I have three Schlage Zwave ( not plus) locks. They have been rock solid for a long time now. On the 22nd two of them stopped communicating. I the 23rd the third one stoped communicating with the hub. The blast battery level was still sufficient (72-82%). I changed the battery just to be sure and still not luck. I have rebooted several times. No change. I have disconnected the batteries and left them for an hour. Reconnected power. Still no luck. Everything else seems fine.
@bobbyD Any ideas?
LJ
What hub model (hardware revision) do you have? It is likely a C-5 or C-7, and you can find this in Settings > Hub Details or on the bottom of the hub itself. Also, what does your Z-Wave network look like? Locks tend to like having beaming-capable Z-Wave repeaters in your network, which most modern Z-Wave repeaters are, but the conformance doc, device manual, or perhaps community knowledge may tell you for sure. Finally, do the locks just not report their status back to the hub (an occasional problem with old Schlage locks...), or do they also not respond to commands from the hub (like Lock and Unlock)?
Schlage locks usually have a mind of their own, that's why they are not on the Compatible List of Devices. We have not made any changes in a long time to their drivers or Z-Wave structure, so likely something within your environment changed, that the locks didn't like. Even adding a new mains powered device in your network can disrupt their functionality. As @bertabcd1234 suggested, further investigation and additional details are needed to pinpoint what could have gone wrong.
The non-plus variety are particularly notorious for issues with every z-wave platform I know of. @672southmain upgraded his to z-wave+ versions by swapping out the main boards with z-wave+ main boards from locks found on eBay.
You can try adding beaming repeaters to the mix (put them close to the locks) Though I agree it's strange they just stopped working. Try power cycling the hub. Shut down from the settings menu, unplug power to the hub (at wall not hub itself) for 5 mins and power back up. Manually lock and unlock with the knob a couple of times and then see if they lock/unlock from the device page
I have a C7. I have 4 Aeotec repeaters and 50+ repeater capable switches and devices in the house. I have not added or moved zwave devices in many months. The only thing I added was a zigbee plug this month. The locks do not respond to any commands. I will try the full power down for minutes as suggested and see if it helps.
How close are the repeaters to the locks in reference to the hub?
They are within 8 ft. HOWEVER… I found my problem. When I added the Zigbee plug earlier this month I had to move the Aeotec Repeater that is closest to the hub to another outlet nearby. The Zwave mesh apparently didn’t like that. After some reconfiguration that allowed me to get that repeater back near its original position, everything resumed working. I guess that proves those repeaters are actually contributing in a big way to the locks’ stability. I bought them originally to improve the reliability of those locks but was never sure if they actually improved things or if other devices added back then did the trick. I guess I will have to swear by those little devices. There are zwave switches that repeat right next to each of the locks. But those do not seem to be as effective with these locks as the Aeotec repeaters are.
Thanks for everyone’s input and assistance.
LJ
The problem is often not how close to the lock the repeaters are, but how close to the hub they are. The lock picks the furthest reachable repeater that is closest to the hub in order to preserve the number of hops it needs to jump through to reach the hub.
My understanding - Older (non-Plus) z-wave devices don't implement the Explorer Frames feature to calculate a new route when something in the network changes. I've found that networks that mix older devices can benefit from the "Repair Z-Wave" function in the Z-Wave Settings page which manually forces devices to do route updates ("Repair Z-Wave" is generally not necessary for networks that have all "+" devices as they should be able to find new routes if the network changes by using the Explorer Frame feature).
Sometimes you have to do the "Repair Z-Wave" multiple times until it gets all the nodes to respond (I believe that, in theory, if you have nodes 4 hops away, it could take up to 4 times to find them all -- though that would be in extremely rare situations).
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