Firmware updates?

Home Assistant is a volunteer based system. No one knows when it will be added until someone says “Hey I’m going to add that”.

FYI the ZWaveJS2MQTT addon can update firmware. If you went with the ZwaveJS addon, you’ll have to attempt to swap over to ZwaveJS2MQTT in order to use it there.

I know all of that. Well, I bravely followed the advice of HA to go ZwaveJS at the time, when the deprecation of the Zwave addon was announced.
It was a painful migration back then and I do really hesitate to make such switch again. Everything works now for months and I’m afraid to touch it.
If it then was clearly marked somehow, that the MQTT version is way better, I had made different choice.

Well, on the roadmap of ZwaveJS the firmware updates are marked as WS API ready, awaiting frontend changes. What does that mean? It feels to me like - we are close… But as said, it’s months like this now.

Understand me correct, I’m not pushing anyone to work harder. I’m just trying to find information, which I do need to make the right choices.

If it is a question of some weeks of waiting, I choose waiting, not touching a working system.
But if it could be years, I do have to regret, I did follow the advice of HA, and start the next migration again…

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It means someone needs to add the control into the UI.

Because we have very few frontend volunteers.

:man_shrugging:

You’re asking an un answerable question. It could be weeks, months, or years.

I guess we’re stuck - unless we have the will and the nerve to ‘migrate’ from ZWaveJS to ZWaveJSMQTT. The threads on that subject are a mixture of “it should go ok if you do all these steps correctly” and the occasional horror story of losing all the device/entity names and having to pound them all in again by hand. My Zwave setup is currently working and I’m not going to mess with it.

The US is experiencing massive job turnover and developers are in short supply. So, many volunteer projects are probably all but dead and for now. HA is what it is and its future progress may be a lot slower than the recent past.

HA is working well for me but at this point I won’t invest further in ZWave devices because of the lack of diagnostics and utilties in ZWaveJS.

One alternative would be to run HA on a Windows system where the Silicon Graphics ZWave utilities are available.

Another alternative would be if a knowledgeable person wrote a solid and clear guide for migrating to ZWaveJS MQTT .

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@railrene supplied this link to switch from JS to JS-MQTT, but the documentation is not for HAOS 7.6. I added some tips to the discussion Zwavejs2mqtt OTA firmware upgrade?

Which kind of brings up a pet peeve of mine, Commenters making claims like zwavejs2mqtt supports OTA update (Over the Air) of other nodes but not explaining how. We’re here to learn, not to be lectured. Another pet peeve is Software Updates without documentation … No job is done until the paperwork is finished.

Another question, How does one know when the firmware update process is complete?

OSD

Sorry, never done it. Just know it exists.

This is my question as well - how to?

For unknown reason the option is not shown in Zwave2mqtt

any ideas?

From the picture, looks like you are under the advanced menu of the controller.
Use the green advanced button under nodes instead. You likely will see a different menu.

BTW how did you manage to get the hex file for this MultiSensor 6?

Maybe Qubino is different, but I got mostly Fibaro and they refuse to supply firmware files. So although I’m on zwavejs2mqtt i’m dead in the water as well. Fibaro requires you to use their Homecenter (lite) to do the update. Some shops will also do it for you, but that means you have to physically and logically take it out.

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@petro
In regard to your comment Home Assistant is a volunteer based system. This could be argued as a yes and no comment. It is open source and a lot of people voluntarily contribute to it, but there is a significant core staff of paid employees in Nabu Case now that work on Home Assistamt.
I know, I am being pedantic :slight_smile:
That said, I agree with your sentiments on it. I am looking forward to OTA Firmware becoming a part of the core Zwave JS integration.
@Edwin_D
There are a few manufacturers who refuse to give out their firmware files. In that case we are a little bit stuck. For people with devices from companies that will not supply firmware files, maybe we should name these companies so people can be aware. Maybe enough noise about it will make them change their mind and release the files. :slight_smile:

It’s coming next release. A volunteer decided to add it.

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That is a lot sooner than I expected to be honest. That is quite amazing news because it is one of the few features still missing from what is otherwise a very well implemented Z-Wave integration.

Ok, I’ll repeat it then :slight_smile: For those making choices on what equipment to buy, it is relevant to know that Fibaro refuses to hand out firmware update files. They force you to use their Smart Home controller to update devices OTA. So if you want to update the firmware, you are forced to exclude the device from HA and find some one with a Homecenter (lite) to do it for you. There’s also no way that I’m aware of to find out if newer firmware exists and why. Release notes seem to revolve around Homecenter itself.

Jasco use to be very bad at handing out firmware, but I think they may have softened slightly after Linus from Linus Tech Tips called them out on it

But, on the other side, Fibaro’s products are of very high quality and mostly work fine with original firmware. Mention worthy.

After almost two years with Fibaro products in my home I never had any issue, that has to be solved with firmware update.

So buy or not to buy? If it’s on me, it’s still a YES.