I have read a TON on this and am still a little fuzzy, would appreciate any feedback.
I have the older Aeotec S2 USB stick that I have been using in HA on the old Zwave integration for years. Never had a single problem to be honest. I have about 40 devices setup. I recently upgraded HA and realized the integration was deprecated. Since I run in a docker container, I setup Zwave2mqtt in a container and got just about everything moved over. Its working well, but I’m looking at upgrading my S2 stick to a newer 700 series stick.
Its my understanding that I cannot just port the config from the old stick to the new, so it sounds like I would need to completely rebuild my network. It looks like the new 700 stick from Aeotec doesn’t have the push button on it, so I can’t walk around my house and include all the wall switches, etc. I have.
Any thoughts on the best path forward? I would REALLY love to not have to rebuild my entire network, but I don’t think thats possible. Appreciate your feedback.
Honestly, unless you have a REALLY compelling reason to upgrade, I wouldn’t do it. I did the same thing about 6 months ago, going from a Zooz ZST-10 S2 stick to a Zooz S7 stick and I regret it so much that I’m about to go back to the S2 stick here in a week or so. The S7 chipset has a known problem with dropping connections to devices regardless of the manufacturer. They claim it’s been fixed with the latest firmware…and while some have claimed it works, I have found that I still have dead nodes on a weekly basis. Your mileage may vary but I’m going back to old reliable…good luck!
A few months ago I would absolutely have warned you off the upgrade. There was a NASTY bug affecting all Series 7 (700 chip) controllers thay resulted in a LOT of dead nodes.
You need to ensure your stick has the 17.2 firmware or better releasedast month to avoid the issue.
Fortunately, in working through the bug, the author of Zwavejs2mqtt got really good at manipulating NVR backups and because of it Zwavejs2mqtt can absolutely back up a 500 stick NVR and restore it to a 700 stick. Works like a champ. I’ve done it multiple times. And new since two months ago you can even go from a 700 stick Down to a 500 stick in case of emergency.
So if you’re using Zwavejs2mqtt, there is an easy upgrade path. Just. Make sure the firmware on your 700 stick is up to date FIRST.
That said do you Need to? Meh. I don’t know what the 700 stick brings you don’t already have…
Is the S2 stick a 500 series stick? Its not the Gen 5 stick, its the version before that, just plain old S2…Ive had it forever, which is why I’m looking to upgrade as I don’t think its a Zwave Plus stick.
The S2 sticks (non-700 series) are considered Generation 5. It’s the newer 700 sticks that have the referenced bug…now whether the firmware fix works for you or not has yet to be seen. For me it just doesn’t solve the problem. My S2 (Gen 5) was solid…My 700 series was anything but.
Are you sure about the Aeotec Zwave S2 stick, cause its not actually an “S2” compliant device. S2 just means its the second version of their original stick. I know all about the 700 series sticks and have a few friends that have been using them just fine with the latest firmware. But I’m just not sure if my super old version can be migrated to a 700 series or not, as I might wait if that’s the case.
The version of the Zwave SDK on my stick is vZ-Wave 2.78, and I don’t see anyway to update that as there is no newer firmware available that I know of. Pretty sure you need v6.0+ to migrate, but I’m not 100%…hence me coming here.
" Please note that the S2 in the name Z-Stick S2 represents the fact that it was the 2nd edition of Z-Stick. It does not represent compatibility with [Z-Wave S2](https://aeotec.com/z-wave-s2) / Security 2."
My apologies, you could very well be correct. I’ve been in the Zooz Z-wave ecosystem for so long that I naturally assumed the naming scheme applied elsewhere. I was unaware that Aeotec S2 represented “Stick 2”…I applaud their creative (or deception) on the name! lol
There is an Aeotec zensys tool that should be able to perform a “controller shift”
This should allow you to go from the older aeotec s2 stick (with no s2 security despite its misleading name) to the aeotec gen5 stick (with s2 security) without rebuilding the whole network. I don’t know if it would work to go to the newer 700 stick though.
As far as upgrading in the first place, do you have s2 capable devices you need security on? If so it might be worth upgrading since s2 uses way less bandwidth then s0. Also if you have s2 zwave locks that could be worth the upgrade for added security/improved bandwidth.
If none of your devices need secure inclusion, I wouldn’t bother with the upgrade unless you need s2 security down the road, especially if everything is working fine now.
Also, even if you do the controller shift, any device you will want to be included with the new s2 security will require reinclusion with the dsk or barcode for s2 to work.
This is awesome, exactly what I was looking for. I do have two door locks that I would like to include. I had originally added them to my network but they would die in a couple weeks, so I ended up removing them from the Zwave network and just using the buttons on the lock. I’ll report back and let everyone know if its viable to go from an S2 stick to Z7 stick.
So, just an update for everyone. Upgrading from 300 series sticks to 700 is a no go. There’s an experimental way to go from 500 → 700, but Aeotec doesn’t recommend it at the moment. Here’s the message I got from their helpful support.
Unfortunately, this isn't possible, I've explored a few options, but it wasn't possible to do so from Series 300 to Series 700. There is a way to convert series 500 to series 700 but its still experimental as well so i don't recommend it: https://github.com/zwave-js/node-zwave-js/tree/master/packages/nvmedit It may overall be best to unpair and re-pair your devices overall going from the series 300 setup.
For the record, the NVM conversion utility only supports controllers with SDK 6.61 and up. The Aeotec S2 stick and even older 500-series (Gen5 < 1.2, unmodified Nortek) will not work because of that minimum requirement.
My understanding is the controller shift is part of the zwave specification itself. It appears Aeotec doesn’t have software or a way to do it, but the SI labs PC controller software has an option for a controller shift(its grey for me because my network doesn’t have a second controller.
PC-based SC is Primary
To shift the primary role from the PC-based SC to another controller in the network, activate the ‘Learn Mode’ button within the controller to be made primary, and the ‘Shift’ button within the second controller interface. The second PC-based SC will now become Secondary and the first one will become Primary.
Here’s the software
What I don’t know is if you can go from a 300 series to 700 series controller though. The program isn’t all that user friendly though and can really mess the network up if you use it wrong.
Update:
I looked into this more and the controller shift might just be more trouble then its worth (even if it works). It looks like it could mess up the lifeline association and the new controller probably would not have Node ID 1 anymore, creating other issues. This was a discussion I saw here about it:
From my understanding, my 300 series stick only has version 2.something of the Zwave SDK with no firmware available to update to a later version that has the functionality for the controller shift stuff, which I think is somewhere in the version 6 releases.
I just held on to this old stick for too long, but it has been rock solid for years.
