[C7, 2.3.9.166] Do I have anything to worry about here?
I excluded a Z-Wave device yesterday. Not my first time doing an exclude, and I'm pretty sure I did it by the book. (No apps 'in use,' put the device in exclude mode, and used the 'Remove Device' button.) All appeared well until I peeked into my logs and noticed that 2 devices were noted as being excluded, the one I was intending to exclude, plus a bonus device. I didn't think that was possible, without the second device being in 'exclude mode.' And it definitely wasn't put into exclude mode by me, as it's a receptacle behind a bookcase. You have to make an effort to get back there. (Obviously, that doesn't mean the individual device wasn't in a state of firmware confusion of its own doing.)
It was simple to fix, and only took a few minutes to re-include it and get it fully setup again, but how did this happen, and more importantly, should I have any concern that there is something wrong with my hub? Should I take any action on the hub end? I've been considering a full radio restart, anyway, so this may be a good time to clean out any cobwebs, real or perceived.
I don't see how this can be a problem with the hub or anything you can do or change on that end--the device does have to be in exclusion mode for this to work, and the hub can't force that to happen no matter what it tries (some things would be a bit easier if it could!). All it can do is force-remove it from the radio database, which will not do an exclusion and is something you'd also have to specifically choose.
Is this a device that happens to be easy to put into exclusion mode? (There was a product from a vendor I won't name a while back where one of the regular operations you could do with it physically also happened to put it in exclusion mode, which they eventually added a parameter to disable...to name on example.) Otherwise, I share your suspicion that maybe something is wrong with the device. I suppose some weirdness is possible if your Z-Wave radio database is corrupted and it thought two devices had the same node ID, but I can't imagine both of them working without problems if that was the case...
What is the make and model of your receptacle? I ask because the older model GE/Jasco ones could be excluded simply by turning on or off the switch digitally - talking the old 300 series ones. The newer Zwave Plus 500 series require you to press the button to be excluded.
So maybe the switch happened to turn on or off when you were excluding the other switch.
These can be problematic also as the GE/Jasco devices from the factory only require a simple push of the button... @JasonJoel has drivers that allow you to change the device to a more complex (alternate) pairing mode... Its like two taps up and two taps down or something like that...
I have more than a few times had exclude running when someone from the family flipped on a light switch and boom... gone...
I also suspect, the electronic action will also remove them, even on the newer devices...
In looking at how Jason did his drivers to enable the alternate inclusion/exclusion thing, I found I could use the basic z-wave tool driver to set that option in all my GE/Jasco devices... So they all use the alternate method and since doing that, I haven't had any "accidental" exclusions...
Leviton ZW15R, running the newest (ahem, wink, wink) firmware. You have to hold the button for 7 seconds, then press the button again to put it into exclude mode, so I’m confident that didn’t happen, though, as mentioned, I can see where it may have been a ‘hidden’ device issue.
I see how it’s hard to look at the hub, and I didn’t notice any issues that would point toward a ‘bad’ database. (The originally excluded device was rarely used, but I think I would have heard it if the commands for the other device were hitting it.)
One thing that was weird, perhaps, was that the second decide excluded clean as a whistle. It should have had 7 entries in the ‘in use by’ section, and there were no warnings, no broken rules, nothing. That’s why I do slightly question the hub, because I thought it would have warned me in that situation.
Odd, I have a few of these (bought when they first launched) and I haven't ever had any of them exclude unintentionally. Not trying to gloat -- just a data point that hopefully supports this being some kind of coincidental fluke.
Indeed. I had a max of either 9 or 10 of these on the network at one time, and am down to 4, with some additional include/excludes in the mix, so probably 12-15 excludes for this model device and haven't seen it before.
I agree that nothing makes sense, but OTOH, 'something' caused this. Figuring out what is the challenge.
