Hi, everyone I’m very new here but I’ve been lurking around here and r/homeassistant for a few months. I recently moved and decided to take the plunge and see if I could automate some of my apartment systems. I have two elderly neighbors and our fuse boxes are only semi-separate and unlabeled so I’m waiting till tomorrow to find and label all the breakers out there without interrupting their lives. In the meantime, I’ve begun installing the parts I can, Zooz ZST10 dongle, two Minoston MP21ZD smart plugs for two overhead lights in my living room, and a Zen34 battery-operated scene controller. I noodled around for a day and had a terrible time with it. I had to be within five feet of the Raspberry Pi to even connect and even then the connection was spotty. I took the computer out of the case I got for it and tried again and the range issues are gone. No big deal probably just a shielding issue somewhere in the case hardware. So I restarted from scratch, reset and updated the ZST10, reset all of the devices, and reflashed Home Assistant to my SD card. Set everything up again and the connection is great, the plugs work flawlessly in HA but I integrated the Zen34 last night and now 16 hours later it’s moved from unknown to knowing what it is but still being not ready. I’ve seen people talk about battery devices taking a few hours but 16? Seems like a lot. I wake the device whenever I think of it or walk by but it doesn’t stay on for any extended period of time. I’ve tried every solution related to the Zen34 and my case I could find in the search but still no luck. The last thing that I think could be relevant is the Z-wave js Add-on doesn’t show up in my add-ons. and when I go into the Add-on store it says installed and has a few sliders. I can’t change those sliders with any permanent effect and when I hit start it flashes what looks like status bars or usage bars to the right of the sliders and goes back to the way it was before I do anything. It seems like it’s all going to work eventually but it’s just odd I haven’t found anybody having 16-hour integration times. Any suggestions I could be missing here? Thanks all and sorry for the very wordy post.
First, sorry to hear about that signal issue… Its probably the root of most of your issues and you need to fix it before you expect anything else to work properly.
How are you connecting your stick to the Pi. Many report plugging in to the USB3 Ports on a PI result in unacceptable interference. It’s usually reported with Zigbee sticks but ive seen it hit ZWave sticks too. Most reccommmend a short USB2 extension. Personally, I use a small powered USB2 hub and plug my sticks into that.
I use a 1m USB extension cable with my Zwave stick. Works fine.
Thank you, Nathan. I resolved the interference issue by removing the raspberry pi from the cool but admittedly faulty case. I now have the ZST10 stick plugged in directly to the raspberry pi and I have no interference at all. at least any that’s causing devices to lose connection. I think I’m gonna just create a 3d printed case and I’ll integrate some way of adding a short lead in there. Thanks for the tip.
Ya, I think I might have been a bit too wordy. I solved the interference issue by abandoning the case I had it in and plugging it into the raspberry pi directly. I’m really just having trouble at this point with the zen34 still saying not ready after 16 hours on the network.
The interference may not be ‘solved’. You may have made it good enough to join a device but that device ‘not ready’ what your describing (battery device dropping after a certain time) may still be range issues, or of the USB Bus v. Your stick. Even out of the chassis, an extension is HIGHLY recommended on a Pi just to avoid noisy bus. I’d still get one.
Have you tried to repair, re-interview or rejoin the device after you pulled the device out of the chassis? Where are those pocket sockets installed physically as compared to the Pi. How far is the battery device form the pi?
But the Zen34 range test feature shows a strong connection to the base. Is that feature not particularly reliable? I have a 1-meter USB cable buried somewhere, I’ll put that on if it makes any difference for sure.
To answer the other questions after I pulled the Pi out of its case and confirmed it worked better without it I started everything from scratch. I used silicon labs software to reset the ZST10 and update it to make sure I wasn’t running an old version. I reflashed my SD card with a fresh install of HA and reset all the devices I had used back to factory as well. Then I started a new instance of HA and now I’m here.
The sockets are on my mantle about 15’ from the Stick which is on a shelf about head height. They respond very quickly and consistently to HA commands. The Zen34 is maybe 3 feet further down that same wall but still within 20’ and direct line of site. It also reacts very quickly in HA. When I wake it I see a state change virtually instantly. I’m happy to take pictures if it might help.
I doubt it matters but the only other integration currently running is with my Ambient Weather station.
Just a quick edit: The battery device isn’t really dropping exactly. It goes to sleep but I was under the impression that was normal. When I wake it it instantly wakes in HA so it’s still connected to the network just not ready to operate.
edit 2: I didn’t answer all your questions, sorry. I haven’t tried reinterviewing because my assumption was that the interview phase will continue in the background until the device is fully integrated. I also didn’t try to repair or heal the network because I didn’t want to interrupt any ongoing process as far as it setting up the device for the first time. I can try both of those if you’d advise it though.
A weaker, but clean signal is always better, than a strong disturbed signal 
I’d agree but I don’t know how to test the cleanliness of my signals. I did, however dig out an old USB cord and I’m connected through that now so hopefully, that helps.
I’m pretty new to HA and transitioning from ST, but I’m not new to zooZ.
Have you tried tapping the Upper paddle 7 times real fast, just like inclusion, but 7 clicks. This is what wakes up the switch after install and parameter changes to finish the process.
Yep, I do it every time I pass by just to keep it awake otherwise it falls asleep.
Well, I think we have to assume it was indeed the dirty signal from the USB bus. I attached a six-foot USB extender (pretty long but I had it in a drawer) and I kept messing with things rebooted a few times and just moments ago I started getting my zwave_js_value_notification events. Super stoked. Thank you to everyone who chimed in and especially for insisting I put some distance between my Raspberry Pi and the dongle. I’m off to make some sweet sweet automations.