Zen20 800lr Hangs in Inclusion process

I have a ZEN20 800LR Power Strip with firmware 4.10, date code 0524. I have several of the Zooz 800LR devices and have gotten them all to include except for this one.

I am using Home Assistant Z-Wave JS UI and successfully created an entry in the provisioning list using Smart Start with Long Range selected. When I turn on the ZEN20, it starts the inclusion process, but never finishes. If I look under Z-Wave JS UI Control Panel, it shows the new device with the name I gave it, but the manufacturer and product are listed as unknown. The Interview column has a busy icon.

If I go to the Z-Wave JS UI Network Graph, the device (281) is there, but listed as DEAD. It responds to pings, but a health check gives:

400 ms Max latency
1 → 281: 6/10 Failed pings
1 ← 281: 10/10 Failed pings
0 Route changes
11 dBm SNR margin
Normal Power Minimum power level without errors
0/10 Rating

I had a log file for this, but it has disappeared. When I read it, I could see it interviewing the ZEN20 for a few dozen or so parameters contained in the ZEN20. After quite a bit of that, the ZEN20 stopped responding and it gave up.

I noticed that even though I bought this device recently on Amazon, it’s date code is 0524 and its firmware has been superseded by 4.20.

The distance from my controller to this device is about 12 feet. I have successfully included several Zooz 800LR devices from the same spot.

The solution to this problem was to flash the firmware to v4.20.1. That took a bit of doing as it would not update the firmware in the condition it was in. I eventually did a factory reset and included it in regular Z-Wave mode. I then flashed it, to v4.20.1, excluded it, then included it in Z-Wave Long Range mode.

One lesson to be learned here is that just because you buy something today, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been sitting in a warehouse for months and has very out of date firmware.

I’m a bit annoyed at Zooz because this problem has been around for months, with other people reporting it to them, yet they did not tell me to update it.