Blue Series 2-1 Signal / Routing / Performance Issue Troubleshooting Thread

Glad I checked this thread before installing more than 3 switches, 20/21 of mine are on the naughty list haha.

Just getting caught up on this. 9/10 of my switches are in the bad batch. I filled out the form for completeness, adding the switches I hadn’t installed yet. Thanks for your help with this! I have one switch that seems to function well and it’s great! Looking forward to getting more like that one :slight_smile:

Filled out what form?

When Inovelli was trying to troubleshoot the connectivity issue, there was a questionnaire to provide input about the issue(s) you were experiencing. I believe that’s was the poster was referring to. At this point, since the manufacturer has identified the issue, I’m pretty sure there isn’t any need to provide further feedback.

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This is configurable with the button delay entity / setting

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Good morning everyone and happy Monday!

I’m feeling much better after a solid weekend of rest. Thanks for all the well wishes, they sincerely helped.

Alright, sleeves rolled up and let’s tackle how to get you guys new switches effectively.

I will be sending out a form within the next couple of days that will help us verify those affected and get you on the list for replacements. I need to put together instructions to help people get the IEEE numbers (which shouldn’t be too hard).

To answer some of the questions I saw above (feel free to re-ask if I missed them, I’m still sort of sick so I may have missed them).

IEEE numbers affected?
Right now I only know of 94:34:xx and 38:5B:xx but I have a note out to the manufacturer for confirmation as they didn’t mention specifics in their report.

What was the root cause?


In my opinion, I’m not sure how the R1 and R4 was missed during QC, but I think the biggest factor as to why this was missed was the 0.5m testing range. No clue why that was an appropriate testing threshold as I have 10yr old Bluetooth devices that can connect at that range, but they sure can’t mesh properly.

Not trying to rehash any bashing as I know they’ve learned their lesson, but moving forward we’ve moved the testing to 5m for all devices and then spot checks at 100m.

Can these be safely used still?
Yes, the defect has no impact on the safety of the device.

Are all switches in these ranges defective?
We recommend that if you are experiencing any issues to reach out for a replacement. However, if you are not experiencing any issues, it’s up to you. We will honor it regardless.

Thanks again everyone for your understanding, I was fully expecting to walk into a pitchfork situation this morning, but was pleasantly surprised :slight_smile:

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Oof, that’s a tough spot to have an issue. It looks like that part of the PCB is covered with an RF shield, which would be hard to remove without a hot air rework station. I also briefly looked at one of my switches and it seems like there are two MOSFETs that are through-hole soldered, making it difficult to un-sandwich the board without first removing those joints.

Glad to hear the issue has been identified and I look forward to getting replacements.

No shield on the module. But the cap that needs to move is like 1/5th the size of a grain of rice. The mosfets are held by plastic push pins. The entire unit can be safely disassembled but it is time consuming and definitely not fun. I wouldn’t recommend attempting this fix unless you are seasoned and very skilled w/ electronics rework and you have very steady hands. :slight_smile:

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@Eric_Inovelli glad you’re feeling better and thank you for the information. Once it was confirmed last week that 04:0D:84 was NOT impacted (2 of my 10 switches), I decided I would move forward with installing them. I finally did this morning and wanted to let you know that they worked perfectly. Paired quickly and easily and functioning as desired. I can’t wait to get the other 8 replaced as I can see how high quality the product is when working correctly. Just wanted to share some positive feedback since I know it has been a rough few weeks!

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Whelp, should have checked this community before I spent the weekend installing all the switches and wondering why I couldn’t get almost all of them to be discovered by zha.

I have my coordinator on one side of the structure in the basement and the plan was to use each switch to “hop” the signals throughout… sounded good in theory…. I have a coordinator and a separate router from Tubeszb… the lqi’s are all super low, even for switches within 5’-10’ of the coordinator.

So I went through and scanned each qr behind the wall plates and out of 20 (9) are in the 38:5b:44, (10) are in the 94:34:69, but I did win the lotto with getting a single one in the 04:0d:84🤣

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Ah, correct. I spent some time fully disassembling one of my bad modules and it’s easier than I first thought, but still tricky. There isn’t an RF shield, so that’s nice for accessibility once you get it apart. I agree that the components are very small – too small for my equipment. However, I was able to bridge R1 to the center with a piece of solder, so I opted for the 90% solution. The push pins under the antenna pad are easy enough to remove, again, far easier than having to desolder the FETs. The tricky part is getting all of that back together with the thermal pads sandwitched correctly and all that. All that said, once I got it back in one piece and installed it in my test harness, I was able to get it to pair to my coordinator from the other side of the house and now it’s currently updating to the v2.05 firmware.

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Will the replacement form be linked in this thread hopefully ?

How will the form be sent out?

Using the email addresses of those with orders from both inovelli and zwaveproducts or posting a link to a form here? Or all 3?

EDIT: Disregard – Need to find an alternate solution as Microsoft won’t allow file uploads.

Ok everyone, this is the first draft of the form (do not fill it out yet) – I’d like to get your feedback on if it makes sense and/or if anything needs clarity.

Looking at it through your (customer) POV, I realize this is annoying and the last thing you want to do after you just paid to have a working switch. I tried to make this form as painless as possible and take up as little time, but I’m also open to suggestions for improvement.

From our POV, we want to make sure that everyone is taken care of but also minimize, if not eliminate, fraud. It would be very easy since we’re probably going to let you keep these, for someone to list theirs on eBay and then later on that person who bought it writes in and tries to get a replacement. So, we need to have a working list of IEEE addresses along with verified QR Codes (pictures) that we can reference.

Now that hopefully you can see both sides, do you guys think the above form is fair?

Again, open to suggestions for improvement. I’d like to get this form out to everyone by tomorrow at the latest.

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I’m getting

“You don’t have permission to view or respond to this form”

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Same for me.

No worries on my end to fill out whatever needs to get filled out. You certainly don’t want bad characters hurting your brand by selling switches with issues.

I also am getting the “you don’t have permission” for the form.

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I don’t have a Microsoft account, so I can’t login to see that form.

Don’t the IEEE addresses and QR codes contain information that can uniquely identify a switch? I would think you would want people to keep this information between themselves and you (the manufacturer) until a replacement order could be issued. Once a switch is replaced, those identifiers are essentially blacklisted for any potential future replacement attempts. You’ll still want to get these bad switches back because they could still end up listed on eBay (or elsewhere) and sold to unsuspecting buyers that have no idea that what they’re buying is defective and ineligible for replacement.

Do you sell refurbished equipment? If so, I’d imagine you’d want the broken switches back at some point so they could be repaired and resold as refurbs. Maybe work out some sort of small store credit for each return and then resell as refurb at a lower cost? If it doesn’t make sense to try and refurb them, I’d ask the manufacturers who produced the defect to help cover the cost of getting the bad units out of circulation one way or another.

As annoying as it is, you could tell people you’re going to charge them if the defective equipment isn’t returned within some grace period. Also, as others have said, I think an e-mail really needs to go out to everyone who bought these letting them know that bad batches have been identified and that you’re working on a resolution.

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ooook… Looks like Microsoft doesn’t allow file upload for people outside of our organization.

Cool.

Hang tight!

Hey @Eric_Inovelli, Google supports file uploads. Get attachments from form respondents - Google Workspace Learning Center

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