The Future of Z-Wave in HA - QT-OpenZWave

freshcoast · February 25, 2020, 4:11am

Use MQTT_PORT enviroment variable. No auth supported yet.

finity · February 25, 2020, 4:18am

Thanks!

Now I have to remember how to set up my test broker to accept unsecure connections.

I’m sure it’s buried in the conf file somewhere.

JumpMaster · February 25, 2020, 7:18am

Pull request submitted

Twan · February 25, 2020, 8:32am

Hi there !

Does this means that sooner or later the ZHA integration will go away, or stop being developed ?

I’m not fan of having to run additional addons and/or depend too much on custom integrations, I prefer to use the integrated way as much a possible. However, not restarting the network at HA restart is a must have, I guess it won’t be possible without detaching the Zwave stack from HA

Cheers !

teachingbirds · February 25, 2020, 8:44am

Grocy is one example of exactly this - a custom component is available. To use it you need to either install the add-on for Grocy or host Grocy in some other way.

A custom component (integration) is just an interface between Home assistant and some other software or hardware. If it’s a software like Grocy or zwave2mqtt, you need to have that software somehow. That’s where the add-on comes in. That’s a way of installing that software.

JumpMaster · February 25, 2020, 8:46am

You could argue that zha stopped been developed a while ago. Hence why OpenZWave is on version 1.6 while HA is still using 1.4. This change makes it far easier to stay up to date without having to use a custom python component.

Twan · February 25, 2020, 9:12am

Well that’s looking good then !
I was under the impression that ZHA was still the most up to date and worked on. Falsely apparently
Context : this post.

RayBe · February 25, 2020, 10:18am

Hi freshcoast,

Thanks for the instructions.
Since I never did clone a repo let alone symlinked it to the custom component directory;
Could you please expand your instruction with how to do this?
Would be a great help.
Thanks upfront.
By the way, if one installs this manually, does that mean you have to update it manually when a new version is up or is there a update button somewhere?

Br,
Raymond

freshcoast · February 25, 2020, 2:38pm

Wrong protocol… ZHA is Zigbee, not Z-Wave.

Twan · February 25, 2020, 2:42pm

Oh my ! I feel dumb now
Yep my bad, I was referring to the native Z-Wave integration in HA

Thanks for pointing it out !

petro · February 26, 2020, 12:06am

don’t feel dumb, there’s 1500 integrations in this. You gotta have 1000s of hours to have them all memorized.

JumpMaster · February 26, 2020, 7:22am

Thanks for pointing that out. I also thought ZHA was Z-Wave Home Assistant

brendan · February 26, 2020, 8:23am

ZHA is Zigbee Home Automation.
It is one part of the Zigbee protocol, along with ZLL, Zigbee Light Link.
The HA integration for ZHA works with both ZHA and ZLL
Just to add that in.
Z-wave will be just Z-wave or may be referred to as OZW for OpenZwave

Fishwaldo · February 28, 2020, 2:46am

I love everyone jumping in and testing this - bear in mind it’s “pre-release” though. We are probably spending more time on code than documentation / ease of use/installation right now.

But this feedback is important (even about clarity of docs) so please open a issue on the relevant repository on github so we don’t forget about it!

finity · February 28, 2020, 5:00am

It’s me again…

I think I’ve got everything set up…I think…

The integrations page showed “success!” and I see the services listed in the services drop-down so I’m sure that part is OK.

I’ve still got a couple of questions tho.

Where do I find the logs?

And I went to the link posted by @freshcoast above to download the OZW Admin tool but I can’t figure out where on that linked page I can actually download a windows (or any other…) installer. How is that accomplished?

How do I know if the integration actually found my controller? It seems from the MQTT Topics that the controller (node 1) was included correctly. I assume that the status topic would throw some kind of error if it didn’t connect?

freshcoast · February 28, 2020, 5:24am

Where do I find the logs?

Logs are printed to the console, but there are a lot and it’s not the exact same as OZW_Log.txt. I don’t see OZW_Log.txt being generated in my case, not sure if that can be turned on manually.

I can’t figure out where on that linked page I can actually download a windows (or any other…) installer

To download click on the “Artifacts” tab from that link, it has links to the files for each platform. Here’s a direct download link for today’s build. A note though, the installer is not signed so you get a nasty warning when installing.

How do I know if the integration actually found my controller?

Do you have any nodes on this network yet? The controller does not appear as an entity yet, there are no zwave entities. You should see sensors and other entities the same as in the native z-wave, maybe some new types. You should also be able to find the nodes represented as Devices on the Devices page, same as before.

finity · February 28, 2020, 5:52am

I got the installer downloaded and …installed…but it’s complaining that there is no zwave database. It asks to install a new one or open an existing one. The save option takes me to a folder selection window but I think it’s asking me for a file to open but none exists on this windows machine. And I’m not sure what to select if I use the open option.

Does the UI need to be installed on the same machine as the ozw daemon? Maybe it’s just too new/unfinished to mess with at this point…

Not yet. I’m actually using the (unused) zwave controller portion of my HUBZ zwave/zigbee stick for testing purposes. That way I don’t impact my production network. And I’ve got one extra zwave light bulb I’m planning on paring for testing as well.

freshcoast · February 28, 2020, 6:20am

I got the installer downloaded and …installed…but it’s complaining that there is no zwave database.

I guess that’s a problem still, probably worth a bug submission. I downloaded the config files manually and selected the folder when prompted, that seemed to make it happy. For example, extract the config directory to C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenZwave Admin\db. Select folder db in the prompt. The config directory must be a subdirectory of whatever directory you choose.

Does the UI need to be installed on the same machine as the ozw daemon?

Nope, just click the Open button near the menu and use Remote Host option. The docker container must have the necessary port forwarded (1983 by default).

Not yet. I’m actually using the (unused) zwave controller portion of my HUBZ zwave/zigbee stick for testing purposes.

I’m doing the same. Once you add a node it’ll be detected by HA, no restart necessary in my experience. I believe the service call let’s you add a node, or you can do it directly with an MQTT command. My nodes were already added in OZW 1.4, which is also an option.

finity · February 28, 2020, 6:35am

All straightened out now.

Thanks!

JumpMaster · February 28, 2020, 9:38am

I’m looking to transition over to this at the weekend. I’ve made some assumptions and it would be great if anyone can tell me I’m wrong.

I’m assuming that all devices are supported by the qt-openzwave software. Lights, locks, switches, etc will all be in the mqtt data. What is limiting supported devices is the mqtt -> HA integration provided by the python-openzwave-mqtt software.

After lights been the most important z-wave compoonent in my home. The second is the front door lock which is currently unsupported. But as it is in mqtt I assume I could configure a MQTT Lock to allow me to unlock the door and even see the battery status?