Check Shelly, I have their window/door sensors and they work great. Not LR though.
Edit: did not read the 50m away comment, any chance you can place something in between for the signal to mesh/hop?
Link to the Shelly Wave Door/Window – Shelly Europe
Check Shelly, I have their window/door sensors and they work great. Not LR though.
Edit: did not read the 50m away comment, any chance you can place something in between for the signal to mesh/hop?
Link to the Shelly Wave Door/Window – Shelly Europe
I’ve just popped it in a separate thread to increase findability. You should be able to find it here.
Let me know how you get on!
You could maybe place more outdoor plugs in between those to build out the network mesh outside.
If your setup perhaps do not have many outdoor devices that are Z-Wave repeaters them your mesh networking with not work good there.
It is not enough to have many repeater devices inside if your goal is to extend the networl to reach devices that outside or in other buildings.
Simple but best advice is that when in doubt, just add more Z-Wave repeaters. ![]()
Again, remember that only mains-powered Z-Wave devices will work as Z-Wave repeaters.
This is almost the exact scenario solved by the Zooz ZSE41 800LR sensors I’ve added. I’ve got a robust Zwave mesh, but despite other’s advice, one can’t always build out the mesh further away from the main house for a number of reasons. The new Zwave LR 800 series sensors address that use case.
I use my zooz open/close sensors for exactly the same purpose on my detached shop building. Thinking about adding the new zooz siren as well (DIY alarm system).
Very valid comment about the WiFi. But over the weekend I came up with a use case for WiFi:
Imagine you have a remote Z-Wave device, all wired up etc, which needs to be paired with the controller. The ZWA-2 needs to be in the vicinity in order to pair, but your ZWA-2 is within 1.5m from your server due to the USB cable.
In this case it would be nice to be able to temporarily enable WiFi, pick up the ZWA-2 and power it with a random charger. Pair the new device, disable WiFi and reconnect to the server.
Would this make sense?
Not really. If the device couldn’t pair in place, what makes you think it would functional normally after the ZWA-2 was moved back to the HA server?
Any modern Z-wave device (500-series chip and upwards) supports the Z-wave standard of network-wide-inclusion (NWI), meaning it can be added to the Z-wave network as long it’s within range of an already established member device.
EDIT: The only time one would need to have the controller near the device to be paired is if it was an old 300-series (non Z-wave+) device.
What @JohnBeMe said above is correct. Z-Wave devices should be paired at their final permanent location, not paired and then moved. If that location is too far to be paired then you first need to build out you Z-Wave network mesh to get better range. So no, WiFi do not makes sense for a Z-Wave Controller adapter that uses serial communication.
I’ll just leave this here. Not officially supported, of course, but here’s POSSIBLY a way to do ZWA-2 via POE+ESPhome.
All credit goes to tube0013 of course as it was his idea on how to do it… I was just the guinea pig that was willing to waste $30 and some configuration time to try it.
I didn’t run it extensively, so I’m not 100% sure it would work reliably in production. But I was able to execute zwave commands back and forth with no issues while testing, so I think it may work as long as the stream stays open/reconnects as needed effectively.
If I get time this long weekend I’ll try to move my production ZWA-2 with 100+ devices to this and see how it goes. Just for fun, as I don’t really need this solution since my ZWA-2 is already right where I want it in my house.
I think Nabu Casa hugely missed an opportunity here by not going for POE and it is sad because this beautiful product will probably be short lived as SMLight will offer their version shortly. And by seeing the success of their Zigbee controllers, well, they will probably have a hit again.
Now, I still bought this ZWA-2 out of curiosity and it’s a very premium product.
So I was looking for a POE workaround and saw the post about tube0013 a few days ago.
It happens that I always have a bunch of spare ESP’s ready for any new idea for ESPHome and, by chance, I had a Waveshare S3 ETH POE board lying.
So, inspired by the post about Tube0013 I quickly hacked a ESPHome config and lo and behold: it works perfectly !
Here is the code (like I said, mostly inspired by tube0013 and Oxan and his original Esphome-stream-server, thanks to them!)
substitutions:
device_sampling_time: 60s
esphome:
name: zwa2-poe
friendly_name: ZWA-2 POE
esp32:
board: esp32-s3-devkitc-1
framework:
type: esp-idf
flash_size: 16MB
psram:
mode: octal
speed: 80MHz
# Enable logging
logger:
# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
encryption:
key: !secret encryption_key
ota:
- platform: esphome
password: !secret ota_password
debug:
update_interval: ${device_sampling_time}
external_components:
- source: github://oxan/esphome-stream-server
ethernet:
type: W5500
mosi_pin: GPIO11
miso_pin: GPIO12
clk_pin: GPIO13
cs_pin: GPIO14
reset_pin: GPIO9
interrupt_pin: GPIO10
# clock_speed: 25MHz
usb_host:
devices:
- id: device_0
vid: 0x303A
pid: 0x4001
usb_uart:
- type: CDC_ACM
vid: 0x303A
pid: 0x4001
channels:
- id: uch_1
baud_rate: 115200
buffer_size: 1024
stream_server:
- id: zb
uart_id: uch_1
port: 6638
buffer_size: 1024
binary_sensor:
- platform: stream_server
stream_server: zb
connected:
name: "Client"
time:
- platform: homeassistant
id: homeassistant_time
button:
- platform: safe_mode
name: Safe Mode Boot
- platform: factory_reset
name: Factory reset
- platform: restart
id: reboot_btn
name: restart
sensor:
- platform: internal_temperature
name: Internal Temperature
update_interval: ${device_sampling_time}
- platform: uptime
id: uptime_sensor
update_interval: ${device_sampling_time}
on_raw_value:
then:
- text_sensor.template.publish:
id: uptime_human
state: !lambda |-
int seconds = round(id(uptime_sensor).raw_state);
int days = seconds / (24 * 3600);
seconds = seconds % (24 * 3600);
int hours = seconds / 3600;
seconds = seconds % 3600;
int minutes = seconds / 60;
seconds = seconds % 60;
return (
(days ? to_string(days) + "d " : "") +
(hours ? to_string(hours) + "h " : "") +
(minutes ? to_string(minutes) + "m " : "") +
(to_string(seconds) + "s")
).c_str();
text_sensor:
- platform: ethernet_info
ip_address:
name: "IP Address"
mac_address:
name: "MAC Address"
- platform: template
id: uptime_human
name: Uptime
icon: mdi:clock-start
I also added a BT proxy code (stripped here) because you never have enough BT proxies…
The bare prototype looked like this:
But I quickly printed a box from Printables
It has been reliable for the last 3 days, so I think it’s a good interim solution.
That said, I will try to find time to look at adding something directly connected internally to the ZWA-2 own ESP32-S3 and converting it to ESPHome.
Have they said what their policy on firmware updates is going to be though? One of the issues I have had with ‘non mainsteam’ zwave controller providers is exactly that - they tend to not care about / want to provide controller updates as new SDK versions come out.
But I do agree that if it looks like smlight will keep zwave firmware up-to-date, then their zigbee + zwave stick (once certified) will be very attractive for those of us that would like POE.
On the instructions to migrate to ZWA-w there is this;
ehh wait wait… Settings where? general settings of home assistant?
settings on this screen?
this screen has no “settings” button.
further on top of the screen there is a gear icon - often used to depict “settings” - and oh, I do see somewhere scrolling down a “tab” zwave - wich is enabled - and if i open that, there is a line “serial port” but I have no clue what to enter there. how should i know ? ![]()
peeps, sorry but this is so typical home assistant
- skip half of the instructions because you ASSUME people know. That makes home assistant sooo user unfriendly only accessable for nerds
. I do wish that some day AI will make an apple of homey like graphical user interface with consistant buttons and locations of buttons that also normal people understand. le sigh. ![]()
so question; where do i find the abracadabra to fill in at “serial port” ?
I agree completely. Instructions should be full and comprehensive.
I got caught out by step 3, which simply states “Enable the Z-Wave integration again”. I didn’t realise that disabling it (in step 1) removes it from the list of devices and services, so after failing to see it in the list, I thought I needed to add it again, which also failed. Finally, someone kindly pointed out that HA removes disabled integrations from the list and that I needed to manually tell HA to display it again. Never having had to disable integrations before, I never knew about this behaviour of HA…
PS, like you I had to search for the setting, I eventually discovered it here:
thank you for that, I was already searching in the system hardware overview…
went through all the hoops with NVM restore, but apart from the controller, no devices show up in my zwave UI now. So I rolled back to my old adapter, where they are listed and still work. Some of them would be a real pain to connect again, so I rather bin the new adapter then to go out through my house having to connect all devices again!!
Not content so far ![]()
Like you, when I first fired up Z-Wave with the ZWA-2, only the controller was listed. I think I had to retry restoring the NVM a second time. Also, I had to ensure that the “Skip compatibility check” was NOT checked for the restore to succeed. My old controller was an Aeotec Gen5+ with v1.2 firmware.
Based on what they do with their current ZigBee/Thread controllers, I would be confident.
This is one of the reasons they took the market by storm, their software and support are stellar, probably the best in the industry.
That said, concerning Zwave, they might be impeded by the cost of repeated certifications like any other manufacturer has been so far which is the main reason why Zwave is dying despite being far superior to Zigbee.
Click the ▽ next to the Serial port field - that should display the string you need to select for the field…
strange enough - at first it was not. I think after clicking about a little and looking in the system parts and going back it appeared there. So I dont know/remember if it was after a restart of zwave of just taking some time, but certainly not within minutes of plugging it in.
But as we said; this all needs to be in the step-by-step instructions - wich it is not at this moment. ![]()
Agreed, but that is exactly the reason I’ll “wait and see” on smlight’s adapter. Other vendors (Zooz, aeotec, presumably nabu casa as alliance members) provide updated Zwave firmware as needed and have a good track record of it.
So I’m not going to go backwards on firmware support - I’ll just use ESP32+remote USB streaming as you and I are already doing.
IMO Z-Wave JS UI is much more user-unfriendly than the official Z-Wave JS addon so using that you’re starting at a disadvantage. I develop custom integrations for HA so I feel like I have a good understanding of how HA works, and I don’t like that “UI” variant of z-wave becasue it’s way too cluttered and the interface feels poorly designed.
By comparison the official Z-Wave JS addon migration worked without all the extra steps the UI version seems to need. THe fact the HA let’s you go wild with whatever addon or custom integration is both a strength and a weakness: strength because power uses aren’t locked into one path, but a weakness because normal people might find some thread that says “Z-Wave JS UI” is “better” and use that when it’s harder for them to work with becasue of how cluttered its interface is exposing things they don’t need to see.
The only thing I wish official Z-Wave JS addon had was the network visualization.