Seems very reasonable to me as well.
Just got a response to my support request saying 'This issue has already been reported and referred to our engineering team. We hope to have a fix in the next update. '
Well I hope this update is coming soon, because I now have 7 useless door sensors... UGH!
So as I sit here with 10 useless door sensors pondering my options, I'm considering using OpenHab for the door sensors and tying it to my Hubitat. OpenHab has drivers that work with the Aeotec Sensor 7 no problem. The other option because of the unknown time it takes for updates, and if it's possible, is having developers create a driver for us to use until Hubitat fixes it in their next release. I Will let you know if we're able to create a custom driver...
Well, I have more info here. One of the issues, inability to set parameters (such as LED disable, etc) presented itself with a solution yesterday when one of mine “Failed” (as it does daily). I did factory resets, excludes, etc., and finally discovered that, if the sensor is put in “wake up” mode (press switch with paper clip more than 2 sec, when LED starts pulsing slowly, but less than 5 sec), then immediately hit Save Preferences in Hubitat driver, and the LED Indicator parameter will be set in the sensor. Nothing about this in the Hubitat documentation (which still, months later shows the older, now-unavailable Aeotec Recessed Door Sensor 7 driver, which worked, as the one to use).
But another issue reared its head in the process - the sensor device, when excluded, factory reset, included again with same driver, now shows a Serial Number of a boatload of all zeroes, and shows a firmware version. The other devices don’t have either of those items, same driver, same devices from same big order I received. See screenshot. Sigh.
Same issues. Any update?
C7 running version: 2.2.3.148.
Device:
Make sure you turn in a support ticket. Won’t get fixed unless you do.
I just bought one of these, had the same issues. I finally got this to work, as i guess a temporary measure until Hubitat fixes it:
Include the device with no authentication at all, uncheck all boxes. The device also has some advanced functions not listed in the paper manual. After everything is connected, you will want to press the button for 2-5 seconds to wakeup the device, allowing you to set and save the prefrences, such as disabling the LED light whenever the door opens/closes, or inverting the open/close reporting state. I also set the wakeup mode again and then hit use the configure command.
After that's been all done, the sensor is reporting reliably and quickly. Yes, this means no authentication, but at least it's working for now.
Thx @xanmato. I did get an email back from support that a fix is coming. "There is a known issue with the Aeotec Recessed Door Sensor 7 that will be fixed in the next update release."
By the way, does anyone have a good (detailed) link on ZWave security. Would like to understand security during pairing vs runtime security. It's my understanding that un-authenticated is just the pairing process, and that post pairing all comms are dones over AES-128 (good, not great).
Found this one. Particularly good:
Looks like I'm going to power-up my SmartThings Hub so I can use most of my Z-wave devices.
This is insane.
This after all kinds of **** with our other Z-wave devices: Generic Z-wave Switches/Dimmers/Outlets and Z-wave locks: Schlage & Kwikset!!!!! plus the 3 contact sensors: 1) Aeotec Recessed 2) Gen5 and a generic Monoprice & 3) generic Monoprice
Having to run polling to hopefully keep these devices alive is insane.
I really was hoping to love this platform.
I hope that Hubitat is paying attention.
Welcome! Sorry that you are having a bad experience.
You did read Paragraph 1.c. of the Terms of Service to which you agreed when registering your hub, right?
c. Customer acknowledges that the Hubitat Platform is under continuous development, is not complete or otherwise at the final stage of development and that Hubitat makes no representation that the Hubitat Platform is error or bug free. Customer acknowledges and agrees that the Hubitat Platform may experience unscheduled downtime and agrees that Hubitat shall not be liable for any harm resulting from unscheduled downtime. Customer acknowledges that Hubitat has no obligation to provide support for the Customer's use of the product.
I don't see a specific question on which you are requesting help from the community. Is there some way we can help?
672 Southmain. Thanks for the quick response.
I understand and understood the terms and greatly appreciate your quick response. Perhaps you can advise me how to me recover 3 of my existing ZW contact sensors and the new Aeotec 7 recessed contact sensor, purchased yesterday. All of these no longer can be seen by Hubitat after they partially connected and failed to join properly. Note, that I reset the devices per the manufacturers instructions.
Many thanks!
I have run multiple Z-wave repairs, restarted and even restored an earlier database to no avail.
Once I know that they are not damaged, I'll be happy to wait for the pending firmware release for a fix. I tried running my SmartThings Hub as a temporary measure, however the ST Z-wave radio interference killed the Hubitat mesh with connections to my locks, etc.
Any tips to recover these devices would be greatly appreciated.
My experience differs... I have 7 Hubitat hubs. Four of them have the ZWave radio enabled, Three do not. I also have a ST hub, and multiple ZWave sticks. My two primary ZWave Hubs, one for everything downstairs, the other for everything upstairs are sitting alongside my ST hub. They are 2 feet apart... almost in a triangle: One hub has the ST Hub 2 ft to the left, and the 3rd hub is directly below, about 2 ft. A 4th hub is joined to those original 3 and it's at least 20 ft away. I have two Yale ZWave locks and they see no interference, that I've detected.
In other words, I live in a sphere of at least 5 ZWave overlapping networks without detectable interference.
I'm NOT saying you don't have interference.. I'm saying that it doesn't have to be so.. and that many people have more than a few overlapping ZWave networks running.
7 Hubs! Very Impressed!
Your experience with the to platforms coexisting is welcome news.
I actually had the ST ZW-enabled hub coexisting nicely with the Hubitat when I started migrating the devices. Then recently, the 2 ZW locks on the Hubitat stopped responding until I disabled the ZW radio in the ST Hub. Based on your experience, I'll re-activate the radio and see if the problem persists.
What Hub model do you have? What do you mean by partially connected and failed to join properly?
Without knowing more, I can only address the Aeotec Recessed Door Sensor 7, because I have that device and had issues with it on my C-5 (now retired) and C-7.
First, both on the C-5 and C-7, the Hubitat hubs seem to have smaller antennas than other hubs. The fix for that, if you will read these forums, is to install a Z-Wave repeater near your hub and to put repeaters around your home. Like many parts of life, I practice the Serenity Prayer and choose a path that fixes the issues I cannot change.
I suggest the Ring Alarm Range Extender 2, for several reasons (I’ve got 4). First, they are rather inexpensive ($24.99 on Amazon), and they have internal battery backup so your mesh stays up during power fail. Second, they seem to work well. Third, you can trigger a rule on power source switch from mains to battery which is useful if you have garage freezers powered on a GFCI circuit, as I do. That circuit also powers outlets on our patio that occasionally trip the GFCI, leaving our freezers unpowered. The Rule I set up sends me and my wife a notification so we can reset the GFCI. On the negative side, I have found them difficult to pair, and they apparently only report power fail events if paired securely, as reported by Bryan Copeland in these forums. Go figure.
Now, as to the Aeotec Recessed Door Sensor 7 (I’ve got 3). A bit of history. When they were first released, Hubitat came out with a driver (Aeotec Recessed Door Sensor 7) that worked well, at least for me. Aeotec also had a Door/Window Sensor 7. I have one of these on our garage door so that the Hubitat MyQ Lite driver can sense when the garage door is closed. When the Aeotec Door/Window Sensor 7 came out, Hubitat came out with a driver (Aeotec Door/Window Sensor 7) that worked well, at least for me. Then, to reduce code maintenance, Hubitat combined the two drivers into one (Aeotec Door/Window Sensor 7 Series) that is, in my opinion, very buggy. Search the forums, you will see some of the issues.
Once the Consolidated driver was released, the older, working, drivers became “Deprecated” and could no longer be selected as a driver for newly purchased Aeotec devices (like yours and mine). Hubitat has confirmed that there is no way for users to avail themselves of these Deprecated drivers. I have, multiple times, in my bug reports, requested a “Deprecated” section of drivers that could be chosen for regression testing and for a fall-back position when new, superseding, drivers are released. My suggestion has not, to date, been adopted. Perhaps if others turned in similar requests with their support tickets, this might receive priority attention. Seems reasonable to me.
I have turned in MANY bug reports (support tickets) on this driver. After many months of support tickets, I recently received a reply that the issues would be resolved in the next Hubitat release (2.2.4, the Holy Grail that we all await) that, as far as I know, has not yet moved into beta testing (search these forums).
So here is where we are: I have been able to get my Aeotec Recessed Door Sensor 7 devices and my Aeotec Door/Window Sensor 7 device functional, not bug free. Some of the devices, same device, same driver, report differently. One of the Recessed Door Sensors thinks it has a tamper switch (no, the device does not). Some of the devices report a serial number with a string of zeroes as long as your arm.
Bot here is what I had to do to get there: First, I have NEVER been able reliably to join the Aeotec devices to my C-7 unless paired next to the hub. I believe this is because Z-Wave 700 chips enter a low power mode during pairing to lessen the possibility of snooping. Second, although the documentation doesn’t clearly say so, the ONLY way you (or at least I) seem to be able to set parameters on the Aeotec devices is to wake them up (quickly hit the wake-up button or tamper switch, as appropriate) and IMMEDIATELY hit the Save Preferences button in the driver. Otherwise, the device never updates its parameters.
We wait for the next firmware release. Candidly, the C-7 introduction has been very rough, but things are much better. I hope you’re experience improves. Post in these forums with issues - it’s a good community, very helpful. An turn in support tickets for your issues. These forums are not official Hubitat support. If a ticket doesn’t get turned in, bugs don’t get addressed.
That’s huge! Thanks for the great suggestions.
Based on your feedback, , I decided to try again with pairing the Aeotec Recessed Door Sensor 7 with the C-7 hub. This time with the sensor next to the hub.
After 3 attempts, it came to life after following your advice to keep the sensor awake.
Keeping my fingers crossed that it will continue to work tomorrow!
The older z-waves appear to have died. Only 1 lights up. Attempted resetting and rejoins with the three without success. Even with them next to the C-7. Just so strange that all 3 worked earlier this week on the C-7, then 1 by 1, failed. Don’t know if it’s worth spending much more time attempting resurrection on these.
Also, I just ordered 4 Ring Alarm Range Extender GEN2s. The C-7 is definitely power limited.
Do you have any suggestions regarding repeater deployment? For example, is it necessary to rebuild the mesh from scratch before adding the devices, or simply run z-wave repairs after each extender is deployed?
Considering that the C-7 antennas most likely the problem in my environment, my place has 5-6 levels plus detached garage/workshop, I would think it’s best to locate the 1st extender next to the C-7; the others trial and error.
Finally, I liked your suggestion for the garage freezer power monitor and actually built a power failure detector earlier this year for our Covid freezer. I jerry-rigged a z-wave switch to a small relay, and then wired the relay to a ST moisture sensor. Loss of power closes the relay contacts and the conductors on the sensor. Works perfectly.
Also constructed a temperature sensor for the freezer interior using another ST moisture sensor. Trick was removing the batteries – don’t survive long in freezers – and connecting the battery contacts to an external 5v DC power supply.
So that’s it for now.
I’m anxiously awaiting the upcoming firmware release.
Thanks again for the great advice!
Well, in an ideal world, you would build the mesh from the hub out. That’s nice if you are starting from scratch, but hard to do if you’ve got a working house.
It’s also problematic if you rip out a mains-powered device that the mesh likes to route through, because then you end up with stranded nodes.
If your devices are Z-Wave Plus, they continually try to figure out better routes on their own. The C-7 route column is confusing because it’s not real time, and lags updates by a half hour or so.
So, for Z-Wave Plus and C-7, the collective wisdom seems to be that there is no reason to do a general Z-Wave repair, and that can, in fact, make things worse because it will undo route information that has been learned by the mesh over time. That’s the reason that C-7 devices have single-node repair, which is all that you should use. Might be a good idea, though, to do node repairs on the new repeaters so they can make a good first attempt on routing.
It seems to take a few days for the mesh to stabilize with the routing discovery.
Now, with Z-Wave non-plus, this background re-routing does not happen AFAIK, so a Z-Wave repair is needed.
So I just got an Aeotec recessed door sensor 7 today and paired to my C-7 with no issues. I might recommend before the next attempt you shutdown the hub pull the power cord and wait 15 secs or so then fire up and try again. I am in the process of migrating all Z-wave devices from my 2 C-4 hubs and the only issue I had was some Inovelli 4-in-1s that may have been slightly out of range and partially paired which then left me unable to pair anything else. Was able to do the shutdown thing and pair my Z-stick and eliminate the ghosties and start over. All good so far. When I set up the C-7 I added a bunch of repeaters beforehand radiating outwards from the hub. This has proven to be immensely helpful even though a lot of devices I own are already powered and should theoretically repeat just like the repeaters... ymmv of course.
I was just looking at ordering some of these recessed sensors this evening, and glad I read through this whole thread. I appreciate everyone notating their experiences and how they worked with things as they currently stand.
I understand the hub update is probably still required to gain 100% reliability and functionality as used to be before the consolidated driver, but I am willing to wait if they will work.
I wanted to add that I use the Iris outlets, which have Zigbee protocol for the outlet switching, but also Z-Wave Repeater built in.
I have 10 plugged in all the time, another 5 are used during the holidays for lighting.
These Iris outlets have proven well worth the purchase as my mesh network has never been an issue with these scattered throughout my house in combination to switches and other devices with Zigbee/Z-Wave.
I found the outlets on Ebay in 5 packs, very reasonable at $10 outlet. It appears they are very scarce now.
Here's another source..
Although for Z-Wave repeaters I'm now leaning toward the more expensive Ring Range extender which has a battery backup built in and can detect power failures. It depends on the use-case though as the zigbee outlets are very useful.
https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Alarm-Range-Extender/dp/B07ZB2VP4K/
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