Hello,
I am converting my z-wave network (with something like 100 nodes all together) to HA.
At the moment I do have 2 z-wave sticks (aeotec 5 en 7). That is because on other fora it is said that the maximum one stick can handle is about 50 (technically something like 255, but in practicemore than 50 should be problematic, network should be messed up).
Can anyone confirm that 50 is the maximum, or can 1 stick handle up to 100-150 nodes without any problems?
It depends. You’re mixing reasons.
Technical. 232 nodes max. (controller + 231 clients) that’s in the ZWave standard.
Now the matter of ~50 devices. That’s ENTIRELY up to you, what devices you have and how they’re configured. Basically it comes down to traffic.
Do you have nodes that are chatty? Power meters are notorious for saturating a network with messages - you need to plan reports. I once had a well running 120 node network come to its knees because someone added ONE metering plug sending power reports hundreds of times per minute.
Do you have nodes using S0_legacy security? S0 has 3x the communication overhead as No security or even S2. This is the reason recent versions of ZwavejsUI changed the colors in the tables to specifically highlight S0 nodes. I’ve never been able successfully run more than ~40 S0 nodes on a network before saturation just makes all communications come to a crawl (10+ second wait times)
For this reason, I don’t include devices securely unless I HAVE to. Locks, portals, security system components.
So what KIND of devices and how they get included has a lot to do with the answer to your question.
Hello,
Thanks for your explanation.
I do have almost all nodes non-secure connected.
Most are motion detectors, window/door sensors and switches for lights etc. But some of them do have power metering.
Sounds like it should be tricky to set them all to one controller.
But then the next question: can I add more than 1 controller to HA?
Two coordinator sticks Not easily. You would need two separate instances of whatever software is running zwavejs or zwavejsui
If it’s one physical location I wouldn’t bother and just make sure your stuff is setup correctly. I run 150 nodes daily with very few issues. And I’ve done it on multiple vendor’s sticks. The headache of setti g up a non-standard configuration to run two sticks for a problem you likely don’t have is not worth it IMHO.
‘the juice isn’t worth the squeeze’
Thanks, I am going to try!