this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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IDK how else to describe it.

About a week ago I noticed one of my ZigBee air purifier fans turning on and off. Odd but I ascribed it to maybe some sort of smart mechanism to avoid burning out the motor. Perhaps if there's not enough airflow it pauses and tries again? It could be a thing. So I ordered new filters and unplugged it.

Shortly thereafter I noticed my other ZigBee air purifier turning on and off. Okay... Makes sense... Filters are about the same age... Let's just wait for the shipment to come in. Unplugged.

Almost immediately after unplugging I noticed ANOTHER ZigBee device turning on and off, but this time it was a smart power outlet! No filters on that motherfucker, and that's when it dawned on me that this could somehow be a command and not just random.

Long ago I had a ZigBee outlet set up to turn on/off on a pattern over and over throughout the day.

I realized that these devices seem to all be following that pattern, which is strange because that automation ran for months but has been disabled since March of last year.

Now as far as I can tell this means one of three things:

  1. Home Assistant has gone rogue and is sending dormant/backlogged commands to unrelated devices

  2. A device on my ZigBee network had held those commands for passing them along, forgot about it for 11 months, then forwarded them in the order received to a semi-random device in the network.

  3. Aliens? Ghosts? Somebody trying to communicate through the multiverse?

Starting with the first 2 assumptions, is anyone aware of a means to listening into the ZigBee network to see which device, bridge or middleman, is sending these on/off commands?

Is there a way to tell all devices in the network to flush their command history? Should I reset the ZigBee network? Reset each individual device?

I'm one ADHD hyperfocus away from rebuilding my entire HA system and all automations from scratch.

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[–] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 6 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I had this happen once and it was cheap lights that got confused and suddenly started reacting to commands for other addresses. Took me quite a while to figure this out before just throwing them all out.

Starting with the first 2 assumptions, is anyone aware of a means to listening into the ZigBee network to see which device, bridge or middleman, is sending these on/off commands?

zigbee2mqtt has a guide for sniffing Zigbee traffic here: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/advanced/zigbee/04_sniff_zigbee_traffic.html

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

zigbee2mqtt

Sigh... Unfortunately I signed on as a ZHA man when I did my initial setup...

[–] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

You can still follow that guide if you pick up a cheap Zigbee dongle and connect it to your PC.

You just have to know your network key for decryption and you're good to go.

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Ahh awesome, I'll give it a spin as soon as my new dongle arrives!

[–] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Make sure it has one of the supported chips on that page or it won't work without extra work.

If not, CC2531 adapters can be bought for very cheap and are perfectly adequate for sniffing Zigbee traffic.

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 1 points 9 hours ago

Looks like my current dongle is compatible so when the new ZBT-2 gets here, I'll swap it in as the host controller and repurpose my old controller.