I’ve acquired a Z-Wave switch, ZHC5010 [product page][seller] - and it looks nice, so nothing bad there. It also works with Home Assistant kinda out of the box. So that’s all awesome.
My question is that from this, I get 5 devices with each 1 entity, where I would expect to get 1 device with 5 entities. The switch is split into 5 distinct “controllable” elements: 4 switches and 1 on/off relay to control some powered device (light f.ex.).
Is there any way to reorganize this so that the 5 devices become 1?
I named the zhc5010room device which also renamed the entity, but for the other 4 devices the entities didn’t rename themselves (even though I clicked yes to renaming the popup).
Was there one device before your renamed it, or was there always 5?
As for the multiple switch entities, if you look at the manual it has an explanation for why that is:
ZHC5010 has support for the Multi Channel Command Class, and therefore be seen as five logical devices by the Z-Wave Controller that supports this; one root device and four Binary Switch devices.
Each switch should correspond to one of the individual buttons. One of the switches might control all of them (the root device). This is a little different than many other multi-switch devices (usually remotes) which use central scene commands instead.
Another question regarding the devices, what are the node IDs of the switches? You can find them in the Developer Tools -> States page, and can filter on node_id: 1 for example.
Do all your switches have the same node id? I’m wondering if the multichannel endpoints result in different node ids in HA, e.g. 6.1, 6.2, etc. I think the device grouping is determined by node id.
As I recall it, there was always 5 devices. I started renaming the first one, and then I realized there were 4 more - so my naming convention was a bit off.
Through testing, I’ve confirmed that each of the 4 devices (not the “root” / first device) correspond to the 4 physical buttons. I assume that the root/first device is for the relay within the physical device itself.
I assume it’s expected that anything supporting the “Multi Channel Command Class” is to be seen as separate devices then?
I’d prefer for this device to be one device w/ 5 entities … but that’s a matter of preference
When you use “devices” here, are you talking about HA Devices? I have a stronger opinion, this is not a preference, this is a bug. The endpoints of a multi-channel device (device in Z-Wave terms) should all belong to a single HA “Device”.
Another example of this are Z-Wave power strips. Each individual plug is its own endpoint, controllable by a switch entity and possibly reporting power consumption. It wouldn’t make any sense for HA to categorize every switch as its own device here either, the power strip is a single device. So I don’t think this is intentional behavior. Devices are a relatively new concept in HA, so there are bound to be some issues.
I would encourage you to submit an issue here. You could reference this thread. It would be helpful to diagnose the problem if you post the relevant contents of the files .storage/core.device_registry and .storage/core.entity_registry. We might be able to figure out what’s going on just by looking at those.
@freshcoast can I somehow remove this HA-device entirely, and re-add it again (also excluding it from my z-wave network), so I can see what happens if I don’t rename anything?
I have just now added an AEON Labs Window Sensor 6, and it appears as one HA-Device w/ 3 Entities on it (z-wave device?, battery sensor and a binary_sensor)
Side note: initially the sensor in HA did not change when I triggered the device, but once I configured the device to send a “Sensor Binary Report” rather than simply a “Basic Set” - HA detected the change.
The window sensor does not have multiple endpoints, so all the entities are tied to a single Device. I replied to your github issue, but notice the entities have the same value_instance, that is why they are not separate devices.
Based on the response in the issue, it looks like this is intended behavior. Since areas are associated with devices, not entities, it allows you to set different areas for each switch. Your wall switch could control things in different rooms, outside, etc. If all switches were part of the same device, you’d have no way of associating them with different areas.
If you’re looking for a place to see all the entities that belong to a node, then the current choice is to either use the States page and filter by node_id, or you can goto Configuration -> Z-Wave, and then select the node. Accessible there is a list of all entities associated with the node.
