For my AliExpress Reviews effort, I’ve disassembled and tested several Zigbee remotes. I’ve been using the Loratap 4-Button Remote for quite a while now, and it’s been nothing short of great. It’s small, it’s clicky and the battery lasts over 8 months for me. There were battery life complaint by some users, which were not mirrored in my experience at all.
In this article, I’m disassembling and testing the Zemismart 4-Channel Zigbee Remote, labelled as model ZMR4. It’s a wall-mounted scene switch with 4 buttons that looks very clean and minimalistic. Costs about $18 on AliExpress, although it’s available on Amazon and the official webstore.
Technical Specification ZMR4
- Model: Zemismart ZMR4
- Connectivity: Zigbee 3.0
- Buttons: 4
- Button Actions: Single, Double Hold
- Battery: 1xCR2450
- Dimensions (frame): 118x74mm
- Dimensions (remote): 90x42x13.5mm
- Operating Temperature: -20°C to 45°C
- Operating Humidity: up to 85% RH
- Price: $18 AliExpress
Teardown and Package Contents
The Zemismart ZMR4 came in a small box containing the remote, a magnetic wall mount, a user manual, and some stickers for installation. The box was slightly banged up from shipping, but no damage was done to the device itself.
The battery compartment is easily removed by sliding it downwards. It holds a single button cell CR2450 battery which powers this remote. Zemismart claims a battery life of 1 year on this device, which in reality translates to 6-9 months, depending on the usage.
Zigbee connectivity is handled by the Tuya ZS3L [Datasheet], embedded with a 32-bit low-power Arm Cortex-M33 core, 768-KB flash memory and 64-KB RAM. This module is actually based on the latest gen EFR32MG21 [Datasheet] SoC by Silicon Labs.
I’ve encountered it in a similar device, the Moes Star Ring Series which is a wireless scene switch just like this one. Interestingly, it also powers the HC-T010 Tuya Zigbee Round Thermostat, a wall-mounted thermostat for boilers, heat pumps and electrical heating.
The ZMR4 is an extremely simple device, with nothing but 4 buttons installed on the top side of the PCB. These buttons are the same type used in computer mice, producing the same exact click when pressed. There is a reason companies use these, and that’s because they last ages. When was the last time your replaced your mouse because the left click stopped working? Exactly.
On the other hand, the sound they produce is not appealing to everyone, especially in this type of device. I like clicky and tactical feedback buttons, so this works for me.
For anyone wondering what’s inside the mounting frame, it’s just two magnets used to hold the remote in place. Here’s an image:
Home Assistant Integration
The Zemismart SMR4 4-Channel Remote is supported in both ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT in Home Assistant. To pair it to your coordinator, you need to hold the first and second button until the LED starts blinking.
Zigbee2MQTT Pairing and Direct Binding
The Zemismart ZMR4 4-Channel Scene Switch is identified as Zigbee model TS0044 with manufacturer ID _TZ3000_xwuveizv in Zigbee2MQTT. It’s correctly set as an EndDevice and recycles an image of a similar scene switch by Tuya. It report the battery level, link quality and records the action trigger in Zigbee2MQTT.
What’s interesting to note here, is that the ZMR4 supports direct binding for all 4 buttons. For those who are unfamiliar of what I’m talking about, I highly suggest you read this article to learn what direct binding is, why it’s awesome and how to use it in Zigbee2MQTT.
I successfully bound the first button to a wall switch for controlling a sconce light. Unfortunately, direct binding isn’t widely supported and there are too few sources and target devices that do. However, in this case, the remote works flawlessly as a source, even when the coordinator goes offline. It’s important to note that only single button presses are supported for direct binding—double and long presses are not.
Automations and Blueprints
Someone already created a simple blueprint for this Zigbee remote on the community forums. You can use it to create automations, without doing the leg work yourself, streamlining the process of setting up each trigger.
It’s worth noting that this blueprint requires Home Assistant legacy triggers to be enabled in Zigbee2MQTT. The option is found under Zigbee2MQTT > Settings > Home Assistant Integration. You will find two options here, disabled by default, that you need to enable: Home Assistant legacy entity attributes and Home Assistant legacy triggers.
However, MQTT triggers are the new and recommended way of handling button clicks which replaced legacy triggers. For an automation to work with MQTT Device Triggers, you need to fill in device_id, type, and subtype. Home Assistant’s automation editor automatically populates the required info, so here’s how to do it:
- Click + Create Automation
- Click + Add Trigger and select Device
- Under Device, select the Zemismart ZMR4 Remote
- Under Trigger, select an MQTT trigger:
- Single, Double or Long press for each button
- Add an Action for your Automation (eg. Turn On Light)
If you click to edit the automation in YAML, you will notice all device info is automatically populated. The device_id from Zigbee2MQTT is set, the type is set as an action and most importantly, the subtype is set as the trigger you choose.
description: "MQTT Trigger example"
mode: single
triggers:
- domain: mqtt
device_id: 5a8548edaa3c5f9419cfdac8d9db433c
type: action
subtype: 1_single
trigger: device
conditions: []
actions: .....
It’s worth noting that the long press is about 4-5 seconds on this remote and is visually identified by the LED turning on in blue.
Final Thoughts
There is not much to share beyond this about the Zemismart ZMR4 4-Channel Scene Switch. It’s a simple, affordable and functional Zigbee remote with 4 buttons, each with 3 actions, for a total of 12 individual automation triggers. If you have a use case for it, it’s quite solid.
Here’s some links from AliExpress, their official website and some Amazon Stores:
AliExpress | AliExpress
Official Webstore
United States
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Thanks for this review. I have a few questions on binding:
– Can you bind both to individual devices and to groups?
– Can you bind to multiple devices or groups?
– And since it’s single button presses, I’m guessing it emits a toggle command?
I’m seeing this come up for around $30 Canadian, which is the same price as the Hue switch. It can only control one device or group, but lets you dim them as well. I guess this makes sense if you want to control up to 4 different devices (or groups?) completely separately.
The answer to all your questions is Yes.
You can read more about binding to groups here
https://smarthomescene.com/guides/how-to-bind-zigbee-devices-directly-in-zigbee2mqtt/#binding-to-a-group
Regarding battery life there is an easy albeit ugly hack for that. One of the reasons button cells are used in cheap devices is the 3v output.
Since alkalines are 1.5v you can put two in series to get the same voltage. You do generally need to physically modify the device though and without a 3d printer the results can have a low WAF.
That would ruin the device usability and appearance COMPLETELY.
It wont be able to slot in the magnetic wall mount, too.
And why would you need to do it anyway, it’s battery life is solid?
Button batteries are dirt cheap.
This switch reminding me of opple aqara switch. Can’t find those 4-6 buttons verrsion of them these days. The most solid one i’ve used