Is z-stick a reliable option? Mine died after few days of use

Got my Z-Stick Gen5 on Amazon. Initial set up on rasp pi + HA w/out any issues. Paired with 2 Zooz switches, two garage sensors - everything seemed to be working perfectly, including automation and status update. Then all of a sudden my automation steps failed - lots of erros in OZW log failing to communicate to nodes which are now marked as dead. I tried reboot and now my /dev/ttyAMC0 is gone.

The next step I tried was re-inserting the stick but it seemed to’ve stopped recognizing the USB device all together. The lights went off too - no ‘disco’ lights, no pairing lights. Not responding to factory reset either.

Did I miss any troubleshooting steps? Perhaps a battery died inside? But it shoudl still recognize it as a USB device (which it did at first, throwing errors like ‘failure to set address’, before it went completely dead on me).

I tried the vendor but it’s been a couple of days and no response so I’m contemplating to return / exchange it.

My question is - should I go with a same make ./ model? Or are there any other option for Raps Pi setup?

I’ve had mine going about 18 months now and no issues. I do not remove it to do the push-button device add; but use the GUI to trigger this.

Perhaps it was wear and tear as sounds like a connection issue…

1 Like

Having /dev/ttyAMC0 disappear is normal. It’s a linux thing.

From the Home Assistant ZWave instructions ( https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/z-wave/installation/ ) – and I recommend reading ALL of that before asking any more questions… there is a section called “Creating a Persistent Device Path” ( https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/z-wave/installation/#creating-a-persistent-device-path ). Follow that to keep your device from “disappearing”.

Mine has been running for … over a year… with no issues.

There are other options for RasPI… HUSBZB-1 is popular… though I’m very happy with my Aoetec.

1 Like

I am familiar with setting up persistent device path. The issue is before home assistant part. What I’m trying to figure out is why all of a sudden non of the lights on the stick light up and why it stopped being recognized by the system (I get device not accepting address N, error -71, which is explained here: https://www.spinics.net/lists/usb/msg02644.html). What’s even more disturbing, after like 50th re-insert the stick blinked green and then solid red. So I did soft reset and disco lights came on - that time the system recognized the stick and it showed up under ‘lsusb’ but that was rather short lived - lights went dead after a minute or so. My senses tell me something is f**ky with hardware (it did freeze on me before - blinking blue went solid blue until i soft-reset it) so prob a good idea to try a new device but I’d rather find a root cause just to make sure it’s not my setup.

What kind of power supply are you using? I have had zwave issues in the past with certain power supplies. This is compounded if you are using a Pi3B+ which sucks more power than the rest of the Pi lineup.

1 Like

It is plugged into my APC UPS 600VA USB charger port which carries 1.5A

I get similar result on my Linux laptop too.

I don’t know that device specifically, but I can tell you I’ve had bad luck connecting mine through any kind of hub (including an internal, motherboard connected “hub”). But, plugged directly into one of the ports of my server (and, previously, a RasPi) it has always worked just fine from day 1.

My advice would be to break it down as simple as possible in a test scenario – directly in to the back of a device loaded with HA. If this is a laptop, make sure you’re using a regular USB port and not a “charging” port. And don’t use any kind of extension cable, hub, or anything else in between the ZStick and your USB port. If this doesn’t work, send it back… it’s probably bad/broken. If it does, then add back layers of complexity, one at a time, until you figure out which piece of that puzzle is causing the issue.

Also, as a side note, you don’t need UPS for the ZStick. If the HA server is also on UPS, the USB ports will remain powered and you’ll be fine. If it’s not, then HA will be down with a power outage anyway, however, if you have zwave only associations setup, the ZStick has it’s own internal battery that will last quite a while and allow the zwave controller to keep doing controllery things (as long as HA isn’t needed for them, since HA would be down).

Sorry i thought you asked what type of power supply does my rasp pi have so I mentioned Im using UPS charging port to powert it. Z-stick is (well, was - sent it back, waiting for a new one) plugged directly into one of the RPI’s USB ports. 1.5A is what UPS port offers and it should be enough to power 3B+

Rpi 3+ should be powered with 2.5 A to be stable.

Sorry looked up wringm UPS. I have BE850M2 which puts out 2.4A which, I think, is close enough to make RaspPi happy (considering I’m only using one USB port - at least I did not see any undervoltage warnings).

I have a Pi3 with just a z stick gen 5, and use a 2.4A supply with no problems.

My zstick has been working fine for a couple of years now.

1 Like

You’ve got connector problems and the stick is loosing contact and power.

To test this plug the stick into a laptop or other machine USB port and see if it starts powered up with disco lights or not…

1 Like

Yes, I figured that much and thats why I shipped it back. Replacement arrives today.