plug over to another spare I had. This too worked perfectly, then after a few days started to suffer from the same problem. Even unbinding them from SmartThings and trying to switch them with the physical switch didn’t work - the power stays on irrespective.

I have a third plug which is still working (for now?) … I’ve made a little YouTube video to show how two work and the third doesn’t.

Tell me, has anyone else seen anything like this? Is there a way to fix the issue (firmware update, factory reset, other?) that I’m not aware of? I’ve tried binding and unbinding to no avail and am running out of ideas.

Is it possible two of my three have suffered a hardware fault?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! :smile:

I have a Zigbee power plug that does not connect to the gateway (too far away).

If I buy another plug or an outlet and put it “in the middle” will the network be extended?

In other words does the plug and/or the outlet extend the Zigbee network?

I don’t hear the relay click sound in the first 2 outlet. Since the button is controlling the relay using the chip maybe it is blown. But It is strange that the relay is NC. Are you on 220v?