Is Zwave in HA really that fragile?

Configuration
1

I have been stuggling for quite some time now to get ha setup and ready with zwave.
I am switching from Fibaro since my old hc2 died, so I have only zwave devices here (appr 60psc), of which most are Fibaro. I use an Rpi B and Aeotec dongle, with usb connected ssd drive (no sd card installed). Installed it with latest image.

But regaring those zwave devices:

  • I notice including is not always as smooth as it should be. Many times I have to add devices twice, to be able to get all entities available. Remove/Include. And I even had to remove a device manually from the register files twice, before I could add it again.
  • Also I noticed that patientce is key. Very often it just takes very long for devices to show up. Under entities they show up much quicker, which is a bit confusing to me.
  • Many time changes do not reflect and I have to reboot the pi or sometimes only the ha server.
  • Booting (and especially shutdown) takes ages. This is very annoying during the configuration of these devices, since I have to reboot quit often.
  • Since I have been adding more and more devices, it now starts loosing some of them after a reboot. I have then to remove and re-add them (again).
  • While adding more and more devices, the (re)boot times go up very quickly. Sometimes it takes 5 minutes for zwave to be ready.
  • Then they get all weird names and renaming each entitity one-by-one is really a burdon. Later I noticed that for some device you can do a batch rename from the devices tab, but this does not apply always.
  • Some light show up as switches and I have to make templates to basicly create copies?

So in short the questions,

  • Is HA really capable of running a full house of zwave powered devices. I think it all runs a bit messy
  • Is it the RPi that is holding things down. (I did notice it runs much quicker I switched to the ssd, but now booting becomes slow again).
2

I have been using Zwave for 5 years. Initially using a Smarthings HUB.
Using HA since 0.5 with a house full of Zwave devices (42 switches,dimmers, sensors, etc). I use a Aeon Zwave Stick. Initially using RPi 3+ and for the last 4 months a Rpi 4.
Booting from SSD, logging to MariaDB running in another Linux box.
I also have 9 Zigbee devices using deCONZ and 14 WiFi devices (for far away devices since home is on 3 acres)
Zwave and Zigbee networks are extremely reliable.
Be patient when adding new Zwave devices. Always remove from network before adding to HA.
Yes, cleaning up and renaming initial configuration is kind of a pain, but once it is all done, it should be very stable.
As far a reboot time, it does take my setup 3+ minutes for all devices to be initialized, but that is the nature of a ZWave network.
MAKE SURE that the Zwave network is fully initialized before rebooting HA. Weird shit has happened to my config in the past by doing that.
Lastly, the RPi 4 made a significant overall performance difference.
Good luck.

3

sounds like you are adding battery devices. When you add a battery device, it only stays “awake” for a few seconds. If HA hasn’t finished querying that device yet, you will not see all of the entities. You need to wake it up a few times (usually there’s a button to wake it for a few seconds).

Clarify what you mean by “changes do not reflect”

Yes, that’s just the way it is. They are working on a new zwave integration that will help this, but do not expect that anytime soon.

Anything that is on/off only will be a ‘swtich’ anything that is dimable/colors shows up as a ‘light’

I run almost 60 devices in z-wave on my HA setup - works great. Been using it for two years+. A faster computer will not improves the z-wave start time. That is just a limitation of the openzwave and the inherent low bandwidth nature of the protocol.

4

I’ve got some battery zwave motion sensors… they are very quiet, so quiet ha zwave always shows them as disconnected and never fully initialised… however they’ve never missed a beat, every motion detection makes it to HA. As stated above zwave and zigbee are generally rock solid fire and forget… though its my general feeling that zigbee as a protocol is slightly more polished or just better implemented.

5

Thanks all for the replies.
I have been finalizing adding my zwave devices last weekend, which is not as easy as it seems. But I got there. At last I took backups of the ZStick, created a new snapshot and rebooted a final time. And I have to say, now that the ‘difficult’ ZWave stuff is done, the rest of the system is quite stable and responsive. Luckily adding all devices should be a one-time job.

Oh, and ps, do not forget to heal your network as final step. This solved some smoke and door sensor range issue’s for me.

Now up to automation’s and bring the house back to life.

6

This. Don’t overlook this.

1 Like