Z-NET Integration with HA

I got mine working by setting the ser2net to 0, which worked for now (this z-net only has 1 device on it), but it’s been solid.

My questions is, How can I get 2 z-nets working in home assistant? There doesn’t seem to be a way. I guess that z-waveJS ui does not support multiple instances. I find that odd because I thought that one of the benefits of containerization was scaling wide (at least that is one of the benefits that we use it for at work). This probably isn’t the right place to ask, but asking in case anyone has gotten 2 or more z-nets working in HS.

I’m not tied to z-wave js ui, I just used it because it was pretty easy to set up. I’ve also read that you shouldn’t run z-wave js and z-wave JS ui at the same time.

You can run as many Z-Wave JS UI instances and Z-Wave integration instances as you want. Each ZUI instance talks to a different Z-NET, and each Z-Wave integration instance talks to the individual Z-Wave JS UI instances.

The caveat is that you can’t do it in HAOS with add-ons. It only supports once instance of an add-on (so one Z-NET). You’d have to do it on another host with Docker or bare-metal application.

That’s for add-ons, and using the same USB stock (controller). Also, the official core add-on does not support TCP serial ports at this time.

Thanks for that confirmation. I was trying to get away from running another piece of hardware as I’m currently just running HA on a rPi 4. I have considered seeing if I could just run different software on the z-nets, but it was appealing that i could use them as they were out of the box.

Not sure if the Z-NET does mDNS Zeroconf. But Z-Wave JS now supports it.
I’ve updated the docs here accordingly: Z-Wave JS: Remote serial port over TCP - Enabling mDNS Service Discovery
And even if ser2net is not used I’ve provided a bit more granular detail around what’s required on the mDNS side here: feat: discover remote TCP serial ports using mDNS by AlCalzone · Pull Request #5863 · zwave-js/node-zwave-js · GitHub
Given those implementation details it should be somewhat easy to make the Z-NET devices conform to that, if that is of interest.

I’m a bit disappointed in the direction of HA in this regard. I’ve left Homeseer for a few reasons, but one thing they did exceptionally well was their z-wave implementation with their z-nets. I have 2 buildings on my property and I have 2 z-nets. Even in a bigger house I could see running multiple remote z-nets. The inability to connect to both of these natively in home assistant seems like a huge missed opportunity. I know that it’s considered “Advanced” (why, I don’t know because they are essentially plug and play in HS), but there are so many potential solutions.

I have tried, unsuccessfully, to this date to get jwave js to connect to the z-wave card in the z-nets, but even if I could, this is far more “advanced” than allowing users to use one of containers biggest benefits. Running multiple instances of the same image. This would all be solved if I could just spin up another z-wave js UI add on. Even if I could get the tcp working in z-wave js (which HA also removed that option), that would still limit me to 2 znets.

We’ve updated our Z-NET guide to include Zigbee integration via the Sonoff ZBDongle-E coordinator. Doc is here: Z-NET Integration with Home Assistant - Products

Mark, thanks so much for the detailed instructions and support for znet in HA and Z-Wave JS UI. I am struggling, however, to get this done. Your instructions appear to infer that the znet is the first zwave network in HA and Z-Wave JS UI. Unless I’m missing something, my use case may be more typical. I need my guest house to have zwave capability, deploying a znet there as my 2nd Z-Wave JS UI network.

Since I already have a “main” Z-Wave JS UI network, when I go to add a 2nd zwave network (Settings → Add Integration → Zwave), I am asked whether to use the Z-Wave JS Supervisor add on, which I uncheck, and then I’m immediately asked for the URL (defaults to ws://localhost:3000). Since I don’t have a 2nd instance Z-Wave JS UI already running, I can’t configure the serial port, etc per your instructions to have the correct hostname to input here.

How do I setup the znet as a 2nd network?

AFAIK, you can’t run a second instance of the add-on which is what you need to do. So the alternatives would be running zwavejs in a docker container somewhere on your network.

Rich indicated earlier in the thread that he could provide instructions for installing Z-Wave-JS-UI directly on the Z-Net Raspberry Pi. This would take care of the 2 copies of the add-on problem (1 would be running on the RPi). Then you can spin up a second Z-wave-JS Integration instance in Home Assistant and point it at the RPi IP and port.

There are also instructions here on the forum of installing Z-Wave-JS-UI on Linux so you could use those instructions on the Pi with minimal change (I assume).

If I had the need of running 2 Z-wave controllers in Home Assistant I think I would go this route.

I have successfully installed z-wave JS UI on a clean install of dietpi on one of my z-nets. This allows me to have direct communication from HA to that z-net and have as many z-nets as I would like.

This could be solved if HA allowed more than one instance of an “add-on”, but this will do. I can help provide instructions to anyone who wants to know.

Right now I have v1 pis in my z-nets (they are ooooold)… I have a couple of v3s pis on the way to see if I can update them and reuse the daughter boards.

Prior to this I did have a “man in the middle” pi running 2 containers for z-wave js ui. I didn’t like this approach because it added complexity and a point of failure I didn’t think needed to be there.

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Hi Rich! I just came across this thread and I would like instructions on how to run the full zwave-JS UI on the ZNET because I already have a USB dongle on my HA RPi and I am currently running zwave-JS UI on that. I actually have two z-nets that I was using with HomeSeer and I would like to have a setup that runs a total of 3 controllers due to out buildings I have. Thanks for your help ahead of time!

Hey Rich, this is exactly what I’d like to do. Already have everything added to the dongle, but want to move to the ZNET. What config do I need to change and what are the credentials for SSH? Thanks in advance! Hoping this alleviates USB issues that my Proxmox zwavejs install seems to have.

I got a home-seer znet set up. How to you add z wave devices to znet from home assistant?

I added a serial port to my HAOS running on proxmox and installed the Z-Wave JS plugin, under options there are radio buttons to select different devices but my znet running ser2net is on my network.

Where do I enter the IP address?

You can’t use the Z-Wave JS add-on for TCP serial ports, you must use Z-Wave JS UI.

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Thanks @freshcoast , I didn’t realize there were two similarly named add-ons. I’m new to Home assistant and still learning.

Hi Frank
I am also looking and testing transferring to HA from HS, I like HS but I feel they are not following the parade but that is my feeling.
That being said, I have 3 Z-net connected to HS and I would like to test the overall devices transfered over to HA and see the efficiency.
I have been able quite easily to transfer my House main Z-net to HA Z-wave JS UI Add On but I would appreciate a lot if you could share/ provide instructions on how you did the clean install of Z-wave JS UI on your Z-net and then how you connected them all to HA
As I will be doing thios as a test and will switch back and forth from, HA to HS, are the modified Z-net still able to connect to HS4 Z-wave plugin ?
Thanks for sharing

Found part my answer, I have foud how to install Z_wave-js-ui on RPI 4 and got Z-Wave-js-ui to connect to a Nortek HUSBZB-1 stick:

Questions now: would that method work on a genuine Z-net PI ? What would be the serial port to use in this case ?

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/install-and-setup-zwave-js-ui-with-snap-on-a-raspberry-pi/486484

HA newbie here. Trying to switch from homeseer…I have 4 znet G3 in place. Got the main one working fine in HA using these instructions. Now trying to figure how to get the other 3 onto the network. Are the instructions for running the zwave-JS UI on the ZNET available anywhere?
Thanks,
Shaun

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You’ll find how I have been able to get Z-Wave-JS-UI on a Z-net (Rpi 3b with Ezzee card) on the following link
Running Z-Wave-JS-UI on a Z-Net

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