Completely new to HA, but have acquired 1 RPI with Silicon Lab UZB-7 stick (SLUSB001A) for testing purposes. My plan is to evaluate HA and possibly migrate existing Domoticz installation (2022.2) running on RPI with OpenZWave USB (actually an old Z-Wave.Me top from 2016) running 24 Z-Wave nodes.
Looks as if the HA installation is ok. Silicon Labs stick has been upgraded to 7.18.8 firmware. Have added Z-Wave JS UI (3.4.2) and I’ve removed Z-Wave JS which I after some googling discovered was not needed.
I’m trying now to include a Fibaro Motion Sensor (FGMS-001) but unfortunately the inclusion times out.
Is having 2 Z-Wave controllers within the same area ok even if both would run as primary controllers? The network they control is different so I’d assume they don’t interfere with each other?
Any way to see if the UZB-7 stick is actually trying to do the inclusion? Z-Wave statistics shows a lot of Message TX and RX. All other counters is 0.
Running multiple Z-Wave controllers is perfectly normal. I run 3 in my environment.
Have you tried excluding or factory resetting the device? Even from the factory devices may be included into a network. If that does work verify the region on your controller is correct.
Thanks for your reply. I can’t find it in the old Domoticz network, nor does exclusion from that network seem to have any effect. RF Region is set to Europe.
Yes that is fine, but even though Z-Wave has longer range and is not as sensitive to EMI/RMI/EMF interference as other IoT protocols (such as Zigbee/Thread/Bluetooth) you should still take actions to avoid keeping the Z-Wave Controller close to sources EMI/RMI/EMF interference as well as make sure you have enough Z-Wave repeaters on the network before adding battery-powered devices.
So a general tip is to begin by connecting the Z-Wave Controller via long USB extension cable to get it away from any other electronics or things with electrinicity which might be a source of EMI/RMI/EMF interference (including the computer running Z-Wave JS). For Z-Wave is is normally OK to not use a long USB extension cable with the Z-Wave Controller once you added enough Z-Wave repeaters on the network to extend range and coverage.
Otherwise the best practice tip for any mesh networking based technology is to always begin by first adding mains-powered Z-Wave products that act as Z-Wave repeaters, starting at locations close to the Z-Wave Controller then working your way out as the network mesh is built out.
I originally tried upgrading from an Aeotec Z Stick Gen 5 (Z-Wave 500) Controller to an imported Silicon Labs UZB-7 USB Stick (Silabs SLUSB001A / SLUSB7000A) myself a few years ago and got the same symptoms, but at that time I ended just buying an Aeotec Z-Stick 7 (Z-Wave 700 Controller) which had just been released then. Later I however learned that there have been issues with some firmware updates resetting “RF Region” and “TX Power Level” settings on Z-Wave 700/800 controllers. It will not work if those are wrong or way off. So several other people got it to work find with those configured correctly for their RF regions.
So recommend that you doublecheck that it still have the correct “RF Region” and “TX Power Level” settings is configured after any firmware update, (you can for example check with , and I believe “TX Power Level” default should be around 127 dBm for Normal and 0 dBm for Measured in Europe for Z-Wave 700/800 controllers).
FYI; there are more discussion about that and the Silicon Labs UZB-7 USB Stick dongle specifically here:
Be aware that there is currently a bug in all current Z-Wave Controller 7.19 - 7.21 firmware, so good thing that you did not update to anything later than 7.18 for now. See/follow that FW issue here:
@cornellrwilliams, do you run multiple controllers on the same Z-Wave network (i.e., primary/secondaries)? Tips or tricks for device inclusion on the secondaries?
Each controller is it’s own network. Z-Wave JS v13.3.0 added support for learn mode which allows you to setup home assistant as a secondary controller.
I have setup home assistant to act as a secondary controller before but I used the Z-Wave PC Controller software to do so. The main things I had to do to get it working was make sure I was using the correct security keys and setup associations so that my devices know to report updates to the primary controller and the secondary controller.
I have now 1 Aeotec Z-Stick 7, but have now 50 devices connected, sometimes i have delay and need to add about 10 devices extra, would it be a solution that i buy a second Aeotec Z-Stick 7 and devide the devices over the 2 sticks or what would be a good solution? i know it’s a lot devices so need a good solution so that i can reduce the delay.
The delay is likely because your network has too much traffic on it. Figure out which devices have the most RX and adjust the devices configuration to reduce transmission. There are many threads on this forum that describe how to do that and what to look for.
Hi Cornell, read this with interest. Is there actually a simple way to attach a new HA instance to an existing ZWave network without using the SI PC Controller method? I was unable to find any reference to this “learn mode” and how to do this in HA (n00b here coming from ST).
They added support for learn mode but there is currently no ui element to use it. Are you trying to connect a usb z-wave controller to your smart things network and be able to use them both at the same time?
Yes. Like you did, I’m starting the migration to HA from ST. I just brought up HA under VBox and I have 2 sticks (a Zooz 700 and 800) hanging around - I can use either in HA right now. The process I’m considering (please weigh in) is to start by registering a stick for HA as secondary for my Zwave devices, getting the automations I need ready in HA, shutting off routines in ST as they move over and get tested in HA, then moving groups/all from ST by reworking their SUC/SIS to HA using SI PC.
From watching your videos, it seems like I should be using SI PC with the USB stick I’ll be plugging into HA and basically adding that stick to all my devices as a secondary controller. Looks like a lot of “delicate” work (you make it seem like you can do it in your sleep). I tried (my luck just weeks after custom device integrations were removed from ST) to add the 700 stick in SI PC as a device in the ST network so it would get all the traffic, but that failed to register S2 into ST Zwave mesh, so gave up on that path. I saw this “learn mode” and was hoping for a shortcut.
Here is a written guide that someone made that shows how to add a secondary controller to smart things so that you can update the firmware of your Z-Wave devices. You can download the PC controller software from here https://homeseer.com/updates4/SmartStick-G8-Updater-7.22.2.zip Once you include your controller as a secondary controller you need to click on the shield icon in the PC controller software then copy the security keys over to home assistant.
Hi Cornell, thanks for writing back. I already have the SL Zwave PC Controller installed on a PC. I’m using a Zooz 800 USB controller on the PC, and a Zooz 700 controller in HASS. Guessing I need to replace the 700 with the 800 into HASS when I set it up as the new secondary?
Hi Cornell. Just an update. I am running ZW JS UI with 41 devices, all on the same ZW homeID as ST. The devices all seem to be alive and well in ST, and ST is behaving normally. However, HAOS is not. It seems that ZW JS auto-added the controller as a second controller to the groups of devices that supported more than 1 controller! This was a surprise. The problems I am having are:
Interview nodes – I was able to finally get 100% of the nodes to green COMPLETE interview status. I found that restarting ZW JS or restarting the VBox VM (ACPI) or even switching the logging level in settings causes ZW JS to flag ALL nodes offline (40 of 41 devices not ready – i.e. everything except the Zooz stick). Looking at the debug log while it comes up, I could see ZW JS pinging all nodes, getting responses, etc. and logging ping successful/the node is alive. However, HAOS shows them all offline and the Interview status is back to red PROTOCOLINFO for all of them and just sits spinning. On the network map, everything looks fine, and I can ping/do anything – the only way to get them back online in Dashboard is to re-interview the entire network aaaargh - this can’t be right!
Even after all are successfully interviewed and green COMPLETE, I can see invalid states on HAOS that are not in sync with ST - even on nodes that have the added group node for the new HAOS controller.
Looking at the controller stats on UI, I do see a few dropped commands/messages to the controller. Mostly this seems to be high numbers when the full re-interview of all nodes is going on. I assume it’s because the ST controller might be chiming in.
HAOS is way too unreliable right now to migrate over.
Did you copy over your security keys from smart things and setup associations? Some devices will need to be woken up to perform the interview process as well as to update the associations. I will do some testing later tonight to see if I have any tips.
First I put the Zooz 800 stick into PC Controller from Silicon Labs, and I joined the stick as a S2 security device into ST. Then I scanned all devices on the network, and the stick identified them as S2. I tested several of the devices from PC Controller and I could control them fine. I copied the security keys from the PC Controller software into HAOS ZWave JS UI and configured the stick there. It was able to interview all devices, including the ones that are S2, and control them, and receive status information from all of them.
Thanks for thinking about this, Cornell! Appreciate it.
I’m not sure about your question about copying security keys from ST, btw. Remember I’m trying to run HAOS side by side with ST while i get it stable and start to migrate my routines. At that point i plan to shut down the current primary ST controller and remove it from all nodes, then make my Zooz 800 stick primary and SIS/SUC.
