Here is how to set up Zigbee remotes with Home Assistant

[GroovyGuru]

Over the past months, I have bought two different styles of Zigbee remotes from AliExpress. One four button remote, and one eight button remote. Like any product, both have their ups and downs, but neither came with instructions on Home Assistant. Also, avoid AliExpress where you can, but if you must use it, make a seperate email account for it.

First, you will need to do these steps, which are well documented elsewhere, as they're quite universal:

1. Opened Zigbee2MQTT in Home Assistant
2. Within that page, opened your network/permitted joining
3. Held a button the remote long enough to initiate joining/pairing
4. Waited for the remote to join/pair and be visible on the Zigbee2MQTT screen

However after this, it's not obvious what to do. If you go to Home Assistant Settings and find the device, there are no entities, and when you create an automation trigger and find the device, you will not find any available triggers, or if there are any, it's something to do with battery or signal strength.

Quite simply, you just need to go through the buttons, including the three types for presses for each button. The best way to do this is:

1. Press the first button on the remote
2. Open an automation, add a trigger, add a device, find your remote, and ensure your first button press actually worked, likely named "1_single_action"
3. Double press the first button
4. Hold the first button (careful, some remotes need you to hold for a while, whereas others will reset if you hold them for too long!)
5. Now repeat the press, double press, and hold for all of the other buttons on the remote
6. Once you've done, reload the page and ensure you see all of the triggers show up, which should look something like this:

• "1_single" action
• "1_double" action
• "1_hold" action
• "2_single" action
• "2_double" action
• "2_hold" action
• For however many buttons you have...

I recommend doing the presses in the order I show here, as it is the same order that will show up when you go to add a trigger for this remote. If you do random button presses, you will find it harder to find the button trigger you're looking for, especially if your remote has a lot of buttons.

I hope this helps someone!

Remember each remote is different and Home Assistant and/or Zigbee2MQTT updates may mean your setup is different. Sorry if this doesn't work for you!