i recently migrated ~63 Z-Wave devices from a Vera Plus to a C-8 Pro running 2.5.0.159.
The hub was extremely fast at first, but as I added more of these older devices I frequently had to reboot the hub to successfully include additional devices.
Now the migration is complete, but every so often some Z-Wave devices stop responding. The Dashboard, Device page, and Alexa can’t control those devices until I reboot the hub. After reboot everything works again.
I also have nine Z-Wave nodes with no associated Hubitat devices:
39, 40, 55, 57, 58, 59, 64, 82, and 83
They all show Discover but no Remove option. Nodes 82 and 83 appear to be from a failed scene controller inclusion, but not sure of the rest as all my devices appear to be accounted for.
I’ve already rebuilt the database, rebooted multiple times, and the mesh topology looks healthy.
Does this sound like orphan nodes in the Z-Wave controller, and is there a recommended way to clean them up? Could these be causing the hub to eventually stop communicating with some Z-Wave devices? I’m extremely new at Hubitat and this has been a huge learning curve for me. Thanks.
I moved from Vera a couple years ago. There’s a bit of a learning curve to Hubitat but you’ll find it much stronger as you wade in. The big positives are there is active product development and a robust user forum (here).
One (annoying) issue with Hubitat, is the spawning of Ghost devices like it seems you have. As TArman suggests you are better off in Z-Wave JS (the newer and go forward ZWave stack) vs Legacy or Z-Wave ZIP (the older now unsupported and EOL ZWave stack). Z-Wave JS has much better tools to deal with Ghost devices than ZIP.
Once you clean up the ghosts do a reboot and a manual backup to save this point. Then add more devices from there. I found if I did an exclude before an include that ensured the device was properly set to be paired. YMMV.
Thanks for the suggestions. I moved to ZWaveJS as suggested and this fixed most issues. It took quite awhile for the devices to change from pending so that kinda freaked me out, but now I only have one oddity left. An UltraPro switch on the network that paired without a name and won’t remove. Aside from that, everything looks perfect and it’s back to being fast again. I’ll deal with that last problem node later.
I’ve been a Vera user for about 15 years, and it’s been a bumpy ride. I was resistant to switch just because I didn’t want to deal with learning something new and setting up all these devices again. I’ve had a ticket opened with them since December for Alexa integration issues, and recently received notice that they would begin charging a monthly subscription even though my ticket was still unresolved. Kinda glad they did that since it was the push I needed to get on a clearly much better platform.
That was me a couple years ago. Long time Vera user, it did what I needed but scenes were limited unless you wanted to write LUUP code or load in tools like PLEG or Reactor. I did go with an EzLo Plus for about a year but it was so buggy and poorly supported I eventually gave up on it. Too many apology messages from EzLo support and not enough actual fixes.
The first few months with Hubitat were a bit rocky getting familiar with the new environment and how RM works. Once over the initial learning curve it has been terrific. They are constantly pushing out new releases with bug fixes, new device drivers, and incremental features. So there is a freshness that didn’t exist with Vera (or Ezlo).
Probably my only complaint of Hubitat is that I find the dashboard editing tools crude and cryptic. Writing CSS to tweak layouts feels very old school. AI comes in handy to help make these changes but it requires much more effort than it should.
A few apps you might want to wade into; lock code manager (LCM), Hubitat Package Manager (HPM), Basic Button Controllers. I find all these ones very helpful. Many swear by Room Lighting app but I haven’t waded into that one yet.
I did have my old Vera running up until last week. I used it only as a way to view some older IP cameras. I shut down Vera with the news of a monthly charge eff August 1, and retired it for good. Replaced a few of the ancient cameras and set up a VPN for the older but still useful ones.
It’s pretty long but here it is. I’ve circled the device in question that has no name listed. All of my UltraPro switches are accounted for and working. I tried turning off power to all of them to see if the hub would then allow me to remove the entry, but no luck. Any suggestions are appreciated!
59 and 83 both need removed. Click refresh on those lines then click remove. If that doesn’t work, switch to z-wavejs, shutdown after reboot and unplug physical power for 1 minute. Power back up, wait 5 mins and try to remove again.
