Is it Z-Wave or just me?

Configuration Z-Wave
1

So, back when I ran on Lowe’s Iris (which was zigbee based), I had a very simple door chime automation set up that worked reliably. Open door, keypad goes beep. Of course, Lowe’s probably sells more candy bars in a given day than they ever did home automation equipment, so we all know how that went.

When I moved to Hubitat, it seemed like switching to z-wave was a no-brainer. But I could never quite get the door chime to work reliably. Delays, double-chimes, missed chimes - it was kinda useless. Given the issues they had with hub lockups in their first generation, I blamed Hubitat and eventually moved to HA. By that point, the Iris keypads wouldn’t pair anymore, so I went through some struggles to find anything that would just make a simple chime - Aeotec doorbell to the rescue, but I had the same problems. I had to claim like 6 warranty repairs on that thing, so I blamed that for the ongoing problems I had with this simple automation. I tried some alarms and various other chines, but there was always some plausible reason why this wouldn’t work reliably. Then the Ring keypad was released - finally a good z-wave+ option for a chime! But then the notorious z-wave bug was identified and with the controller locking up constantly, it was easy to assume that was the reason I continued to have the same problems. We also had a child somewhere in there so my HA efforts paused for a while.

Now that I have a little more time and the z-wave bugs are supposedly fixed (and my child is just old enough that I really want notified if a door is opened), I decided to get this working. I bought a bunch of Zooz 800-series door/window sensors, upgraded my zooz controller to the 800-series with the newest firmware, paired the Ring keypad… and I’ve still got the same problems. Sometimes it’s lightning fast. Sometimes it’s 3-5 seconds before I hear the chime. Sometimes it’s lost. I have the problems if I try z-wave motion sensors to control lights - sometimes I’ll be standing in front of the zooz motion sensor, saving and tapping on it before the light kicks on (my Samsung Zigbee motion sensor has worked for years without a hitch).

I tried using the VAPE as my chime (fully expecting it to be slower) and it’s no better. I tried the Ecolink alarm/chime and it’s comically quiet but also didn’t help. I tried Ring Z-wave door sensors and those haven’t helped. I realized that the only piece of equipment I didn’t replace entirely was the Aetoec HDSS, so I unpaired that, turned off reporting on my other z-wave plugs, and removed some repeaters and rebuilt the network a bunch of times. Still the same delays/missed chimes.

This problem has followed me across 2 platforms (3 if you count openzwave to zwavejs), 3 different trigger devices, 5 different chime devices, and even 2 houses. The ZwaveJS UI shows a decent mesh. I do see a fair number of tx/rx errors, but I can’t find any info about what is considered “good” - some devices have zero errors, some have maybe 5%. At this point there are only Zooz and Ring Zwave 700/800 devices on my network. Debug logs aren’t showing traffic more than once every 10-30 seconds.

I see a handful of posts about similar issues, but they’re usually framed as new issues, and I see just as many comments about how great zwave is, so I’m really stumped as to what my problem can be. Several commercial platforms are z-wave based, so I can’t imagine it’s really “supposed” to have these delays, but then again, I might not notice the delays if I only had smartplugs and locks.

So, my question is - Am I really just the most unlucky z-wave user in the world, and I just need to try to start over yet again? Or, is this the best I can expect from z-wave and I should just try to get a zigbee solution going again?

Oh, and kind of a tangent, but if I do start over, what’s the opinion on pairing edge devices like door/window via the mesh vs. activating LR mode and trying to pair straight to the controller?

Thanks for any insights!

2

Can I ask what type of security you use? I had nothing but trouble when using S0 security. That is so bad because it requires way too many bandwidth and is extremely sensitive to interference because of it. Since I found out and avoided that at all cost (on two different home automation systems and different coordinators) everything is rock solid.

Also note that long range is not per se better on range in the sense that all connections need to be with the main controller. So while individual connections can be longer range, effectively you loose the mesh benefitt and with it resilience.

3

I’ve removed the only S0 device that I had (the Aeotec HDSS). Everything left on my network is currently S2 with SmartStart. I’ve considered doing everything with no security, but I haven’t seen anyone report specific problems with S2 security.

And yes, I understand the trade off of losing the mesh for LR, which is why I wouldn’t use it for smart plugs, but I’m wondering if it could be a worthwhile tradeoff for the open/close sensors.

4

My experience with door contact sensors…
Bad: Any zwave sensor
Good: aeotec zigbee door sensor
Better: aqara zigbee door sensor
Best: Konnected + wired sensor

I burned the free Konnected software on an esp8266 and hooked up 4 wired contact sensors to four doors. Wiring them was a chore, but it has been lightning fast and rock solid for 2+ years.

I have 40+ mains powered zwave devices, but never had great luck with zwave for any battery powered devices.

5

Yes.

Your rambling description doesn’t give me a clear picture of your system. I would start over. Get one part at a time working and stable.

My Home Assistant host is an Intel NUC i3, HAOS bare-metal. I have over 100 clients on my network (75 WiFi, the rest wired). Mostly switches and sensors including some DIY. Eight WiFi cameras, about 2 dozen Zigbee things, mostly door-switches. And about a half-dozen Z-wave. Also a sprinkling of 433 MHz buttons and two IR emitters. And it took me a few years to get to this point. My point is that mixed protocols are not a problem.

You mentioned multiple systems, some I never heard of. What are you running Home Assistant on and how did you install it? What Zigbee and Z-wave coordinators do you have?

6

It sounds like a signal strength issue. You didn’t mention how many repeater (line-powered) devices you have, or how far they are from sensors and the keypad. My experience is no more than 30 feet for a good signal. Anything more results in multiple attempts, which manifests as delays. If you do add repeaters, don’t “heal” or rebuild the whole mesh, only do individual devices starting with those closest to the controller.

The keypad also has (had?) an annoying trait of interfering with itself if its motion sensor is active, so a lot of people disable that in properties. I added a 3-second delay (after door open) in my keypad blueprint which seems to avoid collisions most (but not all) of the time.

I have Ecolink and Ring door sensors, along with Zooz motion and water sensors, and they report immediately and reliably every time, so it’s definitely not an inherent zwave problem. I even have the old Zooz siren speaker, which bleeps during the entry delay until I disarm. About three dozen of my 54 Zwave devices are battery powered. It’s worked really really well for me.

7

Depends on the situation I guess if Zigbee is better or not. Z-Wave sensors are definitely not all bad.

I personally replaced most of my Zigbee stuff to Z-Wave, as Zigbee with the SkyConnect was really unreliable. Had many power plugs though the whole house working as repeaters. Still many Zigbee devices suddenly because unresponsive, etc. I had to re-pair to the network a lot. I am not convinced that Zigbee is better. Like I said, it probably depends on the environment you are in.

8

To answer some questions, the “ramble” was more to say that zwave problems have followed me across a number of platforms and situations. I was trying to determine if it should be possible to accomplish what I want before going any further down the rabbit hole.

My current setup is:
ZST39 Controller (on a USB2 extension)
6 x ZSE41 open/close sensor
2 x Ring door/window sensors
2 x zen15 smart plugs
1 x zen20 power strip
2 x ring keypads
2x zac38 repeaters
All zooz equipment is 800-series
N150 mini PC running HAOS and ZWavejs-UI

So, all good, current, name brand equipment. I have a lot of other things I want to reconnect, but ive tried to simplify as much as possible (Ive even rebuilt HAOS a time or two in the past). One of the repeaters is in the same room as 3 of the door sensors and basically every room has a plug or repeater. I am in an area with a fair amount of neighborhood wifi, so that’s why I was looking at Zwave over Zigbee as my primary network.

9

Its good to hear some feedback on basically exactly what I’m trying to build. You mentioned your 3 second delay - are you saying that you always allow a 3 second delay for a door chime (between door sensor trigger and chime activation), or that’s something you built in just for a specific case?

I could believe the keypad is causing some problems. I wish the ecolink siren was more reliable because that would be closer to what I want for the chime. I don’t need a keypad, its just the best chime option I could find.

10

When you check the logs, do you see a lot of network traffic?

I have a ZST39 too. I had a lot of problems that I did not have before on a Gen 5 stick. It was because of a lot of traffic, that my stick became unreliable. Fixing the amount of traffic made the stick and network stable.