The right way of Securing ZWave Controller

Configuration Z-Wave
1

Hello, I have been using HASSIO for last 1 week or so. So Im still learning.

I have HASSIO on rPI 2B with Nortek ZWave USB controller. I added the controller through configuration.yaml and did not add a network key.

Its working fine and I have 3 lights and 1 door sensor connected to it.

Im planning to buy a Schlage ZWave lock and add it to the network. I did research and I believe the controller should be in Secure mode for that to happen. This is where it gets complicated.

When I go to Configuration of the ZWave device, it shows “ADD SECURE NODE”. But I know I didnt add any network key!

Questions (many of them, actually)

  1. I checked configuration.yaml and options.xml. It doesnt have a network key. So does it mean the device automatically configured itself to a Secure controller?
  2. If it has did it store somewhere the auto-generated network key? How do I see that?
  3. Assuming its not secure, here is what I think are the steps I should follow. Could you please cross-check this?
    a. Remove the 3 switches from the network one by one and heal
    b. Add the network key to configuration.yaml and options.xml
    c. Restart the rPI so that now the Controller is secure.
    d. Add the devices again.

I didnt want to screw up an existing configuration and find out I messed up the controller. Hence this post. Please help.

2

Seeing that you’ve only included four nodes so, I’d definitely start over. Even when I take a new device out of the box I always do an exclude before the secure include. I’ve learned that it just cuts down on problems. I can’t answers some of the more technical questions as I’m relatively new to HA myself and I recently switched from the builtin Z-wave based on OZW 1.4 to the new(ish) beta addon for OZW based on v1.6.

This next part I don’t know if it still holds true or not - a while ago I had a Yale Real Living lever handle door lock. This was way before Z-Wave Plus which is why I’m not sure if it’s still the case, but I used to have to have the Z-Wave controller within about 3 meters of the lock whenever I had to do anything like exclude or include. I read somewhere that the reason for this was that secure devices like locks would reduce power to the radio substantially in an effort to prevent anyone from passively scanning the data. So just pay special attention to which flavor of Z-wave is in your lock.