3 powered Z-Wave nodes going to "dead" state

I have a Zooz ZEN76 (hardwired wall switch) and two Zooz ZSE11 (Q sensors, on USB power supplies) that very often go to “dead” state. I don’t understand why. I have a network of 21 nodes (22 devices if including the ZST39 stick). About half of them are powered. There are devices much farther away from the stick than those 3 failing nodes.
I have tried excluding, re-including, re-interviewing, healing the network, healing the node, to no avail.
Another ZEN76 that is closer to the stick does not have any issue with going dead.
If I ping the nodes from Z-Wave JS UI, they wake up and no longer show up as dead (red) - they go to green.
Do I have defective devices ? Or is it a range issue ? Or is there something in the software I can do to prevent this from happening ? Or is it a firmware issue ?

I poll all switches on a staggered basis every 15 minutes. Never had one go dead.

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What is the type and model number of your ZWave coordinator and what firmware level is it on?

Thanks. Are you doing it like this or some other way ?

alias: Refresh terrace lights and water valve every 15 minutes
description: Z-Wave refresh
trigger:
  - platform: time_pattern
    minutes: /15
condition: []
action:
  - service: zwave_js.refresh_value
    data:
      refresh_all_values: true
      entity_id:
        - switch.main_water_valve
        - switch.z_wave_plus_700_series_s2_on_off_switch
mode: single

Not certain what you mean by coordinator, but the Z-Wave controller is a Zooz ZST39, firmware version 1.10 .

Roughly yes. What I have found is that refreshing more than one item at the same time can challenge the zwave network. So in your example refresh the first entity, then delay for 10s and do the next one.

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Thanks. I’ll do just one at a time.

I encountered some weird behavior last night. One of my ZSE42 water leak sensor (at the bottom of a water heater) tripped 5 times. Next thing you know my automation shut off water to the house at the smart valve. This happened in the middle of the night. When I woke up, I saw the notifications on my phone, and went to check the water heater. Everything was dry. I re-opened the valve . I have never seen this happen before, so I wonder if it’s related to the polling I added.

Keep an eye on the water heater. Mine did that a few times before the bottom dropped out. It may be dripping/intermittently leaking but not enough to keep the sensor you have down there wet. … For now. Hope it’s not that. But.

Thanks. The water heater in question is less than 3 years old.
These are all the events from last night for both the leak sensor and the valve. The valve was closed at 2:30am and I reopened it at 12:34pm. But there are still multiple leak events from the sensor between that period. I saw no evidence of any drip. The pan underneath the water heater is made of metal, and I wonder if that could have conducted current for the sensor without water. But it wasn’t moved while we were sleeping, so I can’t really explain it. I would sooner suspect some sort of Z-wave bug.




no that’s different. Mine would go wet and stay for a bit. Yours is flapping like a bird. Two choices, stop polling or move the sensor. Note changes. Id actually try to move the sensor for a day. Put it somewhere you Know dry with a new battery and see what it does.

Thanks. I was polling other devices (now just one device), not that particular sensor. The sensor hasn’t been moved for about a month and never tripped before except while testing it.
I’ll try swapping the battery.

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Did some more tests and both my ZSE42s are now reporting “Dry” even when there is plenty of water. Sigh. Not sure what’s causing that.

Did a factory reset on one of the ZSE42 and that made it work reliably again (at least, it reports wet when I put it in water, and reports dry when I dry it).

The other ZSE42 unfortunately had water somehow get inside the housing, I believe is DOA, sigh.
I have ordered some Yolink water sensors from Amazon to replace these two finicky Z-wave units.

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