That's not correct. I have 3 Gen2 Range Extenders that happily report status on my C5 hub. (And previously had a Gen 1 that reported power status on the same C5.)
Are the voodoo machinations that one has to go through to get power reporting working on an unsecured RRE crazy? No doubt, but it is possible.
That doesnât match my testing, they didnât report power source on my C-5, but they do when paired S2 on my C-7. Perhaps I did something wrong, perhaps you know some trick that I donât. However, Bryan Copeland (@bcopeland) reported the same in another thread:
Also, I said what I did because @ellomdian, the poster to whom I replied, said their hub was a C-7.
There is a trick, but nobody -AFAIK- knows exactly what it is. Currently, the trick is best described as "mess around with it until it works." My then-current theory was that a certain setting on a no-longer-available driver put it in some mode where it 'woke up' and then worked unauthenticated. That method worked pretty reliably for me, but I believe that others reported it didn't work for them.
That makes sense, and it would be -IMNSHO- foolish to pair on a C7 unauthenticated. But it should work the same unauthenticated on a C7 as it does on a C5.
Maybe you care, maybe you don't, but here are screenshots of one of mine working perfectly with my C5. One of my three has been in use longer than this one, plus the Gen 1 that has since been replaced, but my experience has been that once you get them to report, they will work fine for the duration. (I'm not intending to start a holy war, but I don't want someone with a C5 to think that these won't work as power status reporters (or repeaters, for that matter.) It is indeed a gold-plated-bear to get them to work, but it is possible.) These will eventually be paired (authenticated) on my C7, whenever I decide to move my devices.
Apparently non S2 devices that support S0 work fine when joined without S0 so what you said about not supporting that isn't a limitation of the hub's z-wave stack, unless that's just the inclusion piece of it, but was it a requirement for z-wave certification?
So the z-wave stack is what's generating that prompt? And you can't force that prompt to be displayed for devices that don't support S2?
I'm asking because the Z-Wave PC Controller application displays it for devices that just support S0 and you can uncheck the box to make it join without S0.
I've used the Aeotec Z-Stick GEN5 and Aeotec Z-Stick GEN7 (beta) as a primary controller with Z-Wave PC Controller and I'm pretty sure I got that prompt for S0 with both, but I'll double check with the GEN7.
I haven't tried using the GEN7 as a secondary controller with the C7, but when I have a moment I'll also test that and let you know.
If the hub software was given any indication / control of the pre-S2 bootstrapping it could. Unfortunately pre-S2 bootstrapping happens completely in the SDK with no prompts/options to the hub software.