Bug in Rule Machine Refresh? (not a RM bug)

[user3522]

I believe there is a bug in Rule Machine when using the Refresh command. Zooz tech support told me to report it to Hubitat, so here it is.
The rule Refreshes my devices (42 of them) every 60 minutes. Its a simple Rule with only the Refresh command (along with some delays I put in to try to solve the problem). The Zooz zen77 switches occasionally respond by reporting they are dimmed to 10% and On even though they are not.
Zooz support says: "We would recommend reporting the issue to Hubitat, as this looks like an issue with polling on the platform, as the information is not sent by the switch". (I'm not really sure what this means as the info has to come from somewhere).

Here are some screen shots of the rule and the events:

Here is a screenshot of the events for my device showing it is Off until it is Refreshed by the rule. Once Refreshed it then reports it is On 10% even though the lights are physically Off. Sometimes it reports a different dim level.

[ogiewon]

So, it appears that Rule Machine is calling each device's "refresh()" command - correct? Rule Machine is not involved whatsoever after the refresh() command is called. The device's driver takes over at that point.

The driver should send a Z-Wave command out to the device, requesting a status update. Once that status update is received by the driver, it has to parse it and then update the device's attributes.

Rule Machine does not have a bug with respect to this, IMHO. It sounds like the driver may need some work. Which driver are you using for these devices?

[bravenel]

What you're showing has nothing to do with Rule Machine. All RM does is send the refresh command. What the device does with that command is up to the driver/device. Zoos support is just misdirecting. There is no polling on the hub unless you set it up.

[user3522]

Yup, kinda figured it was the driver.

Pretty much only the zooz zen77 are behaving this way. But since zooz said it was HE I wanted to mention it.

Could it be the driver is getting 'confused' or overwhelmed by the network traffic and giving false reports of the state. I'm using the zooz advanced driver from their site at their suggestion.

The zen77 dimmers are not actually changing or turning on the lights. They are only incorrectly reporting that it is On 10%

[bravenel]

What driver are you using? That's on the device page under Type.

[user3522]

@bravenel

What driver are you using? That's on the device page under Type.

I alternated between 2 drivers during troubleshooting. One was a user driver from Zooz named Zooz Zen Dimmer Advanced and the other was a built in driver named Zooz Zen77 Dimmer. What driver should I be using?

[bcopeland]

@user3522

I alternated between 2 drivers during troubleshooting

Did both the user and built-in have the same issue?

[bcopeland]

I have seen this in another model recently that started sending a value for target level when there shouldn't be one.. I'm adjusting the driver..

[user3522]

@bcopeland

Did both the user and built-in have the same issue?

Both drivers had the same issue and happened with some regularity when I ran an hourly Rule that was Refreshing all of the switches and dimmers in my network (about 40). I built the Rule early on in the migration from Vera and I had a lot of old zwave devices.

I'm pretty new to the HE platform, so a little foggy on the exact sequence of troubleshooting that I went thru. I replaced most of the old zwave switches and dimmers, but not the relays, thermostats, etc. I finally realized my Refresh Rule ran immediately prior to the false values, and I put some short 1 second delays in the rule, with no effect. I then put longer delays (4 seconds) between groups of 8 devices and I would still see the "On 10%" randomly but less frequently. Somewhere in this cycle I changed drivers.

Last night I broke the rule into 3 separate parts that ran 20 minutes from each other. Each of the 3 rules have 4 second delays between groups of 5 devices (15 devices). Today I haven't seen the false values in any device, so (non-scientifically) I think the network was getting saturated and some devices are picking up false signals. (?)

And ironically now that I'm writing the sequence that I went thru, I realize I may not need the Refresh rule anymore since most of my devices are now z-wave plus.

[user3522]

I think I have this fixed, so I wanted to post in case there's additional interest.

I have been struggling with my migration to HE for several weeks. I transitioned a mix of 50 older and newer zwave and zwave plus devices from Vera. I had a lot of problems with the transition, including the 10% max dim problem on some of the Leviton DZ3PD (fixed with factory resets), but primarily with incorrect reporting of the device state after running a Rule to turn off all the devices at night.

After turning off most of the devices at night with a Rule, zooz and leviton devices (and occasionally others) would frequently report that they were still On at a very low dim level (usually 3%-10%), but they were actually Off. Sometimes they were actually On, but mostly Off with false report of On X% dim.

To fix this, I changed most of the older zwave to zwave plus. I changed the device drivers to generic, user or what was in the device list thinking it was a driver problem. I added delays in the Rule. I updated firmware. I tried building a Rule that would Refresh all the devices, and I tried building Groups with metering turned on. But still the problem remained.

I'd still get frequent errors showing a device was On X% while it was really Off. The individual Device page would incorrectly show On 10%, but if I did a Refresh it would show the correct OFF state.

I found that a Rule with Refresh didn't fix the problem, sometimes causing a different device to false report. Neither did changing drivers, adding delays, using Groups, metering, or updating to the latest firmware.

I don't know if it's the driver, firmware, device itself, or HE, but my anecdotal evidence has determined that Leviton and Zooz don't play nicely with each other. My Rules for Off or Refresh were built around my physical rooms that had a mix of Leviton and Zooz devices. I was building a rule that was turning off or refreshing a room with the zooz and leviton devices together, and that doesn't seem to work.

It turns out that a Rule that creates separate Off or Refresh commands for only the Leviton DZ3PDs or DZ6 devices followed with a short delay, then Off or Refresh for the Zooz together, my problem with incorrect reporting goes away. Its very repeatable - only when they are commanded together do they incorrectly report the device state.

The upside is I'm getting pretty good at Rule machine.