I have a 4 gang switch box that has 3 Blue 2-1 switches. One is from the good batch, and two are from the bad batch. I installed these before the problem with the bad switches was identified. They appear to be operating quite well, despite being from the bad batch. Most likely because the are only 2-3 inches away from a good switch.
I’m using Home Assistant with ZHA.
I know that these switches could still cause problems, since they act as routers. However, they have been operating for several months without any detectable problems. Now, I’m not naive enough to believe that this means everything is okay. So I would like to know how I can tell if there are real problems on the network. Is there a way in ZHA to track problems or see errors?
If I really don’t want to have to replace the switches if I don’t have to. After I installed the switches, I had an electrician install a new circuit from the box so that I could mount a wall tablet. In the process, the junior electrician made a bit of a mess of the box and when putting the switches back in, used drywall screws because he stripped the screw holes in the box. I figure that if I have to replace the switches, I will probably need to replace the gang box as well, which I really don’t want to do.
I don’t know of any tools to verify things, other than looking at LQI and RSSI in Home Assistant. In my case, the bad batch switches haven’t caused any noticeable issues other then the not wanting to pair and not having a reliable connection themselves. From what I gather on the forum, that seems to be the norm. Apparently some people have had issues with other devices trying to route through the bad switches instead of using a more reliable route.
Just my opinion, but I’d say if you aren’t having any noticeable issues, don’t worry about it. If you do start having issues, you can always remove the bad switch from the network temporarily to see if that was the cause.
BTW, assuming the stripped screws are in a plastic box, here’s something that worked for me: https://www.g-clip.us/
The G clip looks like it could be a really good solution. It would be a lot easier than trying to replace the box.
Looking at the three switches in the box, all three (the two bad and one good) have an LQI of 255. The bad switches have an RSSI of -71 while the good switch has an RSSI of -76. I’m not really sure what that tells me. It looks like the bad switches have a better RSSI than the good switch does.