Seeing instant notification is spotty in older or less-expensive switches. It used to be that there was a patent on instant notification, but it has recently (very recently) expired.
Clicking refresh in OZWCP is forcing a poll, the same thing that HASS does periodically, based on your polling_interval in the zwave platform.
Thanks for the info - My setup is less than two weeks old, so I’m still learning.
I had never setup polling_interval before now, so I just set it to 30 to see how things go. I can definitely confirm that I got instant notification from all of my zwave devices before this latest upgrade, but I can’t be sure when it stopped working.
30 is too low. From the docs:
polling_interval (Optional): The time period in milliseconds between polls of a nodes value. Be careful about using polling values below 30000 (30 seconds) as polling can flood the zwave network and cause problems.
I have mine at 6000.
Ha! I read that, processed it, knew I should put 30000, and I still put 30 like a dummy. 
Fixed… let’s see what happens.
TIL: Don’t click “Reset” in OZWCP.
The GE switches do not actually support instant updates. The reason you may see the state changes quickly is because the switch sends out a broadcast message when the switch is pressed. This message has no information about the state of the switch, but when received, OpenZwave will query it for its current state. Unfortunately, since it’s a broadcast message, your controller needs to be one hop away from the device to receive it. Also, press-and-hold actions do not result in this broadcast message. Furthermore, as was mentioned earlier in this thread, controlling the addon switch does absolutely nothing except phsyically change the state of the light. The controller will never see any action. The current GE switches sometimes look like they support instant updates, but they really don’t. It can sometimes work due to a work around built into OpenZwave. If you’re looking for switches that will report their state, make sure you specifically check for the ‘instant update’ feature (might be called something else). For example, the HomeSeer HS-WD100+ supports this feature (but it’s much more expensive).
@sterling That’s helpful info, thank you! In hindsight, I might consider the HomeSeer switches for some of my lights just for the scene control, but the price difference isn’t worth it solely for instant update.
I’m thinking about replacing the basic switch that controls my fireplace, so I might grab a HomeSeer switch for that.
I’ve been wrestling with this issue for awhile now. The slave switch for whatever reason doesn’t cause the master to broadcast. Did anyone ever get this fixed? Even if I configure polling I can’t seem to get HA to reconcile state changes made through the slave switch.
This seems to work for me. I just turned down my kitchen light dimmer with one of the accessory switches and it did update in home assistant and in the iOS home app for that matter.
I’m having same issue. I’ve adjusted the polling_interval, but even after waiting 10 minutes, HA never refreshes the switch status. If I restart Home Assistant, the state is updated.
I would really like to know what others are doing to make this work.
Yeah, I’m seeing the same behavior. What really confuses me is why the state updates when HA restarts. Clearly it is capable of polling the device, it just refuses to do so under normal operation.
I got this working.
The Z-wave documentation on Home Assistant needs updating to make this more clear. The issue here is that “polling_interval” appears to do nothing unless you add the customize configuration under this. From there you need to add your GE switch and specify it’s “polling_intensity”.
If you look closely at the docs, it specifically says the device won’t be polled:
polling_intensity (Optional): Enables polling of a value and sets the frequency of polling (0=none, 1=every time through the list, 2=every other time, etc). If not specified then your device will not be polled.
I now have the following for my zwave configuration. When I use the addon switch, it updates in HA in about 60-90 seconds (even though I was thinking this would be around 30 seconds based on the config). It’s not perfect, but far from what it was before.
usb_path: /dev/ttyACM0
polling_interval: 30000
customize:
switch.hallway_light_switch_2_0:
polling_intensity: 1I am also seeing good results with the same change that @swbradshaw made. It use to drive me nuts showing incorrectly but since this change I am now seeing the switches show correctly in the UI.
You just fixed my issue. I had the polling intensity set in my device customization under the homeassistant heading rather than in the zwave section. I’ve spent hours starting at this config wondering why it wasn’t working and it never dawned on me to check that. Many Thanks! @swbradshaw
glad everyone got this working! I can only see my GE switch on the open Z wave control panel and not on the home assistant front page.do I have to add something to my YAML file to make the switch visible?
For the front-page it should appear after you pair it to your zwave stick. I have to reset ha 2 times after the discovery.
The a add-on switch doesn’t have a zwave radio in it so you will never see that one.
There’s a configuration XML file maintained by OZCP that needs to be either 1)copied to HASS’ directory or 2)symlinked.
After I close the OZCP, I manually copy mine with:
cp /srv/hass/src/open-zwave-control-panel/zwcfg_XXXXXX.xml /home/hass/.homeassistant/zwcfg_XXXXX.xml
paths for you may vary based on install method. I think that a reboot will also copy the file.
I have the GE switches setup for use in a automation. When I flip the main switch it works instantly, but when I flip the add-on switch my automation won’t fire.
My understanding is that this is a deficiency in the GE switches. I believe I’ve seen this discussed before, but can’t locate the thread.
I was trying to find it, too - Two problems:
There’s a thread somewhere, I promise!