Hello,
I would like to tell you my z-wave story. The initial situation was as follows:
I switched from openhab to HA a year ago. With openhab and a Gen5 stick Z-Wave ran completely smoothly.
With HA this was unfortunately not the case. The biggest annoyance was the “dead node” problem, i.e. that various nodes just died randomly. The problem occurred mainly with the Razberry 7 pro. But I wanted to use it because of the external antenna.
After a year of testing, I finally have a status which is almost perfect. No dying nodes, no delays.
What did I do?
Of course everything is up to date, so the firmware is up to date (SDK 7.20/R7pro & FW1.2/Gen5 stick) and of course always the latest zwave js ui installed. Especially here has improved a lot in the last versions regarding the routes.
I have separated my network into 2 networks, because I had only a medium connection in the basement through the reinforced concrete. Also the 4 hop limit was fully used. So I use two controllers. the maximum distance is only 1 hop. The most nodes reach the controllers directly. Running one instance on a POE HA yellow with the Razberry pro (Background RSSI -110db). The other is running on a PI4 with a AEON Labs Gen5 Stick(Background RSSI -85db).
I have defined a route for almost every node. This is possible since recently in zwave js ui. I have found that with S0 or S2 encryption a speed of 40 kb/s works better than 100 kb/s. This reduces the dropped packets significantly!
I keep having problems with my battery nodes, after a HA Restart (the compleet system restart) there are nodes that show dead for a few minutes/hours and one that never gets back by itself without pressing its wake button.
How did you define your routes? Priority or Return(with or withour priority) routes?
I have found that when i set routes manual for battery nodes they show ‘dead’ even faster and longer
My system is HA Yellow with Z-stick 7 directly in the Yellow USB Port.
I tried everythink i know with the dead nodes, reinterview, replace, reset. They keep ‘dead’ after a restart, but the strange thing is that they do report temperature etc. But still show ‘dead’.
My Background RSSI of the Z-Stick is 107-111
And the extenders show 48-76
Do you maybe have some advice for me or anything i can try to improve my network?
Do you think the grey boxes mean the nodes are “dead”? Z-Wave JS never reports battery devices as dead, their only status is asleep or awake, which you can view in the control panel. The grey boxes just mean the route information isn’t known for those devices. So the problem is the lack of route information, not that the devices are dead, and possibly a UI issue that doesn’t communicate this properly.
I thought indeed they where ‘dead’ or at least have no connection to the controller. But it was strange the temperature was still updating even if they where grey.
Also because some battery nodes where always ‘green’ after a restart i thought the grey ones just could not connect or be ‘found’ bij the controller.
When i wake them manual they turn green in the UI.
Maybe it’s indeed a UI issue…
It’s just weird that always the same ones turn grey and some stay green, they are the same kind of devices, and some even almost next to each other.
