Blue Series: Hubitat Zigbee Group Behavior

Did you bind any switches to the group? you want them to be members and not bound. If you bind them to the group you will see this behavior

No bindings, first thing I checked after noticing the behavior. However, they are acting like they are bound, which is where the head scratching is coming from.

@EricM_Inovelli sorry to keep tagging you lol – but maybe this is what Sven was talking about last night with the “BindInitiator”?

There is something definitely going on. This is from the blue series post over at Hubitat (I responded over there as well).

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You can see the Inovelli thread as well:

Yeah, we’re working with them in another thread here too: Blues binding themselves to Innr plugs?

That thread is where the “BindInitiator” comment I was referencing above came from (sorry, I should’ve clarified). We had the engineer look into that thread and he was talking back and forth with us about that command. I’m not really sure what he meant by it, but I do know they are on it.

Wanted to give a quick update here in that if this is the issue that’s happening in the other thread, then we should have a firmware fix for it shortly. We received a test file about 30-45min ago that has a fix for the binding issue that we’re currently testing. More to come!

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Go team Inovelli - thank you, Eric!

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You guys are awesome. That is all =)

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Quick update here: We had to have them redo the firmware as one of the other bugs (flickering in a 3-Way setup) wasn’t fixed.

They’ve since provided us a new version today about an hour ago that we’re testing.

These guys are working around the clock on this (it’s 1am their time) so I definitely want to thank them for taking this seriously.

Hang tight, we should have this fixed shortly.

Also, I misspoke yesterday about them removing this feature. Apparently they are keeping it in and instead fixed something else still related to this issue (language barrier is difficult sometimes):

I guess if we still see this behavior, we can ask them to remove it.

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I am experiencing this too. I have four Blue Series installed on Hubitat. Three of the four ended up “bound” together and the behavior is inconsistent in that occasionally all three of those operate in unison and at other times the three will respond correctly to specific commands. So far I cannot replicate the issue when using local (button press) control but my sample size is short as of yet. I am installing v2.05 right now. That’s the most recent firmware available to Hubitat as of 7 Nov.

Anyone else find another way to overcome this issue? I’m dead in my tracks installing for fear of the inadvertently turning on the kitchen lights in the middle of the night and waking up the rest of the house :wink: …wouldn’t be the first time…

I have upgraded all the three of the effected dimmers to 2.05 and I can confirm that the behavior still exists. Perhaps there is something else going on with my specific situation? I never initiated binding of any sort. I did install these three dimmers within minutes of each other but a full 24 hours after installing the first (seemingly unaffected) Blue Series. This is quite the mystery…

EricM posted last night that they’re continuing to nail down this binding/group issue – sounds like an upcoming firmware should help…

Yes indeed. I was wondering if anyone else had experienced VZM31-SN to VZM31-SN device to multiple-device auto-binding like I am? I have not seen VZM31-SN to outlet or bulb pairings in my installation though I have few ZigBee devices here.

Also curious what people have done to try to remedy the issue after upgrading to 2.05? @hydro311 you mention here in the other thread that you factory reset and re-paired. Did you have to rebuild all of your scenes/groups/rules or were you able to do this and then somehow “re-map” the paired dimmer with its old identity? I am mostly ZWave here and in the ZWave world (at least on Hubitat) this is not possible.

Alright. I need some aioli because I’m about to eat some words… though I have more to share than simple embarrassment…

I believe that I have found a commonality with this issue. If I add VZM31-SN dimmers to a lighting group in Hubitat I can almost every time reliably recreate the issue — especially if I leave “use ZigBee group messaging” enabled. Removing dimmers from all groups tends to correct the issue most of the time. The bindings counter on the device pages does not always change to reflect the group removal but I have noticed that it changes most of the time when adding.

To be clear about this — I can see action as a group even when only sending instructions to a single group member. So I believe that this problem… or at least my version of it… is Hubitat-specific, unique to the VZM31-SN series, and has something to do with how Hubitat handles groups.

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I don’t believe that is entirely accurate (pertaining to a Hubitat problem only) as I specifically utilize group messaging for other zigbee devices and am not getting the binding behavior exhibited by blue switches (and the reason I started this thread). I have zero bindings reported in my devices in question, yet am getting binding behavior when trying to control an individual device. I tested this against a known working configuration (about 15 Sylvania zigbee outlets): group message on equals all devices on, individual outlets off does not turn all of the outlets off. This is expected behavior at least via my Hubitat experience.

Edit: it does sound like there is a firmware fix in the works however. We shall see. For the time being, I’m back to the popcorn effect for lights (with the occasional missed command because I hate setting wonky delays in NodeRed).

I believe this issue is fixed in firmware 2.08. I have been testing Hubitat zigbee groups with no binding involved (3 bulbs and 1 switch). Controlling the switch does not “mirror” these commands to the other devices in the group.

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The firmware should be available on Hubitat for testing. If you have the latest driver, double click on “Update Firmware” and watch the logs for progress.

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Updating various switches as I type this, and can also confirm that my zigbee group messaging is now working flawlessly between Blue switches. Well done sir!

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Please mark as resolved!