Z-Wave Trouble Shooting Help

Hi,

I have asked myself if I have been missing out on any major concept or configuration options in Home Assistant and Z-Wave JS because in my case it is extremely cumbersome to add new Z-Wave devices.

My set up:

  • Raspberry Pi 3
  • Home Assistant OS 6.5
  • Core core-2021.10.6
  • Supervisor supervisor-2021.10.6
  • Z-Wave JS 0.1.45
  • Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 AEOEZW090-C

Meanwhile some (10) devices (Qubino Flush 1D Relay, Eurotronic Spirit Thermostat, Devolo MT02646 Home Control Metering Plug, Aeotec LED Bulb 6 Mutli-Colour E27) could be added with little to lots of hazzle (i.e. first not working, but then apparently suddenly working after many tries and lots of fumbling).

What’s worth mentioning is that I have been previously running all Z-Wave devices on Synology NAS/OpenHAB 2.3 and an older Aeotec Stick before, but then decided to migrate to RaspberryPi/Home Assistant. I have excluded or factory reset all Z-Wave devices. They worked fine in the old set up.

At the moment I’m stuck with a total of 3 partly or not configurable devices (they are all mains powered if this makes a difference):

  • 2 additional (one already worked, see above) Qubino Flush 1D Relay are visible but cannot be interviewed. After trying to Re-Interview Device the log in Supervisor > Z-Wave JS > Log says every time:
2021-10-25T20:35:29.686Z CNTRLR   [Node 013] Beginning interview - last completed stage: None
2021-10-25T20:35:29.688Z CNTRLR   [Node 013] new node, doing a full interview...
2021-10-25T20:35:29.692Z CNTRLR » [Node 013] querying protocol info...
2021-10-25T20:35:29.754Z CNTRLR « [Node 013] received response for protocol info:
                                  basic device class:    Routing Slave
                                  generic device class:  Binary Switch
                                  specific device class: Binary Power Switch
                                  node type:             Routing End Node
                                  is always listening:   true
                                  is frequent listening: false
                                  can route messages:    true
                                  supports security:     false
                                  supports beaming:      true
                                  maximum data rate:     100000 kbps
                                  protocol version:      3
2021-10-25T20:35:29.759Z CNTRLR   [Node 013] Interview stage completed: ProtocolInfo
2021-10-25T20:35:29.761Z CNTRLR » [Node 013] pinging the node...
2021-10-25T20:35:38.530Z CNTRLR   [Node 013] Node 13 did not respond after 1 attempts, it is presumed dead
2021-10-25T20:35:38.536Z CNTRLR   [Node 013] ping failed: Failed to send the command after 1 attempts (Status No
                                  Ack)
2021-10-25T20:35:38.537Z CNTRLR » [Node 013] querying node info...
2021-10-25T20:35:38.539Z CNTRLR » [Node 013] pinging the node...
2021-10-25T20:35:47.369Z CNTRLR   [Node 013] Node 13 did not respond after 1 attempts, it is presumed dead
2021-10-25T20:35:47.381Z CNTRLR   [Node 013] ping failed: Failed to send the command after 1 attempts (Status No
                                  Ack)
2021-10-25T20:35:47.383Z CNTRLR   [Node 013] Interview attempt (1/5) failed, node is dead.
  • 1 additional (one already worked, see above) Devolo MT02646 Home Control Metering Plug is not recognized at all. The log says every time:
2021-10-25T20:33:05.813Z CNTRLR   Starting inclusion process with strategy Default...
2021-10-25T20:33:05.858Z CNTRLR   handling add node request (status = Ready)
2021-10-25T20:33:05.859Z CNTRLR     the controller is now ready to add nodes
2021-10-25T20:34:35.829Z CNTRLR   stopping inclusion process...
2021-10-25T20:34:35.951Z CNTRLR   handling add node request (status = Done)
2021-10-25T20:34:35.952Z CNTRLR   done called for 0
2021-10-25T20:34:35.953Z CNTRLR   the inclusion process was stopped

I’ve tried to add the devices via UI Configuration > Devices > Z-Stick Gen5 USB Controller > Configure Device > Network > Add Device (is there a shorter path to this menu?) as well as via clicking the hardware button on the stick. The new devices are close to the Stick in line-of-sight.
I have tried to restart the Raspberry Pi, the Home Assistant Server, Z-Wave Supervisor etc. without success.

It’s not only time-consuming and seemingly completely random behaviour, but I got this far and now I’ve been stuck for days.

Do you have any tips what else can be done? Are there any options I can tweak? Any diagnostics tools I haven’t found yet? Is my construct wrong?

A short update

Fontunately, I finally got a few steps further - and aquired a lot of (un)useful knowledge in the process that I’d like to share:

  • Use Z-Wave JS to MQTT on top of Z-Wave JS (you don’t actually need to use the MQTT compontent). Z-Wave JS to MQTT offers a lot of additional features, nicer real-time log, overview of the various states of all devices etc. The set up is not plug’n’play though. I found a nice step-by-step walkthrough for my stick Setup Home Assistant with Z-Stick Gen5+ : Aeotec Help Desk
  • Using Z-Wave JS to MQTT’s log, I could understand how quickly a lot of traffic is generated especially while interviewing new devices. My tip is to wait until a device is FULLY interviewed before interviewing the next. That is when the log says so and quite a while after the device is already available in Home Assistant. I am quite confident that this is part of the reason why the two Qubino Flush 1D Relays weren’t properly included. I will try again soon.
  • Also in the log I could see that sometimes the stick fails to get into inclusion mode. I have no idea why, but at least I know and can just try it again after a few seconds rather than getting frustrated because it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.
  • I could meanwhile integrate the missing Devolo MT02646 Home Control Metering Plug by factory resetting it, rather than excluding it from the old stick, although vendors say that this is only a method of last resort (why?). Often excluding doesn’t work, maybe for an unknown reason mentioned above. I can’t check because I kept the old stick on OpenHAB.

One other option would be to put the new stick into exclusion mode and exclude the device. I understand any controller can be used for device exclusion.

In my experience, factory reset of the device is the better option. sometimes it is the only way to get the device to properly include.

I moved to openHAB about 3 years ago from HA and recently moved back to HA due to zwavejs2mqtt. OpenHAB z-wave support has sme potential but, in my opinion, it is hampered by the senior core developers. was VERY active assisting with Z-Wave over there.

Is this normal in logs or is there a way to check health less frequently

INFO APP: GET /health/zwave 200 1.240 ms - 1873
runs every two minustes ?