Hi Buddy,
Yes that’s exactly what I did and also un-commented the options file but it hasn’t come up with it being secure. Actually the log said it failed if I remember correctly.
I know my config file is all off at the moment to get it detecting so I am working on that as we speak to make sure that is 100% first before I do more with my sensor.
Thanks
Oh your OZW logins saying failed to secure? If that’s the case, I do remember there was an additional options.xml that I added the security key too. I think it was in the root folder
(EDIT SOLVED)
Hi, i’m sorry to drag this old thread back up. But i’ve encountered this problem to.
I had to reinstall my home-assistant device. The Fibaro wall plug i’m trying to use worked just fine the first time around. Now when i’m adding it it marks as dead almost instant. I have resetted it multiple times. Same result each time. I have added the security tag to every options.xml that I can find. But nothing works. Any idea?
Other devices (battery powered) works just fine. I will try another wall plug soon though
The log can be found here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/575059/log.txt
EDIT: well it seems to be a fibaro problem. I’ve tried one aeotec smart switch v5 which work. But I’ve tried another fibaro wall plug which doesn’t work.
EDIT2: Both fibaro plugs works flawless in openhab… This is really bad I think. I’ve put a lot of effort in to transition to home assistant from openhab, but this will stop all my plans since most of my devices are fibaro wall plugs 
EDIT3: Well now I feel kind of dumb. I moved the fibaro wall plug a bit further away and it now works. It’s pretty strange since it worked on this spot before, it’s pretty close, I can pair it on this spot and the aeotec works on this spot (but it most probably has a better antenna). But now it works all fine and I am able to work around it. Lesson learned 
I had similar issues with a cluster of GE smart switches and window sensors on the side of my house opposite the Zwave stick. They would randomly be marked dead anywhere from 30 seconds to hours after they were added.
The issue turned out to be range apparently. I added a Aeotec home energy monitor that just happened to be located right in the middle between this cluster of devices and the Zwave stick location. This solved the problem immediately. Looking at the network map I could see that all of the far side devices started routing through the energy monitor to reach the z-stick. I eventually added some zwave bulbs to the mix in this “dead space”. This added some more routes for far away devices to route through.
I want to chime in for anyone in the future having similar problems. For me the problem came down to signal strength and node placement.
I just started using z-wave with an Aeotec Z-Stick (gen 5) and a couple GE light switches (12727 and 12729). The switches kept being marked as dead nodes. My z-stick was in my downstairs office, plugged into my raspberry pi 3. The pi was on a high shelf and was almost directly underneath the location of one of the switches in the room upstairs. But apparently the signal wasn’t strong enough through the wood frame floor.
I moved the pi upstairs and both switches started responding reliably. One switch is only a couple feet away from the z-stick, the other is in the room next door, about 20 feet away through a wall. I might get another z-wave light switch to place downstairs near where the pi used to be and see if that helps bridge the gap so I can return the pi to it’s previous location.
But at this point, I’m not impressed with z-wave signal strength. I don’t know if it’s the z-stick or the GE switches. For comparison, I have a cheap TP-link wifi plug that also works with Home Assistant and it was super easy to get working and works very reliably. If I can find wifi light switches to use in place of the z-wave switches, I might do so (as long as they work without an external internet connection).
Yeah I have to agree here.
Now that I’ve added more z-wave devices to my setup, I’m not using a network secure key on my network anymore, and have not run into any issues of powered z-wave nodes marking themselves as dead. I’m guessing the more devices on your z-wave network, the more reliable it becomes.
If you are using locks (Schlage or Yale) you need the secure key, without it you cannot lock and unlock the locks from home assistant. I agree that by having more z-wave devices your network becomes more reliable, since is a mesh network. I had the problem with my lock being dead and I had to remove the batteries and put them back again, so far it has happened once, I keep watching 
I had the same issue that one of the micro switch dead after circuit cut. I restarted the HASS several time and still the same status as Dead on HASS but it was detected fine on the Zwave controller.
I followed the secure z-wave method per https://home-assistant.io/docs/z-wave/ and it’s back online now!
Actually, it doesn’t work well. Restarted HASS, the same node goes back Dead (Cache)
So, I’m having a similar issue that MAY be range related. I have the zwave stick and pi in the basement, about 10 ft above it is my closest zwave ge switch which works flawlessly, then about 30 feet from that is the next ge switch that keeps getting marked dead. It has a few walls between them, but it seems silly that it can’t go 30 feet inside my house. I have a battery powered garage door sensor about the same distance from that switch and it’s been flawless.
Is this extreme range for zwave? Maybe I should pick up a plugin outlet and put it nearby just to test the theory.
Those GE switches are garbage. Cooper makes some good ones. Also Dragon Tech (I believe now sold as HomeSeer).
That was my problem when I was starting at least. Now I have about 30 nodes and things are much better (even the GE).
My two cents:
I also struggled with dead nodes when my z-wave network consisted primarily of GE switches.
As soon as I started adding Homeseer switches to the network, the dead node problem seemed to evaporate. I now have 4 Homeseer switches and 5 GE switches, and now they are ALL reliable.
I’ve been using the GE 14291 In-Wall Smart Switches and GE 12724 3-Way Dimmer Switch, not a single issue with them.
It may be a crucial distinction to differentiate between the GE Z-Wave plus switches like the 14291 and what was available not long ago, the Z-wave NON-plus 12722. My observations are with the 12722 purchased in 2016.
True, I’ve been trying to only purchase switches and such that are labeled zWave+
I have a GE 12721 outlet on the far end of my home that starting getting marked as dead shortly after I removed a GE 45602 lamp dimmer that lived between it and my other z-wave devices. Plugging that dimmer module back in woke the outlet on the far end of my home back up… so, yea.
I’m in the same camp as others… the more z-wave items that you have on the mesh network, the more reliable it is.
I’ve been running in to the Dead issue today. Screenshot attached from HA. The first time it failed it said “Dead (Dynamic)”, now it’s “Dead (Probe)” (after starting fresh).
I’m planning a much larger installation next month and was planning to install probably ~20 new zwave switches, but I’m becoming a bit concerned about the reliability of using zwave along with HA. Maybe I’ve got a bum device or something though.
I have the Gen 5 Aeotec USB stick.
I only have 4 z-wave devices right now, 2 EcoLink door sensors, a Yale lock, and a Linear/GoControl WD500Z-1 Dimmer Switch. I was transitioning over from SmartThings. I had moved the door sensors and dimmer over from ST to HA and it seemed to be working fine (admittedly only for a day or two). The only other zwave device I had was the Yale lock, so I figured I’d move that over to HA as well. I don’t know for sure if it was related, but after adding it the “GoControl” dimmer switch was showing up as dead. The lock didn’t work in HA either (it showed up, but I couldn’t control it).
At this point I realized I had never set up a zwave network key, so I figured I’d start fresh.
I tried removing all the nodes, but HA wasn’t really making success obvious here. I shut HA down, removed the zwcfg_xxx.xml file, removed customizations/entity registry entries, factory reset the Z-stick, and finally I used SmartThings to exclude all devices (using the General Exclusion utility - this is nice because as soon as the device excludes itself the UI on their mobile app shows a confirmation so you know it worked).
I started HA back up, and I was back to a blank Z-Wave canvas. I had a network key properly set now. I added the Yale lock, and control worked. Then I added the dimmer, it added - but I couldn’t control it yet. I added the door sensors back, and one of them works, the other doesn’t. Now, the lock, although it works it is finicky. It will take 10-20 seconds to react and the state doesn’t seem to sync to HA well/quickly either. This was always instant on ST, so I’m thinking I need to do a full reset again and add the dimmer first, then move on from there. Are there any other recommendations for debugging this?
In terms of distances/placement, all devices are basically in a straight line:
Z-Stick … ~10ft to door sensor … ~15ft and 1 wall to Dimmer … ~15ft, no obstructions to Yale lock & door sensor.
Zwave becomes more reliable as you add more line powered devices. Battery powered devices, which make up most of your Zwave network, can not contribute to the Zwave mesh, and can only forward their communication directly to the Zwave hub or to a line powered Zwave device. In your situation, it looks like the powered device may be offline. You might try positioning the HomeAssistant device closer to the Zwave device or the device closer to HA. Zwave is a low powered radio signal and going through walls etc can greatly diminish to signal.
Zwave requires a commitment to build out the mesh. With more line powered devices, they will be able to communicate with each other and forward communication to the hub. Once you have a few more line powered devices, the Zwave network will become very reliable.
Thanks! I have to admit, I didn’t think the distance between the Z-Stick and the powered device (dimmer switch) was such that it would be causing this issue. Given the theoretical range for zwave I thought the ~25ft with 1 wall would be okay, but alas I was wrong. It would seem the dimmer is a bit older and is not Z-Wave Plus.
Anyway, I pulled out a long USB cable and moved the Z-Stick about 10-15ft closer (but still behind a wall), and the entire network now comes online and works fairly well (with a caveat, which I’ll make a new post to discuss). Thanks again.
Again, more devices with designing a good mesh in mind, will fix that.
