2 Zwave hubs on 1 HA integration (1 local and 2nd remote via MQTT)

[macrandolph]

I have a single HA installation using a HA Yellow in a large shop. This has lots of various devices (Zwave, IP based (shelly, etc), MQTT connection to my Victron power source and so on. I have a remote location (my house, ½ mile away) sitting on the same subnet (connected by Ubiquiti uwave), 1 router, etc. This would be the 2nd Zwave group I wish to add to HA.

I am currently using IP devices (shelly, etc) in my remote house in nmy Shop based HA integration without issue. I have an existing zwave set of devices at the house sitting on an old Samsung smartthings integration. My goal is to replace the Samsung hub with a Pi4B and a Zwave USB stick.

I have the house Pi4B setup with 32B Pi OS (bullseye) and I have (successfully, I think) installed ZwaveJS2MQTT in a container. I can log into the html port for the remote ZwaveJS2MQTT integration and can see my hub. I have configured the remote zwave integration to point to the SHOP HA Pi via IP addr. I have not found a clear direction in the HA integration to allow it to use the remote Zwave MQTT data. I also have played with a test remote device to the Remote ZwaveJS2MQTT instance. The remote ZwaveJS2MQTT does not offer a scan option and Aeotec does not offer a QR code for this device (Dual Nano Switch w/energy ZW132-A). so the remote session will not include the new device (should it?).

I have and use MQTT explorer. When I trigger an include request from the remote Zwave device I can read packets coming through on MQTT explorer. I can also see them in the Mosquito config page for MQTT settings through the “Listen to a Topic” section.

Thats as far as I have gotten. I’m sure there are things that have to be done in HA to allow it to accept remote MQTT Zwave traffic. Here’s where it’s a little tricky for me. Most of the existing shop HA installation is mission critical, so I’m reluctant to bust in and start trying things without much idea where to start.

Sorry for the long write-up without code. I can provide anything anyone might want to see.

[valor]

Have you discovered this guide? I think it’s what you’re looking for.

Cloning the Z-Wave JS to MQTT Add-On to run multiple Z-Wave Networks

So, I recently decided the best solution to keep a good Z-Wave mesh was to have a second Z-Wave network for the energy meter that generate tons of traffic and also a couple of old non-plus devices which may cause trouble… I already had 2 UZB-7 sticks and they are cheap anyways so I searched the forums for the best way to do this and found other people have done it in difference ways (using the core Z-Wave JS add-on for the second network, manually creating a container for the second Z-Wave JS 2…

[macrandolph]

Thanks for the reply. I starter with the 1st as a non Mqtt and then am trying to add the second as mqtt. I think i read a thread you may have been on. I to am using both sticks as Aeotec 7s. I just added a second zwave hub through the HA zwave control. I selected 2nd as a NON supervisor add on. It immediately recognized the 2nd hub. I tried to add the device. It grabbed it and showed up as only a heartbeat (only 1 entity=alive) after an hour or so the device looks like it fully came on line. It seems to function, however, quite slow. I’m not convinced I have everything just right. Any tips as to where and how to tune?

I’m going to attempt a FW upgrade of the 2nd hub via a windows computer now.

[valor]

Just to make sure, you’re not actually using the “MQTT” portion of the add-on, correct?

The recommended installation is to leave that OFF and use WebSockets (WS) instead. I haven’t tried the MQTT portion, but that may be the source of your slowness.

[macrandolph]

Getting Better. After 25m to install Simplicity Studio 5 and 3 minutes to re-flash the new Aeotec Hub FW, the response time is MUCH better. I might have a functioning integration with 2 USB hubs. 1 Direct to HA and the 2nd on a remote Pi4B computer (with PI OS 32B) and a dup Aeotec 7 stick

If anyone else is interested, I’d be happy to help (while I still remember). I got a lot of help from prior threads, but everything out there had some incorrect steps (at least at the time of my install). As usual with this HA integration stuff, there are lots of updates making tutorials easily dated and lots of illogical procedures that require us to reach out to other who have fought before us. Thanks to the community; an irreplaceable resource for HA. A couple of corrections:

1. the OS no longer creates a /dev/static/by-id file that the latest ZwaveJS2MQTT demands. Also the old way of calling the USB device doesn’t work. My solution was to assign to /dev/ttyUSB0. I think the consensus is that a bug was introduced in bullseye and hasn’t been corrected. The suggested solutions regarding edits / downgrading the 60-serial.rules file didn’t work for me. ZwaveJS2MQTT’s ides of replacing a soft reference to the USB port is a good idea. to bad the OS messed up the “by-id” is buggered up!
2. the PIP3 version of the Docker install (docker-compose) didn’t work, I had to use the APT variant. worried about future updates as the apt seems to lag the pip by quite a lot.

[macrandolph]

One debugged, I did move to WS, MQTT cleanup may still be required. But as mentioned, the FW upgrade fixed the speed issue.

[macrandolph]

BTW, yes I found the guide it was helpful! I gathered that the guide had both sticks plugged into the same device/computer. I required the the 2 sticks be 1/2mi apart.

[tmjpugh]

@macrandolph

I have not found a clear direction in the HA integration to allow it to use the remote Zwave MQTT data

You can connect using websocket instead of mqtt. This is how i connect my second zwave network.

Just add another “zwave” integration under devices and services. Do Not use the “add zwave device” option. There are 2 choices and you want “zwave”. Add IP:port and done. Same network is not required, only access to the network of host running zwavejs

MQTT will work but websocket is cleaner and (without deep dive technical reasoning) better