Why is it such a pain to get it to pair? I swear every time I try to pair a device it fails a 40 times before it will randomly work. I regret trying to migrate to zwave JS
How long did you wait? Battery operated devices can be a real pain if you want it completely interviewed quickly. I have tested with a few battery operated devices and they are usually fully interviewed in a few hours, if not sooner.
I have waited between 5-30 minutes some times. 0 indication of them actually ever getting paired in the first place.
I have never had an issue with powered devices, battery however, you might want to try keeping it awake by triggering it.
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Any stubborn devices i usually bring up the debug log (zwavejs2mqtt in my case) and you can see when the device goes back to sleep and wake it up. Most devices have some method of waking mentioned in their respective manuals… whether by removing a cover that has a tamper switch or briefly pressing in a pin-hole…
is there any particular type of device you are having trouble with?
Or maybe you can tell us about your network? Any mains powered devices?
Or all battery?
Do you get any kind of errors in the log after attempted inclusion?
This has been with a aeotec gen 5 siren, monoprice outlet, zooz power strip, kwikset lock and go control garage door open. They have all been giant pains.
I haven’t used any of those devices. I’ve not had any trouble at all. As Bartem has said, check you are following the manual as each brand has their own way of pairing, some are single press, some 3 presses…
I follow the manual every time. Heck, the zooz power strip never even goes into pairing mode. You can press ch1 3 times in any pattern it claim quick and it just doesn’t do anything. Go control goes into pairing mode easily but is never found.
Did you already have those devices paired to the controller prior to switching to zwave js?
If so then why did you need to re-pair them?
I use the kiwkset locks and was using the go control door openers
what I found do the exclude first on all the devices you want to pair
the Kiwkset pair best when within a few feet of the hub and it has to be pair with secure to work proper
same goes for the go control the bitch is this thing forgets it has tilt sensors and sometime forgets that is paired secure so the function quits working I fixed this by taking it out of the equation and replaced it with FortrezZ Z-WavePlus MiMO2+ Interface Module and SM-226L-3Q Seco-Larm Overhead Door Mount the sensors are hard wired to the relay so it knows when the door is open or closed
This is usually written into the instructions for all devices, at least the ones I’ve got. Definitely should be done.
I have kwikset lock and go control garage. Couldn’t include initially on ozw until i found out i had to add them as secured devices. Are you including them as secured devices?
My experience with Z-wave was as bad as yours at the beginning, until I found the solution for easy inclusion.
Most of my Z-wave devices are battery powered, and most of the first modules I used were painful to include in my network, while all the wired devices were easily managed.
And I finally understood that the battery powered devices won’t send all nodes information right after the inclusion. You need to wake them up several times to make sure they are fully included in the network, otherwise it can take several sleep periods (and it can be long, default wake-up interval on Fibaro door/window sensors is 6 hours, but on the Popp mold detector the default interval is 7 days ! ) to send all pairing data to the controller.
I could confirm it easily with Zwave-JS and Fibaro FGDW002 sensors. For sensor’s inclusion in the network I had to :
- Set the controller to inclusion mode
- Click 3 times on the FGDW002 module’s button ; the module then appears in the nodes list in Zwave-JS, but has almost no info (node entities) or config option
- Click 1 time on the module’s button ; the infos then starts to populate in Zwave-JS, while the interview status remains in “NodeInfo”
- Click 1 time again on the module’s button ; some more infos are populated in Zwave-JS
- Continue clicking on the button until the interview status shows “Complete” in Zwave-JS control panel
The principle remains the same for re-interviewing the nodes in Zwave-JS. You need to manually wake up the battery powered devices several times until the status shows “Complete”. And devices with more node entities and/or configuration parameters will require more wake-ups to send everything.
Sometimes, when the devices are far from the controller, some failure occurs, the device is then marked as “Complete” while some node entities of configuration parameters are missing. Doing the interview again solves the issue.
Did you try a Factory Reset on it first? If that still does not work Zooz support should be able to assist. You may have a defective device.
yes, I am. I am pairing them as secure
multiple times, that is also a giant pain
If I recall correctly, secure inclusion needs to start after a fresh factory reset and must be completed within 15 seconds according to the standard,
Yep, The bottom line is I have followed every video, manual, documented solution and it never works right. Zigbee is so painless but I would hate to ditch my zwave stuff.
I’ve been down this road through X10, Insteon and Z-Wave and I just simply let attrition take its course. I bought Insteon to replace X10 and all new devices were Insteon until eventually all X10 was dead or replaced in time. I’ve done the same for Insteon to Z-Wave and currently I’m about 50/50 on Insteon and Z-Wave but as an Insteon switch dies or becomes obsolete then I replace it with Z-Wave. I’ve given thought to adding Zigbee but it’s much easier and often cheaper to get Z-Wave devices so I have yet to pull that trigger.
In the end, Z-Wave can sometimes be a pain to set up (and I’ve done full Z-Wave integrations on six different home automation platforms, none are wonderful to integrate) but once it’s done it’s done. I recently migrated to Z-Wave JS and also encountered a number of problems with battery devices but each of my devices has the ability to put it in wake-up mode until turned off - once I did that everything synchronized almost instantly. The whole “go wake it up” didn’t work, I had to take the devices down and force the wake up via the buttons (i.e., quickly pressing the link button on my Fibaro motion sensors 3 times wakes it up for 3 minutes, then they synchronized instantly).
For me, other than the setup, Z-Wave just works and I have no reason to replace it right now. The worst case is having to replace my Z-Stick one day, so I use tools to get a backup to help reduce that pain.
Again it makes no sense. I did use zwavejs to Mqtt and factory reset my zwave stick. Came back today and was able to get everything included minus my dome mouse trap but I haven’t tried that one yet. A web interface does make it easier.