I have a ghost. No a real one

I went out to my pole barn yesterday morning and the fan was running. I have it plugged into a zwave outlet. I was sure I turned it off the night before. So I checked and indeed I had turn it off. The investigation started. Logs and events showed that the outlet was turned ON at 12:53am by a physical event. I don't remember sleepwalking outside so I checked the barn camera. I saw where the switch came on at the time specified by the camera. No one pushed it, it came on by itself.
So either the system cannot distinguish between physical or digital or I have a ghost. Any opinions?

There’s a misunderstanding here on physical and digital events. Digital events are those initiated by the hub. Physical events are everything else. So a malfunctioning outlet/switch that turns on is very much a physical event, because the act of turning it on was not initiated by the hub.

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Auto on parameter set?

Other home automation system tied in?

Z-wave outlet not adequate for fan's inrush, eventually taking a toll?

Harmonics/Power Quality? It's out in the barn.

Unless you’ve done specific A/B testing with that particular device to verify physical-vs-digital response accuracy, I wouldn’t place any faith in that info – unfortunately, it’s not a reliable indicator of anything (due to many variables) without first-hand verification.

Have you checked the device’s “in use by” info to see if there is another (perhaps forgotten or rarely-triggered) automation that may have caused it?

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Physical/Digital is a bit of a hack.. When you send a command from a driver it marks the next report as digital.. There is nothing in the protocol spec that distinguishes physical vs digital..

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I think you hit it on the head. There is something wrong with the switch. I have checked all the other suggestions and the in use by there is only a dashboard and HomeKit bridge. I believe there is something wrong with the outlet itself.

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