Aqara E1 Zigbee Door/Window Sensor is discovered, online, and otherwise not working

Setup, Configuration and Use Installation
14

@chris I’m looking at augmenting the discovered zigbee Thing with a “closetDoor.things” file to expose the properties mentioned in Xiaomi MCCGQ11LM control via MQTT | Zigbee2MQTT
I am inspecting the zigbee xml file 00158D0007BDDB5E.xml (22.2 KB) and was wondering if there is any guidance you might be able to direct me too?
I see:

<endpoints>
  <ZigBeeEndpoint>
  ...
  <inputClusters>
    <ZclCluster>
    ...
      <attributes>...</attributes>
  <outputClusters>
  ...

Thank you for any guidance

15

To be honest, I’m not really sure. From the XML, this device doesn’t seem to support many standard functions. My guess is that everything is covered through their own implementation rather than the zigbee standard.

I know there are some (maybe all) Xiaomi devices that support a non-standard reporting frame, and probably that is what is required here, but at the moment that is not implemented in the zigbee binding.

16

I just hate paying 25 to 50 bucks for a stupid reed switch. I guess I just have to swallow hard and accept that unless I build my own sensors, I need to pay for standard sensors. Thanks for trying to educate me.

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17

Hi @smitopher
Did you manage to solve the issues you were facing with the adding and using the Aqara door/window sensors?
I have a GoControl CECOMINOD016164 HUSBZB-1 USB Zwave/Zigbee USB Hub and I can’t seem to properly connect the Aqara sensors.

18

No, I did not. My Aquara sensors are sitting on my desk unused. I ended up getting Sengled sensors. They cost more but have been trouble free.

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19

I just managed to add the two Aqara sensors to my openhab system using the GoControl CECOMINOD016164 HUSBZB-1 USB Zwave/Zigbee USB Hub.
It took a few times to properly recognize the devices, but now it works.
I wonder why it’s not working for you?

20

I have the same hub. Have you updated the hub zigbee firmware? I did. I have a few Xiaomi/Aqara devices, most of which don’t work, one of which is on my bedroom closet door, I can’t remember if it’s Aqara or Xiaomi branded. it only reports open/close events and none of the of the other Chanels are discovered. It usually appears in OH as offline, although it still manages to report open/close events.

I gave up trying to make them work and bought Sengled sensors, they are not much more expensive, work fully as expected, and I don’t have to hack anything.

As soon as OH supports Matter devices, I’ll look at replacing them with Matter/Thread sensors as I want to move in that direction with my smart home.

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21

Thank you for the detailed answer.
I did not update the hub’s firmware.
I bought two Aqara door/windows sensors on Aliexpress and received model MCCGQ11LM.
For me the sensors appear online in OpenHAB and they pass their opened/closed state, but, like your experience, OpenHAB only shows them with the switch channel. It doesn’t show me the battery level and the other channels you got with your Banggood sensors.
I think I’ll return them to Aliexpress so that I can get another sensor that can properly report the battery state.

Does anyone has experience how good OpenHAB works with the Aeotec Multipurpose Door/Window Sensor?

22

The Sengled sensors are available on Amazon and work well

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23

Hey @smitopher, can you please explain the steps you took to upgrade the HUSBZB-1’s firmware? :pray:

24

For zigbee this is in the zigbee binding docs. The binding maintainer @chris added it to the docs after I found it and successfully flashed my dongle. I used the docker method. If I had to do it again, I’d just use the binding method.

Flashing z-wave firmware is hard to do, very fiddly, and you run a risk of bricking the dongle. I know this because I flashed my dongle, luckily without bricking my dongle. The binding maintainer @chris advised me afterwords that it was not really useful and dangerous.

My post about this can be found at HUSBZB-1 (Combo Zigbee and ZWave stick) Should I bother flashing its firmware to latest?
.

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25

@chris , would you have a good prebuilt firmware you could share? Do you still recommend leaving the z-wave firmware alone?

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26

Thank you for the explanation :pray:
Can you please explain how to run the openhab console?
I’m running openhab as a docker app on unraid, but I’m not sure how to run the console, to later run the zigbee firmware command.

27

OK, I was able to log into the openhab console, but when I enter the zigbee firmware command I get an error message.

Screenshot 2023-09-23 at 0.57.10
Screenshot 2023-09-23 at 0.57.101864×612 55 KB

Am I missing something?

28

The firmware file

If you are running this from the container, I don’t think you can easily make the file accessible.

You may want to the docker method described in the binding documentation

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29

As I am not very familiar with installing docker apps manually, I was thinking of using the python method (until now I only used unraid’s semi-automatic community docker apps installation method).

Which of the files in the husbzb-firmware github repository is the firmware file I need?

After running the git clone https://github.com/walthowd/husbzb-firmware.git && cd husbzb-firmware
Should I then add the firmware file I downloaded into the newly cloned husbzb-firmware repository folder?

What command should I run later?
Should it be zigbee firmware <file name> ?

30

Hi @smitopher @chris I downloaded the file ncp-uart-sw-6.7.8.ebl which, according to the walthowd/husbzb-firmware github page, should be the latest zigbee controller firmware to use.

Can you please tell me where I should save the firmware file to use later with the binding upgrade method?
I’m using openhab as a docker app on unraid. I’m able to run the openhab console, but I’m not sure how to proceed from here.

31

You map the folder with the firmware to a folder in the docker container file system. This is a complicated discussion that depends upon how you define and run your container

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32

Or you copy the file into your container. Also a complicated discussion

Try googling this

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33

Thank you :pray:
I tried mapping the docker app to a folder with the firmware file, and it seems the firmware upgrade starts (as the zigbee coordinator goes offline), but then the process fails with an error.

Screenshot 2023-09-24 at 19.42.39
Screenshot 2023-09-24 at 19.42.391282×568 39.5 KB

Any ideas why?