New blue 2-1 switch in pairing mode, but will not pair to hub

Switches General Discussion
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Original post from reddit:

I just got 2x new blue 2-1 switches. I have them both wired up and powered, and the first one paired fine to my hub. The second one just pulses blue as if it is pairing, but it never actually pairs to the hub.

I’ve tried pulling the air gap then re-seating it, and I’ve tried factory resetting it a few time (And made sure I am releasing the config button before the paddle).

These are my 3rd and 4th inovelli switches, so with the first one paired I already have 3x paired without any issues. I also have a bunch of other Zigbee devices connected and working fine.

I’m running Home Assistant with a SONOFF Zigbee Plus (Not Plus-E), everything connected via Zigbee2MQTT

I ended up getting a replacement after posting this, and the replacement is doing the exact same thing. So either I got incredibly unlucky with 2 switches that have the exact same weird problem, or there is something wrong with my setup.

I already had the Zigbee dongle on a USB extender, but I got an even longer one so that the dongle was about 5 feet away from the switch, with the switch hanging out of the wall in case there was something weird causing interference. Still would not pair.

I also just updated the firmware of the dongle from 2021xxxx something to 20230507, and that didn’t help either.

I’ve verified the MAC address is not in the range of the bad batch from ~2022

I’ve also triple checked the wiring with a multimeter, this is just a simple single pole setup, and I have 4x others wired up around my apartment that all work fine. With the first switch, I originally had it wired somewhere completely different, and it still didn’t pair. I ended up moving it to where it is now for an unrelated reason

My WiFi is on channel 1, while the Zigbee network is on channel 25. I have no other non-zigbee smart doodads that could be interfering.

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Try pairing it very close to your dongle. You can take an old PC power cable, cut the female end off and go white to neutral, black to line and green to ground. Now you can plug your switch into an outlet and do your pairing. If it pairs up right away, like i suspect it will, you know the switch itself is good and it’s likely a mesh issue. You can then try moving it to it’s final location and it may just reroute itself and work.

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I’ll try this, but I did use some USB extenders to bring the dongle about 5 feet away from the switch, and it still did not pair. I also put like 3 smart outlets / zigbee repeaters around it, and they all paired fine

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Lol yep this fixed it. I cut up the power cord and connected it right next to the dongle, and it paired fine. I moved it back to the original location, and it is still connected and working.

Not really sure why it didn’t work when I physically moved the dongle just a few feet from it, or why it wouldn’t pair with the 3x repeaters surrounding it

Thanks!

1 Like
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Glad it worked. I run into weird zigbee quirks like that every so often. Perfect example is the new Ikea Vallhorn motion sensors. I need to pair them and do firmware updates within 6 inches or so of my coordinator, otherwise it will fail. But they are rock solid for operation in their regular location. And I’ve got what I would call a very solid Zigbee mesh with over 100 routing devices.