Can't install ZooZ 800 Z-wave stick into HA with Z-wave JS

Configuration Z-Wave
1

I just received my Zooz 800 z-wave stick.

I am attempting to add it to home assistant as a 2nd z-wave hub. I currently have a Nortec (go-control) HUSBZB-1 z-wave network installed.

My goal is when the Zooz 800 stick is installed, I will slowly migrate all entities from the HUSBZB-1
to the zooz Z-wave stick.

I am attempting to add by going into settings->integrations->z-wave. When I choose the option to add a hub, I select option to use the Z-Wave JS Supervisor add-on? , it finds the address of the Zooz stick. and I choose it. First time I attempted to do it, all of the Keys are blank, so I left them blank for z-wave JS to generate. I get a message saying "The Z-Wave JS add-on is starting. " and on the bottom of that pop-up it says it may take some time. I wait, and eventually I get a message saying that it "failed to start the Z-wave JS add-on.

The next time I attempted this, all of the keys were filled in with some generated values - which I left.
I tried a 2nd time, same message. I tried a 3rd time by removing the values to see if new ones would be generated… same message. I tried a 4th time, but before attempting, I disabled the HUSBZB-1 hub to see if that was interfering. Same message. I reenabled the HUSBZB-1 hub and tried a 5th time. Same message.

I haven’t seen much documentation on having two z-wave hubs installed, but what I did see, it seems to say it is possible.

I am VERY reluctant to completely delete my HUSBZB-1 hub and all entities, because it will kill my environment until I re-add my 50+ z-wave devices. Plus I don’t want to remove that hub unless I am certain it is necessary.

When I check the log file, I get the following message in home.assistant.log.1:

2023-10-02 16:26:28.918 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.zwave_js.config_flow] Failed to start Z-Wave JS add-on: timeout

Does anyone have any recommendations?

2

It’s not possible two run two instances of the same add-on with two separate Z-Wave controllers, unless you create your own add-on repositories. Your only options are to run outside of HAOS, or use one controller with Z-Wave JS add-on, and the other controller with Z-Wave JS UI add-on.

3

That is a very interesting reply. Interestingly, I enabled debug mode, and may be a coincidence but the 2nd hub (zooz 800) was created. It is added with the Z-wave JS add-on vs the Z-wave JS UI add-on. Was looking to see if there is a way to add a 2nd z-wave JS UI add-on. If it isn’t supported, is there a way to move the old HUSBZB-1 off of the z-wave JS UI add on and replace it with the zooz stick? Again, I would rather not completely destroy my HUSBZB-1 hub during the migration. After the migration, I would like to retire it and use z-wave JS UI add-on for the Zooz stick and the Zooz stick only

4

I just did the exact same swap. Watch this video. This process took me about 30 minutes.

Everything migrated perfectly. You cant add the virtual nodes to the Hubz1 as he shows, so do that part on the new controller until device 231. This will make the hubz1 device 232 and then will make the new Zooz 800 controller Device 1.
It will make more sense when you watch the video.

5

This is VERY helpful. Thank you. I will try this. A few questions.

1 - I don’t believe HUBZ1 supports NVM back up unless you flash it with the latest firmware, which I did not and reluctant to do so because of the difficulty. Were you able to do an NVM backup of the old controller in case anything went wrong?

2 - When I add the virtual devices to the Zooz 800 controller to 231, how will hubz1 become devices 232? By adding it to the new controller after?

3 - When I remove all the virtual nodes from the 800, how will new devices be added to this controller? With the number scheme be messed up because we created all those virtual devices?

4 - Lastly, and I believe most important… If all goes successfully well, how to I add this stick into HA so the ZooZ 800 will be not only recognized, but will be managed through Zwave JS UI. (sorry if this is an obvious but it isn’t clear to me yet… Very reluctant to do all this and blast away my zwave network and not have it handy again, needing to add each of my 50 plus nodes manually again.

Again, Thank you. If this did work for you, and I am clear on the answers above, this is a great solution.

6

I do not believe I was able to successfully back up the Hubz1. I had set aside the time to rebuild the network if needed. I have approx 50 devices also. I was pretty confident the migration would work though.
Once you add the virtual devices to the zooz, youll promote the HUBz1 to the primary controller and it will become 232. Then follow the process to make the zooz primary controller and it will become 1.
once you remove the virtual devices its like they were never there. The numbering just picks up where it was.
I was running zwave JS. I removed the integration and re-added it using the new controller. All worked fine after that.

7

Rich,

Cool. Helpful again.

I downloaded the software. As good as the video is, it really jumps over a few parts. Possibly the devil is in the documentation (which I don’t know where to look).

Once installed, the software was able to see my HUBZ1 stick easily. For some reason, it was not seeing the ZST39 stick at all. I tried all kinds of ways to search for it with the options on the screen, but no luck. I don’t think I am in the right area, because I am not seeing the above windows in the Simplicity Studio software,

Did you have to ready any additional information on how to be able to successfully load each controller in its own window? I’m wondering if I actually downloaded the proper software from the Silicon Labs site. As I said earlier, I’m looking at the Simply Studio Software.

8

Are you asking how to open up two windows at the same time?

9

No. I figured that out. The UI I am looking at is not similar to the one in the video when I open up the Simply Studio Software. I don’t see a gear icon to select the sticks. I am overall not seeing what is in the video.

One thing that may be different for me is I installed the MAC version of the software vs the Windows, as I don’t have any windows pcs

10

Rich and Cornell, I think I answered my own question. I watched the video SEVERAL times and it was hard for me to understand what the creator of the video was saying the software needed to download. I finally heard that you need to download the PC version of the software. Maybe that is my problem. I’m going to look into getting a PC and see if I see a different environment.

Thanks for the help and suggestions.

11

Rich,

I am in search of a PC to run the tool on (shouldn’t bee too hard). Hopefully all will migrate as easily as Cornell outlined, along with possibly using your mods of creating the virtual machines on the zooz stick if necessary.

One possibly clarification on your above note… so once you successfully created the Zooz stick as the primary… you said to read to the network in HA, you " removed the integration and re-added it using the new controller". By removing the integration, do you mean removing the HUBz1 sticks from the settings->integrations->zwave section within HA right? Then when you add the integration with the new controller, it will read all of the node numbers - assigned, and all will correspond to the entities and values that were assigned with the HUBz1 stick?

12

yes. I deleted the hub in the Zwave JS integration. Then I added the new one and all the devices were there.
You can always perform a backup of HA if you are unsure. Should be done anyway.

13

You need to install the drivers for the sticks. You may only find drivers for the windows version though.
(4) Windows Driver installation for Nortek HUSBZB-1 Z-Wave / Zigbee USB Stick - YouTube
Honestly cant remember if I needed to install drivers for the zooz stick…HUBZ1 for sure…

14

One more thing. In the software. Click tools then Zwave PC controller

15

If you delete the integration, you will lose all of your entity customization.

16

Let me know. Put the same zoo 800 on my yellow and getting the same problem. Even have it on an extender cable. Similar scenario. I’ve not seen any errors in the log however. Just get "Failed to start the Z-wave JS add-on. Tried rebooting HA, confirmed the device and switched to the non “by-id” device name as well. I’m now on hold whether to avoid Z-wave device purchases entirely and stick with ESP32 or Zigbee.

17

FYI. Tried the cycle power. Worked as far as getting the Z-wave JS add-on started. All my current Z-wave devices are pretty old so instead of moving them off the Smartthings hub, will get something new and try that as my first Z-wave device on my HA Yellow. Most the old Z-wave will be staying with my house when I move anyway.

18

My short journey to upgrade, from a HubZ Nortek controller (zigbee and Zwave) to both a Zooz 800 Zwave stick and a Skyconnect. This is today, 2-23-24.
I did a step or two backwards, but it worked out fine in the end.

Homeassistant running on a Odroid N2+, 4 USB 3.0 ports, HA as the OS.

So I have 3 zwave switches. All 3 are light switches, GE Jasco, one is 14291 300s and the other 2 are 45609 500s.
First, I added each switch into developer/services as an automation, separately, to turn on, then went into YAML mode and looked at the exact device ID # and the entity id name. Took a picture of each in case I had to rename the entities (which I had to do).
Then went to try and exclude the switches. the 14291 I did the 3 top 3 bottom clicks, got the 5-flash LED, confirming the exclusion mode, but it never excluded correctly. I blame the older firmware of the HubZ.
I tried the other 2, which only require a wakeup click, not the 3-3 clicks. Nothing excluded. So, I went to Zwave integration, and manually removed ALL 3 switches.
Removed the HubZ as the Hub.
Then, unplugged the HubZ, then plugged in the Zooz. (diff port) .
Immediately added in the Zooz thru zwave integration, as it found it and listed it when I tried to ADD a HUB, then I went right into exclusion mode, and clicked each light as you are supposed to. Only 2 seconds and each one excluded.
Then, went into zwave integration, and added devices, it found all 3 at once. So, I added each to the dashboard as a single, toggled them on-off till i found which one was operating, then went into its info and renamed it to the entity according to the picture I took.
That set up all my zwave devices, all automations work. (tested quite a few first)
So then, plugged IN my Hubz again. Also, same time, I plugged in my skyconnect.
Then went to ZHA, chose migrate radio. Following the prompts, it asked about migrate to new radio (yes) make a backup (yes) then it did its thing. 42 Zigbee devices, only took a minute or two to finish.
ZHA asked if I wanted to restore new radio from a backup, I said yes, it showed the one it just did. Took a minute to run.
Then, unplugged the HubZ stick, now done with that.
ZHA popped up an error about did I meant to change the ieee on the radio, and prompted to keep changes, or restore from a backup. I chose KEEP changes, do NOT restore from a backup, after I just did the restore.
It took about 30 seconds to 1.5 minutes, picked up on everything I had ZHA wise, entities, and now looks like it’s running fine. All names stayed correct.
I’ll give it a few days, and a few runs of the tinkering I do often, but as convoluted as this sounds, it ended up working out exactly like it should.

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