How Z-Wave devices select neighbors?

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Hello,

Can someone explain me how Z-Wave devices select neighbors? Why some of them have one or two neighbors, but the others have five or six neighbors. They all are relatively close. Is there any way to make them connect to more devices?

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Z-Wave is a mesh network. The controller and nodes in the network determine the routing themselves based on how successful they are communicating with each other. Neighbors are first determined when a device is included into the network. With Z-Wave Plus, routes will “self-heal” (using Explorer Frames) and adjust depending on routing failures over time. There is an “heal network” command that updates neighbors for the entire network, but be very careful in using it (see links below).

Here is a pretty good general overview of the Z-Wave network and routing. The routing will ultimately depend on how the radio signals propagate between the nodes (are there walls or other materials in the way, reflections, distances, etc.).

Only always-on devices will be able to route messages to other devices. So introducing these in strategic locations can improve the reliability of the mesh.

You cannot manually adjust the network routes.

Here are some other resources that talk about Z-Wave networks and best practices:

  1. Here is a comment from the OpenZWave developer about network routing and healing networks.
  2. Dr. ZWave’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective Z-Wave Networks for Consumers
  3. Hubitat’s How to Build a Solid Z-Wave Mesh
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