I’ve just bought a “TKB Home TZ68E Plus Plug-in Socket (UK)” to act as both a light controller but also a repeater as there’s an electrical socket that’s strategically well located for this.
At first I couldn’t get the new device to pair with my controller as a normal node (reported “dead” status), so I tried to add it as a secure device and it paired first time.
However I cannot get it to find any neighbours after healing the network. I have 4 battery powered door/window sensors and it’s located half way between my controller and 2 of them (1 of which is a bit hit and miss when it comes to reporting, hence the repeater) so I was hoping it would pick them up.
None of the battery powered sensors were added as secure nodes (as I want battery levels to be reported) - does this matter? Will the repeater only pick up other secure nodes?
(the sensors will not report battery levels when paired as secure nodes according to their instructions)
The battery powered nodes are of course sleeping most of the time and I can only wake them up for 10s at a time (according to the instructions) so if I need to wake them up before healing the network this is going to be a challenge!
Well that would be excellent news - do you have a source for that?
I’ve been doing some research and one article I read suggested that each battery powered device could only have one parent and that to wean it onto a new parent would require a re-pairing with the repeater in place. The was no mention of plus though so maybe re-routing is a new feature?
All my devices are plus so maybe I’ll leave it a few days and see what happens. The repeater has been in place for 4 hours now and all the doors have been opened and closed several times but all sensors are still directly connected to the controller (even the one that doesn’t always report its status).
I use an Aeotec Range Extender 6 for the same purpose and it works fine. I also have a Danalock V3 in the vicinity added as secure node and a couple of Fibaro devices around. The extender is a normal node. All nodes are visible for each other as neighbors so I assume the secure node is not a problem for relaying. I am not an expert this is just my observation.
I had to do a lot of network healing with the sensors and range extender close to each other and then installed at their place. It was a challenge to wake up the battery devices on time. What I noticed that the network and neighbor communication improved when HA was restarted or I completely rebooted my Raspi after several healing commands.
Thanks for that. I also fear that a heal is needed but as my battery powered devices only wake up for 10s at a time that’s a real challenge.
So I’m going to give it another few days then remove and re pair the sensors in their installed locations and see if that helps, or maybe just the one that’s giving me problems to begin with.
I would be very surprised if the rerouting happened by magic based on my impression of z-wave so far (quality…?).
Z-Wave Plus is anything but new Of course, lots of manufacturers still turn out non-Plus kit.
As for the source of that information, it’s in the Z-Wave specs, somewhere. Even with non-Plus there’s no need to re-pair anyway, Z-Wave devices can be told to re-learn (Heal). Worst case, issue the Heal node command on the node and immediately wake it.
Not magic, but by spec, and if you think Z-Wave is painful, Zigbee is so much worse… Take the Xiaomi devices for example, which if they can’t reach the controller for an extended period of time, drop off the mesh and require re-pairing.
This morning after 18 hours the repeater/switch hadn’t picked up any sensor neighbours. So I took the batteries out of the troublesome sensor for a few min, put them back in, ran a heal then restarted HA.
Half an hour later I’ve checked the status of the repeater and it’s picked up a new node, but not the one I took the batteries out of.
What I also found was that on HA restart the repeater was reported as dead and I had to cycle the power to bring it back to life. When I did that the other sensor it has picked up was awake (and for longer than 10 sec) so I’m calling that blind luck!
Now I just need to somehow repeat with the others over time.
And typically the node it has picked up is the closest sensor to the controller so the lowest priority for pairing to the new repeater.
@Tinkerer thanks for the advice and yes I am finding z-wave painful (at least the HA implementation of it).
The 4 sensors I have explicitly state in the instructions that they can be woken by pressing the tamper switch 3 times in 1.5 sec, but they only stay awake for 10 sec - seems far too short a time span to me
Well, Z-Wave is Z-Wave, the things that you’re finding frustrating are all about the protocol and devices, and nothing HA can control. Commands are queued (for a while at least), so you can issue the Heal node command and then wake it.
FYI, you don’t pair devices to the repeater, they all pair to the controller. Repeaters are used by devices if that provides a better route than going direct. Given a choice, devices will normally go direct.
@Tinkerer don’t the sensors need to already be awake to receive the heal command? I read that somewhere and I’ve now healed over 10 times since installing the new repeater and none of the sensors seem to have responded. It’s not clear from the log what’s going on.
Of course, lots of manufacturers still turn out non-Plus kit.