Zwave to ethernet/wifi extender

Configuration Z-Wave
#1

I have a large property with multiple buildings that I want to cover with zwave lights/switches etc. I have tried doing this with repeaters strategically placed, but the result is unreliable.

Homeseer has exactly what I’m looking for, but I assume it wont work in HASS.

Ive also seen people mention the http://razberry.z-wave.me/ but I have been unable to figure out how this actually works or if it would do what I’m looking for.

I am trying very hard to avoid having 3 or 4 HASS instances and using the event stream to link them together, mainly because I don’t understand how it works.

Does anyone know of a zwave to ethernet bridge that i can use with HASS to extend the zwave signal?

Really appreciate any advice.

-Brian

#2

There’s two problems with what you’re trying to do:

  1. Home Assistant supports a single Z-Wave controller
  2. OpenZWave (the underlying library) only supports USB (or serial) connected controllers

Unfortunately your only options are to either address the mesh configuration and get it reliable, or set up each building as it’s own mesh, and link them all with MQTT Statestream.

#3

I have a similar but simpler issue. My Z-Wave network is too far from my home assistant controller and the network is unreliable. If I use MQTT statestream, does that mean that I need to setup a 2nd HA with the Zwave controller that talks via MQTT to my main HA? I have seen zwave mqtt bridges (https://github.com/adpeace/zwave-mqtt-bridge) as well, however that looks like unidirectional, not bidirectional, do I see this correctly?

#4

I had a similar problem, very old large house with very thick walls, one zwave network did not cut it and too add to the problem I also run home assistant out of a cabinet in my garage.

My solution was to have raspberry pi’s with zwave usb controllers placed where I need them in my house and then on each rapsberry pi I run openzwave and use node-red to create a two way zwave-mqtt bridge. Home assistant sees all zwave device as mqtt devices.

I have also followed the same approach with deconz and zigbee.

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Docker-Compose, Devices, and Me
#5

Very clever and exactly what I would like to do between our house and the barn (600 ft and no power points between them). In particular I am unclear about how to get the z-wave commands mirrored into node red. Are any of your node-red flows or automation.yaml available as an example to help lower my learning curve? Even a screenshot of the flow would be a help.

#6

1 up, I also have a barn and cabins far from the central HA unit. I ever someone could detail at least one bridge setup that would be nice.

#7

I second this. Have a chicken coop 300 ft from the house and the z wave network is really unreliable at that distance. Would LOVE a write-up on how to get this done.

#8

With the new integration you can setup a rPi + qt-ozwd docker container and have it connect to your MQTT server as instance 2

#9

What do you mean “as instance 2”? I am not sure how to do that part.

#10

Per the docs you set an environment variable for the container:

  • OZW_INSTANCE - Multiple Z-Wave networks can run concurrently by starting an individual container for each network. To distinguish the networks, set this enviroment variable to a unique value for each container instance. This affects the base topic that is published to the MQTT broker - OpenZWave/<OZW_INSTANCE>/# . Defaults to 1 .
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#11

Hi,

Anyone got a solution ?

Im also looking for a ZWave gateway with LAN / RJ45…

Tanks

#12

Same here? Any way to extend zwave JS network hundreds of feet?

#13

Pi running PiOS with docker running zwavejs-ui + another Zwave dongle

#14

Will is still be a single zwave network? Didn’t know you can have multiple zwavejs ui integrations.

#15

No it’ll be multiple zwave networks, and yes you can have multiple zwave integrations in Home Assistant.

image

#16

Got it. Good to know. Question, how does it look like in Z-WaveJS UI? There’s usually settings for only one controller there.

#17

You get 2 separate integrations with 2 separate settings.

#18

I use an old VeraPlus from before I moved to HA and use the HA integration to access all devices. For me the main reason was that my HA is in the basement, and I needed a more strategically placed zwave/zigbee adapter for coverage. It works but may be too expensive unless you have a spare VeraPlus controller available.

The reason I am looking at this thread is that I would like to expand my zwave network beyond the house and the reliability is very poor so something like a bridge or extender would be great.

I just got reminded of this issue reading an article about a device called “SLZB-06 – A Zigbee 3.0 to Ethernet, USB, and WiFi adapter with PoE support”. I decided for zwave 10 years ago due to the dedicated frequency band but maybe it is time to move to something else? Zigbee? Wifi? LoRa?