I’m standing up a new and updated instance of HA and I’m looking at the z-wave stuff available.
I want to abandon my current installation of HA as a primary instance (possibly use it as a test environment later) and start anew… read I DO NOT WANT TO USE MY BACK UP FROM THE OLD instance.
I have a new box for the new installation complete with a new Aeotec 7 dongle
I understand that I’ll have to migrate entities that I want on in the new system over manually later… that the price of progress
Questions:
What are the pros and cons to running straight Z-Wave JS over Z-Wave JS UI
I understand that you can run TWO instances of HA with two z-wave controllers
PROVIDING that entities only live on ONE controller.
Is this true/possible
When standing up the new HA instance with Z-Wave JS or JS UI will the system pick up the existing entities and automatically include them…
THIS I DO NOT WANT TO HAPPEN… I’m hoping that Ill need to manually exclude from the old and manually include into the new…
Worse case the new controller will see the existing entities associated with the other controller…BUT NOT INCLUDE them in its “working list” of entities
Terminoloy is important, and yours is a bit all over the map here. Maybe you can help decipher some ambiguity.
This one is pretty easy. Here are some basic differences. The UI version provides exactly that, a UI for specific Z-wave technology maintenance tasks that are secondary to the overall process. Things like managing Associations and Parameters can be done in the UI. A network map is available for information/troubleshooting. In contrast, to manage Associations and Parameters in Z-Wave-JS, you have to use the actions/service calls in a script or automation. Less user friendly.
This one puzzles me. You can run 3 instances with 3 controllers with the same criteria, 4, 5, etc. It’s Z-wave turtles all the way down there as you have stated it. Every instance of HA is an island, so to speak. Maybe you mean you can have two controllers connected to a single instance of HA by using both the Z-wave-JS add-on and Z-wave-JS-UI add-on. This is true. Each controller would manage a separate Z-wave network, but the entities of both would live in a single instance of Home Assistant.
The real issue here is the ease of multiple Add-ons. Technically you can run more Z-wave networks/controllers on a single instance of HA (The Z-wave-JS integration allows multiple instances) but not by the point and click ease of add-ons. You would have to manage 3,4,5… through some external process like docker, raspberry pi, etc.
Not sure what this means exactly either. As the Z-wave device database is tied to the controller, if you plug a controller with an existing Z-wave network of multiple devices into a new instance of Home Assistant, it will create entities for the devices, the entities only exist in the HA Z-wave-JS integration, not in Z-wave-JS or UI add-ons. You will likely have to wake battery devices and re-interview them for the entities to be complete. You may have to re-interview mains power devices as well. It won’t be a simple 10 second process, but it will beat rebuilding the network from scratch.
Controllers won’t see other controllers z-wave devices. There is no concept of an entity in the controller, only in the integration. The integration maps the Z-wave devices and their parameters, functions, etc. into entities and events. The controller has no idea. The Z-wave-JS integration is the translator from Home Assistant terminology to native Z-wave terminology.
Yeah… I got you off on the wrong foot… I wish I could tell you english was my second language… But its not… LOL
So it’s just a preference… no advantage one over the other
What I’m trying to describe is two separate machines… each running HA… and each machine with its own… single controller… I’m assuming that initially the old machine/controller will have all the existing nodes the new machine will have none…… Im conflating entities (HA world) with nodes (z-wave world).
I’m asking for confirmation that z-wave nodes can/will ONLY be “included” in one network… and that the “HA Islands” wont interfere with each other (assuming different ip’s etc) by
What I’m concerned about is that when I power up the second machine I’d like to know if the new machine’s controller will “automatically add”, “poach”… i.e. include the existing nodes (the ones on the original machines controller) into its own network.
zwave never automatically “discovers” any device at all. You need to put the device and controller into inclusion mode before the zwave system sees the device.
EDIT to add:
and once the device is paired to a controller it stays connected to that controller until removed from the controller. So no way to poach anything either.
And to add to that z-wave nodes can only be included in one network.
As I mentioned earlier, you can have as many Home Assistant machines and independent networks as you want. That said, there is a practical limit. Although they operate independently, they still use the same RF space. So, they will “interfere” with each other like any other radio network. There will be some combination of nodes and traffic that saturates the space.
I’ve seen people who run 5 networks without problems.
For a long time I only used Z-Wave JS. But when I had to do some error handeling it came out short. Had to convert to Z-Wave JS UI to do what need to be done. Getting my bricked usb dongle alive.
The user interface is good. And you can do so much more when times come you have to do something. The Z-Wave JS UI should have been the default HA Z-Wave installation in my opinion.