C7 Underwhelming Perfomance

This means the update is done (whoops @csteele got there first!)

Could you post this full page (if need be in section)? Ghost devices will kill a mesh.

Also, what LAN/cloud integrations are you using?

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LAN/Cloud? I don't have any cloud integration and ZWAVE doesn't leverage any wifi correct? I do have Zigbee and wifi products as well. But, my network is business grade. PFSENSE, AP's..

I have had an ongoing fight with a couple of switches that drop off periodically. I pull the breaker and put back in and they reconnect. A friend ran diagnostics for rogue devices and was pretty clear in logs.

Working on rest of info.

These would be LAN (and possibly cloud) integrations. Chromecast is a cloud-dependent integration.

Knowing what runs on your hub is kind of essential to figure out what is slowing things down. Most likely, it is something z-wave, but it could be a side-effect of some other integration .....

It would also be useful for you to check the app stats and device stats - which would be quick way to determine if there's a runaway app or device.

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All of mine are in the same range... except 1. It shows 2.2% for device because I have a LED strip that randomly changes color, randomly between 4-11 seconds. It runs 24x7x365 for NO USEFUL reason.. I just like it. :smiley:

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FYI nearly every browser has a page capture app that will capture the WHOLE screen, including that which is not on the screen. In Firefox its called "Fireshot"

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While 95 devices are not even a half of the maximum allowed devices per Z-Wave controller, they can easily overwhelm any controller if devices are left to generate events uncontrollably. I would make sure that power reporting and S0/S2 encrypted devices are kept at minimum. Those are the two biggest Z-wave bandwidth hogs that would have the effect on your hub that you described.

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Z-wave Z-wave Z-wave ---- that is the problem. I have houses with so many Zigbee devices or Lutron Caseta devices and the hub purrs. If I put in 20 Z-wave devices the hub crawls. Z-wave kills the hub and should be only reserved for items that you can not find in Zigbee.

actually it isn't, its local.

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@mike.maxwell

Sorry, I meant announcing using Google/Chromecast was cloud dependent.

My bad.

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Zigbee gives me far more issues than zwave. To the point i'm down to just a few Innr bulbs, and one zigbee motion sensor thats about to be replaced by a zwave motion sensor. Once I figured out a couple issues with ghosts and applied some communuty best practices I never have to mess with my zwave anymore unless im adding devices.

My point is everyone has their own experiences. As with everything else in this arena your mileage may vary. I think people that start using alot of one off and different devices (in any standard) are going to be more likely to have isses than those who build areound a few specific manufacturers.

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I am in the same boat as @lcw731. I have over 118 devices, 41 of which are zwave, 20 are zigbee, and the rest are a combination of virtual, wifi, and devices feed from node-red. The zwave devices work pretty darn flawlessly. You do have to be careful of ghosts and adress them quickly, but they all work great. The big thing with either zigbee or zwave is to make sure you build a good mesh.

I think this is a good point. Most of my stuff is Ring Gen 2 gear and Zooz gear.

Building a good mesh on either technology will make things alot better.

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Respectfully, I disagree. I have 60 z-wave devices, of which 30 are not z-wave+. 27 of these are 300-series and 3 are 100-series.

I have no issue with my z-wave mesh. It is fast and responsive.

I don't have any issue with either of my two zigbee meshes either, one of which has about 40 devices and the other has about 80.

It comes down to how carefully a mesh is designed, how chatty the devices are, and the quality of repeaters/routers.

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Every environment is different - so many factors to consider. Here are some fun ones based on my experiences:

  • User created rules potentially conflicting or having bugs or unanticipated consequences.
  • Types of devices used can impact the mesh including faulty or older specd devices.
  • Placement of devices and hub - too spread out or in a signal unfriendly area (like a metal electrical box) and signal struggles to get through causing routing errors, sporadic functioning / potential delays and battery drain.
  • Custom apps/drivers chewing up hub resources or bugs impacting device operations.
  • Local area network / Firewall settings blocking certain functions including cloud services,
  • Device firmware issues.
  • Quirkiness of signal propagation due to layout and types of building materials at the location.
  • Signal Interference from other sources - WiFi router etc.
  • Temperature in area around hub and devices.
  • Stable and proper power for hub / devices - easy to overload certain smart switches / plugs if not careful (always check the specs!), Power backups for hubs etc.
  • The per spec mesh routing rules inherent to the protocol and chipsets. Z-Wave seems to have the most weirdness here BUT due to enforced spec requirements ZW devices are usually more compatible than Zigbee.

It's a hard lesson that there is a lot of trial and error involved in implementing a moderate to large personalized solution. The above is true for ANY home automation solution not just HE though.

:exploding_head:

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@goldbond1 what is your uptime? A pic of the app stats / device stats will tell us this. I found that my hub (loaded with automations, but mostly zigbee or LAN) performed worse after a couple of days of uptime.

Then i found this Hub Rebooter app. It greatly increased my Hub's performance. You might want to try it out:

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I am sorry for the delay on responding but quite busy with work and other.

On the reboot question: Isn't there a reboot after every HE upgrade? There have been a number over the past month and I ensure these are applied as needed. I have done a periodic main breaker power off to recycle zwave mesh.

Again, the issue seems to focus on simply trying to turn on a handful of zwave light switches at once based on a rule. (intruder at night..) . The HE seems to puke. I validated recently no rogue devices on my network spewing traffic. But, I do get the occasional drop requiring reset of Inovelli light switches, (pull jumper) in particular. These drop off and aren't spamming.

I like the idea above of perhaps putting a wait on each switch/device . Maybe that would help. But, I really don't feel I should have to do that. And, I need to review how this is done.

Re. 3rd party integration.

  1. I have HA (Home Assistant API) connectivity for a dashboard only. No logic.
  2. Blue Iris (BI Controls) connectivity with 4 cameras. Only used for motion/trigger.
  3. Google Home - 6 devices
  4. Life360 for 6 users
  5. Ecobee 3 thermostats

Let me reiterate that ALL devices independently turn off instantly including my new Aqara which were just recently added. HE has been FAR better than ST ever was. This is ONLY about triggering events that have a number of actions consecutively and it only seems to be ~5 before the HE pukes. It will turn 4 outside zwave lights on for TOD (Sunset) no problem. I

Still working on log analysis. Will try a few other things..

Sample of 1 rule that pukes:

With current firmware on hub and zwave metering is not needed, in fact it was removed from the new RL app. I have been using it for larger groups with no metering and it works well. As the devs explained it, metering was a band-aid to work around a problem with the zwave SDK which has since been fixed by SiLabs.

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I have to agree to disagree with you. Zigbee is far better then Z-wave.

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The both have their strengths and weaknesses.

I've definitely found Zigbee mesh to be more robust and faster in general. Makes sense given the higher bandwidth available. Have also experienced devices dropping off the mesh as well, much more frequently than ZW.

OTOH working Z-Wave devices tend to stay that way - like my closet light switches and contact sensors (Aeotec recessed door sensors) and exterior lighting. Also most every device labelled Z-Wave will pair with the hub. Having said that the routes can sometimes get weird and devices remain in the DB and it's hard to recover..

I find that devices that require security on Z-wave (like locks) constantly fail, while my non-security devices are even more reliable than zigbee.

I had such an issue before. Have you tried changing your zigbee channel? I installed a wifi analyzer app on my phone, looked at the most prominent channels, then set my zigbee channel to a channel far from those (in my case 15).

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