You certainly don’t need a hubitat or smartthings. Just buy a compatible usb stick.
Exactly.
Just buy an Aeotec Z stick or a HUSBZB-1 stick.
The latter has the advantage of having both a zwave and a zigbee controller in the same stick.
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+1 for HUSBZB-1 with OZW
Super fast and has been reliable for the past 6 months after some of the latest updates.
HUSBZB-1 stick looks O.K.
However I see major problem - I have ‘Intel-NUC’ installed in metal box.
So radio signal will be blocked…
I would prefer something with cable/external antenna then I could mount the antenna outside the box…
Strange - but I could not find Z-Wave device with possibility to attach external antenna…
Are there any devices like that?
For Zigbee - I see cheap USB sticks with screw to attach 2,4 GHz antenna… But not for Z-Wave…
Or maybe is that an simple hub with both systems (Z-Wave / Zigbee) + Ethernet.
Then I could put this device somewhere in house…
But then I’m not sure if Home Assistant can ‘catch’ the Z-Wave and Zigbee signals via Ethernet…
Just buy a USB Extender.
That’s expected.
A short one works for me but perhaps that’s why I have slow speeds.
Another positive about a hub is that it doesn’t go down after rebooting the HA Host.
I would switch if I wasn’t such a cheapo.
Yes, this could be fine…
P.S. Also -> here <- some more info about the same issue…
But I could not find EU version of the HUSBZB-1.
Looks like it is obsolete…?
This is a really complex issue like on this xkcd, I will try to explain my understanding of the situation as there is no ideal solution.
HA embedded ZWave is handling everything inside HA - device recognition, messages, entity creation etc. Allows reliable but limited configuration (as it lags behind bleeding edge) and recorded states and values are lost when HA has problems or reboots - everyone knows this happens.
OpenZWave (beta) is pretty well integrated with HA in regard to registering devices and device features but comes with preconfigured mosquitto which can become another broker in your setup if mosquitto is already used for zigbee for example. I noticed excessive CPU usage probably due to ZWAve device logs being generated in docker syslog - not nice for all SD Card owners.
Zigbee2MQTT Zwave2MQTT is another take on OpenZWave, this time with pure ZWave integration with existing MQTT gateway, flexible setup but device configuration and stability is lacking, at least in my experience.
Moreover it seems that ozw developer maintaining the library is overwhelmed with work and some issues might not be fixed in reasonable time.
There is a zwavejs2mqtt project which might fill the gap eventually allowing (again) doing one thing only - converting ZWave devices to MQTT messages but as far as I can see it’s HA integration is limited - please somebody correct me if I’m wrong.
As you can see there is no ideal solution - I personally would not switch HA ZWave for OpenZWave (beta) due to duplicate mosquitto broker, Zwave2MQTT Zigbee2MQTT does not configure my Aeotec Gen5 meter, zwavejs2mqtt seems not HA ready unless manually configured with docker + configs.
A tough choice indeed.
I assume you mean zwave2mqtt?
Its called a usb cable!
I hate that…! Some USB device hanging on some cable through hole from metal box… Terrible from aesthetic point of view…
P.S. Maybe to fix it somehow…?
One might consider running a separate “satellite” ZWave gateway node off Raspberry PI - with just ZWave (and Zigbee) service preconfigured to message a central MQTT broker (HA instance) - this way a small device with 1 or 2 USB sticks can be fit into a plastic box in a central home location, connected using Ethernet or WiFi, solely to run ZWave and Zigbee networks. Something to consider for HA creators as well to make money from selling.
Just a short extension cable to get it away from the back of the NUC… That’s all, nothing crazy.
Yes, but this is another device/PC which need regular service/back-up/updates… Another time-consuming beast…
Thank you… Very clearly explained possible options…
Taking into consideration this and other opinions i just ordered 2-nd hand ‘Vera Edge’.
The price looked very low (~20EUR), so 1st I’ll give a try this option…
Hope this will work.
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Maybe I’m not qualified enough because my network is pretty small. I have 2 Eurotronic thermostats and used the old zwave integration without any problems for 2 years now. A few weeks ago I got a new house, installed 9 Fibaro Roller Shutters and decided to switch to the new ozw addon. The network is incredibly slow. Sometimes it takes up to 30 seconds until a command is send to a device and every few hours my aeotec stick is unavailable. Which results in unavailable devices. I still don’t know why.
The CPU load massively increased and the log is extremely big and flooded with the same messages over and over.
Either the stick didn’t respond in the last 500ms or this stupid USB error although it’s connected to an usb hub and never had this problem before.
There’s no command to heal the network and the owz-admin is unusable on mobile devices.
I’m really thinking about switching back to the old integration. I can’t recommend it in its state now.
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There is. It’s in the ozw-admin tool.
Sorry to hear you’re having trouble. It sounds as though there is something fundamentally wrong in your configuration - you have removed all traces of the previous Zwave integration, I assume? It’s no help, but I’m not seeing any of these issues in my network.
I think a hub is still the best choice at the moment.
For Z-Wave.
Zigbee is pretty solid on HA.
Z-Wave has improved since my last test but it’s not “great” yet.
The latest mainstream effort is still in beta.
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True, but the second node is pretty simple.
This is my favoured approach - Main HA running on a VM in a nice secure server, and a second HA running on a Pi and located in the best RF position (I know ZWave is a mesh, but it definitely works better if the controller is well connected). The second HA node only needs to be running MQTT and OpenZwave (Beta). You then bridge the two MQTT brokers together.
This approach has the additional benefit of isolating the two domains. Given that it is single-function, there should be little or no reason to reboot the Pi, and having it’s own MQTT broker means you can fully reboot the main HA node with no impact on the ZWave network - if you have the remote OpenZwave using the main broker, a reboot of the main HA node will require a reboot of the Pi because the OpenZwave daemon will exit when it loses connectivity.
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