Can you elaborate?
I think @rafale77 succeded in migrating Vera to Z-Way (backing up and restoring to UZB dongle) and then configuring openluup with z-way.
Openluup should expose the same API as Vera, thus you should be able to use Vera HA integration with openluup.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find a docker implementation of openluup to test and I do not have yet a valid z-way license (still to buy, when it will be useful for me)…
Not just me but a number of us in the other forum have succesfully transferred our vera z-wave network to z-way and our vera automations and plugins to openLuup, then connected openluup to z-way through the z-way bridge and de-facto obsoleted the vera without losing anything.
Hi rafale, im going to try to replace my vera secure with a rpi 4 and razberry v2 z-wave controller, what’s the best way to transfer it if i like to run open luup? (i dont have the usb stick and i have no clue on how open luup work or how to install it, but i need to replace my vera since to many of my new zwave devices is not supported. kan you give me some assistance maby a step by step? im guessing open luup still is the best way if im using homeassistant on a separate hub? //Regards
Hi @seiken,
With a razberry, and no uzb, you will have to rebuild your zwave network from scratch unfortunately. The only we had to transfer the network data from the vera is to plugin a uzb stick in the vera and play a trick on the vera to restore its data on the uzb dongle instead of its internal zwave chip.
As for your second question, if you are going to go with z-way, you can either wait for homeassistant integration or if you are very invested in the vera with scenes and plugins, openLuup is the way to go.
That is a dead end I think… contacted the developers long time ago and opened a feature request here onthoud forum and on theirs… dead… my horse to bet on is currently jsopenzwave although qtopenzwave also works “well”.
Hi thank för the reply, I never want to have zwave on the same hub as homeassistant again, had way to mutch problems and I like that I can restart ha without affecting zwave network. Ok il get a USB. can I transfer from that USB to razberry if I plugg the USB in to rpi? You talked about paring razberry with vera and doing this way, is that not possible any more?//regards
Technically you can but I would not recommend it. You can run multiple controllers on the same network actually, I had z-way and vera run together to observe and compare behaviors for quite some time, the vera primary and the uzb as secondary. You can also run a controller shift which will move the primary role to a secondary controller. The reason why I don’t recommend this is because I have a number of zwave devices which did not take this well. They had their Lifeline association hardcoded to be device node 0 and would refuse to change. I think you could potentially change it using z-way which has the right zwave commands to do things like these but I forgot if I tried it this way.
The Lifeline association is the most elementary association every zwave device uses to report their status back to the master controller.
I would also recommend the uzb over the razberry: the uzb has a better antenna, better range, and gives you the possibility to move to other devices in the future.
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Hi @rafale77 - I’m also working towards replacing 2 Vera+ hubs connected to Home Assistant. The Vera’s are only providing Z-Wave connections and a serial/ftdi connection to a security system. All automation logic is handled by HA and I have no need for OpenLuup.
I just installed a RaZberry with Z-Way to try out to see if I can get it to work with the new HA Z-Wave-JS server running on a RasPi3 separately from HA. But it’s looking like I was premature in expecting compatibility. Oh well, only out $21 (yes, it’s that cheap now).
I’m aware of the great work you have done with the “Nuke-Vera” process. Is there a possibility that the Z-Wave-JS Server could run on this nuked Vera and support its Z-Wave?
I have been watching zwave-JS with great interest and it looks like an already pretty advanced and promising project. I would think that the nuked vera, providing a generic zwave serial API should work like any USB stick. I have not tested it myself since I have now completely replaced it with a uzb and z-way having been rock solid, I am not especially motivated to test either. Is there not a port parameter in Z-waveJS?
The Z-Wave-JS server has a “device” option…
Option
deviceThe device address of your Z-Wave controller.
In most cases this looks like one of the following:
"/dev/serial/by-id/usb-0658_0200-if00""/dev/ttyUSB0""/dev/ttyAMA0""/dev/ttyACM0"
What would be the /dev syntax for port 333 on the rafale-enanced Vera?
Also, referring back to the OP for Z-Way support - having Zwave-JS server running on a RaZberry/Pi with ZWay support seems like it would be feasible for a nice little external Z-Wave hub for HA.
Ok it looks like you are missing one step:
On the vera (or any remote zwave bearing device) the following is happening:
Zwave chip -> serial port -> IP:port
On the receiving end:
IP:port -> serial port -> serial API client (zwave-JS)
zwave-JS is looking for the serial port (just like HA). Did you setup the bridge? the one typically used is socat. This is exactly the same thing you should have done with the previous setup. The /dev/*** is the serial port address on your linux system where you had setup socat to forward the IP:port to and should be exactly the same as what you used in home assistant if you did not change the socat setup.
Thanks for explaining the need for a socat bridge! This is all new to me, and I only just set up ZWay/RaZBerry image today for testing and just have it communicating with a few test devices. It’s really impressive the management control you have, especially compared to Vera.
I’m still researching my options if I really want to dive into this. I was first trying to find out if anyone has undertaken this before. The HA docs don’t cover it, and says installing the server component is very advanced and “out of scope”.
Option 4: Run the Z-Wave server yourself
This is considered a very advanced use case. In this case you run the Z-Wave JS Server or zwavejs2mqtt NodeJS application directly. Installation and maintaining this is out of scope for this document. See the Z-Wave JS server or zwavejs2mqtt GitHub repository for information.
It seems the path of least resistance is to just get a supported ZWave dongle to plug directly into the HA server running Z-Wave-JS.
Well,
it all depends on how large your network is. Arguably it is much easier to setup socat than it is to start inclusion from scratch for 20+ network item. You can search quite easily how you can set this up with the old home assistant component. It is actually completely identical. I don’t quite understand how you managed to have HA work with your vera previously without setting up socat.
As for setting up Z-waveJS, I can’t help very much. It does take a bit of learning I am sure. I am certain that there is a docker container path which people will say is easier. Just not to me and it seems.
quick search for vera socat in the forum:
Until https://github.com/home-assistant/addons/pull/1835 gets merged I made a custom add on that allows tcp over serial with zwave JS
tcp://IP:port
you can add the addon repository here:
@rafale77 and @rabittn This is the first time that I have heard a solution that includes using: socat, ser2net or usbip. I hope that I understand you correctly, I am touching wood right now? You are saying, that I will be able to talk to my USB ZStick over IP via Socat with Z-waveJS in the near future? Or maybe I can even consider doing the conversion to Z-waveJS sooner?
I currently have the following setup running Home Assistant Core with the legacy Z-Wave version, and Socat running as a client configuration on my VM:
[Unit]
Description=Z-Wave Remote Client
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/socat pty,link=/dev/ttyUSB61,nonblock,raw,echo=0,ignoreof,waitslave,user=homeassistant,group=dialout,mode=660 tcp:raspberrypi10.cognoquest.org:4001
Restart=always
StartLimitInterval=0
StartLimitBurst=0
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
If I understand correctly @rafale77 and @rabittn that Z-waveJS runs as a Service and can be configured to use the Socat serial port pipe out to encapsulate the stream of data over IP?
Client (Linux VM) Configuration::
Home Assistant (Service) --> Z-waveJS (running as a Service?) --> Socat (Service)
Server (Raspberry Pi) Configuration:
Socat (service) --> ZStick
The current community add on for zwavejs2mqtt: https://github.com/hassio-addons/addon-zwavejs2mqtt
Will allow Home Assistant to connect directly to your socat server with zstick
Hopefully soon the official add on will also support this. You will not need to run Socat on the Home Assistant VM at all.
@rabittn, hmm interesting are you saying that they are building there own solution to encapsulate the stream of data over IP? You also need a Server Service/Process such as what I have: Socat but on the Server side this time, see above: Server (Raspberry Pi) Configuration.
[Unit]
Description=Z-Wave Server Controller
After=network-online.target
[Service]
Type=simple
#User=hass
ExecStart=/usr/bin/socat tcp-l:4001,fork,reuseaddr,keepalive,nodelay file:/dev/ttyUSB60,nonblock,raw
Restart=always
StartLimitIntervalSec=0
StartLimitBurst=0
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
I believe both side must go hand and hand? My fear from the beginning with this solution is they don’t decouple it and I am left with no solutions.
Note: Here is an example of a solution that in the past has not worked for me: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/call-for-testing-ozwdaemon/20970/4