I personally don’t have a list of hubs. It’s an old and well known problem, searching should turn up many confirmed options.
Another option: if you do upgrade the Gen5 firmware to v1.02, you will then have the option of backing up the controller NVM and restoring to a new controller, including a 700-series. This will preserve the network. There is always some risk in doing the upgrade, older Gen5s can’t be upgraded (pre-2018 or some date like that), and you’d need some temporary solution (i.e. using RPi3) until you get a new stick.
This post explains why the RPI4 and zstick gen5 are not compatible
You should be able to purchase a low cost powered USB hub that would solve the issue. I don’t have an RPI but purchased this one for my system and it works well. The key is the USB hub you use must have external power to solve the issue.
The key is the USB hub you use must have external power to solve the issue
Interesting, google shows me that most of the USB hubs that don’t work is because they apparently back power to the Pi. And this one is not? No problems during the boot?
So I received another “not powered” hub today. And inserted it, with the stick in the hub. Nothing… Then I started moving to different ports. And in Terminal checked with ls -l /dev/ what devices are visible. I do see the ttyAMA0 that it was suggesting earlier, and a whole list of others. But nothing that has ‘USB’ in the name. And while doing this at a certain moment I noticed that the Notifications had a yellow alert icon. So I checked that and it said it had found a new device, ZWave . Pressed configure and it showed that on tttyAMA0 it found “dev/serial/by-id/usb-0658_0200-if00, s/n: n/a - 0658:0200” if I wanted to add that. The problem was that I was not sure at what moment it discovered it. And if me moving the HUB to different USB ports would also remove the notification. So I decided not to configure and instead did a reboot assuming if it was still in the right port it would notify me again. But it did not… So I will now start moving again. But I am wondering , is just moving around enough for the auto discover? Do I need to restart/reboot?
I’ve read several forums where users reported using powered hubs, but cannot confirm myself. Here is a report of someone saying they used the powered hub
Because the stick is pulling power from the hub’s power supply and not directly from the RPI, I would assume this is why it would fix the issue, but I’m not sure. The problem is there are so many different USB hubs out there and as you are seeing some work and some don’t. I personally use the one I linked above and it works well for me, but I am running on a dell optiplex, not an RPI.
USB discovery was added in version 2021.9.0 so it should find the USB as soon as it is plugged in
You might want to go with a powered usb 2.0 hub anyway (mine is 3.0). These posts just say “generic powered 2.0 hub” but nowhere does anyone say exactly which brand and model they got to work.
So I bought a new “not powered” USB 2.0 hub at the “Action” (brand is HAMA) . And the stick was immediately recognized. So on the Configure Zwave JS it showed the actual device name: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-0658_0200-if00, but would use /dev/ttyACM0
But I decided not to use "Zwave JS " but “Zwave JS UI” as I could specify the actual device name there. And this worked, the controller became visible and the 4 light switches as well, in the Zwave JS UI. But what next, I dont see the devices yet. I found an article Setup Home Assistant with Z-Stick 7 and Z-Wave JS UI : Aeotec Help Desk (freshdesk.com) that tells me now to configure Zwave JS, but if I do that it does not ask me the same things as that article is showing. So what next? How do I make my new light switches visible on the dashboard?
Unfortunately the docs don’t seem to be correct. I assume you referring what the Documentation tab says in the Zwave JS UI integration.
The Settings have an Integrations and a Devices panel.
On the Integrations I see a “Add Integration”, if I select Zwave JS there, I have a feeling I would pick the one I should not use as I am using the “UI” integration.
And on the Devices tab I can “Add Device”, but that does not show the mentioned dialog box. It shows this:
And then I don’t know what to pick…
@freshcoast The “Add Integration” is not showing a dialog asking me for the “use Supervisor” But instead shows me a dialog that has the 4 network keys again (S0 etc.) And a Submit button.
On the “Add Device” I used the middle option, “Add Z-Wave device”, that does show me the dialog about using the Supervisor, and a Next Button, that again asks for the server name. Using this resulted in the switches becoming visible in the dashboard. So I guess the documentation is not completely correct. But your hints did help me here. Thanks
The dialogs shown depend on your specific configuration (model of USB stick) and how you are running HA (HAOS vs. non-Supervised) so it’s hard to document the steps down to the exact details. Sounds like you figured it out though.
