C8 Z wave inclusion suddenly unreliable

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1

A little background as I know what I'm doing is unconventional for mesh building- been using a C7 for some time at home with inovelli z-wave switches (red and black) without trouble. We are building a new house that I'm planning to have fully featured. I bought a new C8 (replaced the first dud, then got a working one). My plan has been to pair everything possible to the C8 (using a desktop rig with a power source right next to the hub) before they are installed in the house, then once we move in and plug in the hub, I give the zigbee and z-wave meshes some time to reacalibrate and reroute, and hopefully most things are working smoothly from the start.

Everything below that I've paired has been immediately powered down and boxed back up after verifying successful repair and function.

I successfully and easily paired about 40 Innovelli Zigbee blue light switches.

I then easily paired about 25 z-wave smart wings blinds. The last few smart wing products to pair (z-wave drapery motors and the last few blinds) started being a hassle. Frequently include would not work and I'd need to do multiple exclude/include cycles to pair. Eventually I got them all in, but they started showing up as devices even after skipping the usual pair (security choice) dialogue, and telling me the pair was unsuccessful. Still, the device controlled it properly, so I left them in.

That was a few weeks ago. Today I'm removing my current Inovelli Z-wave switches, excluding them from my old C7 (which went smoothly) and having the same problems trying to get them to pair in my C8. Range is side by side. No other actively connected devices to interfere. They re-include easily in my old C7, but I can't get them to pair in the C8, so it seems to be a problem with the C8's radio. One dimmer switch did finally pair, but again after a message it had failed (the switch flashed green indicating success, but the hub did not acknowledge it). It did turn up functional in the devices list though. Others have flashed green and not shown up in the list. Perhaps they are ghosts now? And yes, I've done the full hub shut down and unplug with no change afterwards.

Any suggestions at this point? I have a half dozen of these switches I'd love to pair before they're installed in the house. Is there some error I'm getting at having so many paired devices, but they are all permanently (for now) offline? Should I pull out my z-wave management stick and look for ghosts? Am I best to wait till we've moved in and the mesh can actually form then start over on these last few switches? I'm fine to wait and let my mesh establish, but if I've done something to gork my z-wave radio that I can fix now, I'd love to get that done too.

Cheers.

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Both are plausible explanations of what might be causing you problems. Offline devices are the same as ghosts, so yes, you have a major ghosts problem that your radio is struggling to cope with.

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Thanks. Well, so much for planning ahead. I guess I'll wait to sort the rest on site.

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Yeah having the unit powered up with those devices not connected will wreak havoc.... Not to mention when you're not doing it on site the routes are gonna take a lot of time to fix. Wiping the radio and then reset and re pairing the devices from the inside out as expressed in the How To build a solid z-wave mesh document is your best bet.

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On the other hand, I'm finding with the C8 and its improved Z-wave radio, most Z-wave devices are pairing directly to the hub. I probably don't have as big a house though.

Although, I did just put in a ZCOMBO in the garage, and it's going a pretty long distance right to the hub. Battery powered z-wave devices in the mailbox, package bin, and gate box at the end of a long driveway, with intervening trees, are also working, directly paired.

Could that be a problem? Probably not.

My experience is that it only takes one z-wave device, or its ghost, to screw things up.

Could the existing C7 be interfering in some way?

I suppose that disabling the devices in the devices page (the grayed out "X") wouldn't work because it only affects the devices' interactions with the hub, but hey, it's easy to try.

I wonder if leaving it turned on for a while, like overnight, maybe with one active device, would help?

Good luck in the new place!