I recently added a couple of z-wave controlled plugs to my setup. The addition didn’t go smoothly - I had to add/remove one of the devices a couple of times before I was able to control it. Unfortunately, somewhere during that process, most of my modules went “dead”.
I’m running core-2021.12.5. I was using the Z-Wave JS plugin (0.1.50) when this occurred. In trying to figure out how to debug this, I switched to the Z-Wave JS to MQTT plugin (0.32.1), but that didn’t fix it. I then cloned the Z-Wave JS to MQTT plugin and updated the Docker file to point to the latest (which hasn’t been officially released) and installed it (it shows zwavejs2mqtt version is 6.2.0 and the zwave-js version is 8.9.1). None of this changed anything (not that I expected it to, but I was hoping ).
I’ve also removed the nodes that I had added (when I broke it) and made sure those devices are not plugged in.
I know I can exclude/add the devices, but one of them will take several hours for me to do so (it’s a window blind that the z-wave button is broken on - so I have to take it down, tear it open, show out two points on the control board with the perfect timing while trying to add the device to my controller, then reverse the process - extremely painful ).
You don’t say what your ZWave controller is. But if it is a ZWave USB device (in particular the AOTEC Gen 5) then try unplugging it for 30 seconds, and then plugging it back in and restarting the addon.
Sorry - yes it’s an Aeotec Gen 5 controller. I had tried that (I know that you have to unplug it for awhile since some computers continue to provide residual power to the USB port ).
So it turns out that the solution was to wait long enough after removing (and unplugging) the “bad” lamp module. I assume it had somehow confused the controller. Note that I believe I had to unplug it too as I had removed it about 30 minutes before I unplugged it and during that time a power cycle didn’t make a difference. Then I unplugged it, power cycled the HA box and within a few minutes I started to see z-wave modules come to life.
Yes,
ZWave stuff, doesn’t like it when a node that they are using as a route is suddenly removed.
ZWave Plus however, does what ZWave was always intended to do, and finds a new route without having to be instructed.
Fully restarting the machine, and doing a cold start of the network, forces all the nodes to see who their neighbours are so that the controller can establish a new fixed route for them - but there was always the problem with this - that what the controller thought was an optimum route and what was REALLY an optimum route often differed. You can see this in action with ZWave Plus stuff - because having been through the cold process - the controller will have assigned them a route and they can be sluggish to respond. But after a bit of time, they find a new route which may have more hops, but less signal degradation.
In short, replace as much as possible with ZWave Plus stuff haha.
Thanks @mobile.andrew.jones and @Prodigyplace. I guess I’ll have to decide if I want to keep going down the Z-Wave road or switch over to either Zigbee or WiFi devices.
I started the switch to Zigbee, and have been impressed in
a) how much faster they are to respond
b) how many devices I can buy compared to the price of ONE ZWave device.
But mostly, there aren’t really any ZWave temperature devices that are reasonably priced. And yet I can get a few Zigbee Temperature devices, for £25. I have 7 of them now. And a LUX sensor that cost £12. Everything is stable and reports frequently.
Yeah - I’ve got a couple Zigbee modules (motion sensor, temperature sensor) and I’ve found the motion sensor to be quicker (and finally usable - the z-wave modules just weren’t quick enough for my tastes).
Any recommendations on light switches? That’s mostly what I’m using Z-Wave for.
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