Just got my new HE today. Got it set up okay. I took an existing Ecolink Contact Sensor and excluded it from Smartthings. Then I included it with HE. It shows up as a device. But when I open and close the contact, it does not consistently and accurately report to HE the correct status of open vs close.
I then opened up a brand new, never used, Ecolink Contact Sensor. Paired to HE okay. But it too reports the correct status only sporadically. I tried rebooting the hub, but still the same problem.
Hello & Welcome @didymus:
I have a number of the Ecolink Contact Sensors in my place.
This is exactly the model that I have:
There should be no issues with pairing these and HE, and the response time should be immediate. (That's been my experience with ~10 of them.) Please note that they are not repeaters of the z-wave mesh.
Perhaps your zwave mesh isn't fully developed yet?
Are there repeaters between the contacts and the HE?
I have no repeaters. The sensor is about 15 feet from the hub. It worked flawlessly with smartthings. In fact, I have couple with Smartthings and they both work perfectly.
Yes, I have the Z-Wave Plus you linked to.
Since you have no repeaters (yet), run a z-wave repair.
I have found that it helps after I add a device to run the repair to re-build the mesh.
(That's something I didn't have to do with SmartThings, but what the heck!)
This is the first and only device I had paired with HE. Should I still run a z-wave repair?
I moved my sensor right next to the hub, and it seems to work correctly. But 15 feet away from the hub, and I think it has trouble connecting sometimes. The thing is, with Smartthings it worked perfectly from that distance. Is it possible Smartthings has a better z-wave radio?
I don't think that Samsung had a better radio, considering what I have seen HE do.
(I have a C5 hub now, but I used to have the C4, which had an external USB antenna).
I do think that there are differences between the way that HE handles some things and the way that ST handles. I can't explain why you should have to run a zwave repair more often under HE, but I feel confident that approach is the correct one. (Besides, it couldn't hurt!)
An example of the differences is in the polling of older zwave (not plus) switches. I think that the ST platform did some of that polling in the background, for you, and HE doesn't. That doesn't mean to say that you can't get the same result, it just means that the HE people had a slightly different systems philosophy in that area. (There are many threads on the polling issue. Again, it's not an issue, just a difference.)
I ran the z-wave repair, but still having issues. Currently the contact is actually closed, but is reporting as open. Very disappointing first day with Hubitat.
Hmm... the only thing that I can think of is that you got a hub with a defect.
I'm sorry, I know that the hub works with those contact sensors, and I know that it works at a significant distance.
The only thing that I can suggest is to contact support.
My apologies for not being able to help you further.
Sorry to hear your having troubles. Contact support@hubitat.com if you suspect the z-wave radio. However, do confirm that the sensor is properly reset. Even a new sensor should be reset before inclusion, as long as a general exclusion has been done with them when they were previously included in the SmartThings Z-Wave network.
SmartThings likes to grab some devices back sometimes, so you might power down the z-wave radio in SmartThings or the entire hub during inclusion of these DW sensors to the Hubitat hub.
You really need to build your mesh properly. Start with line powered devices closest to the hub and build outwards. Save your battery powered devices until you have a few line powered devices up and running. A Z-wave repair won't help with battery powered device. They are asleep and can't respond to a network update message.
I have two of these in my laundry room, front and rear door. Had them on ST and now for about a month on HE. No problems with either platform. However, prior to installing on HE I did place a Z-Wave repeater (Iris Outlet) in the laundry room. Mainly because of all I read in this forum about Z-Wave. One thing I have noticed about them on ST and HE is they have always reported 100% battery for over a year. Seems odd, but hopefully true.
@didymus Unless you only had battery-powered devices on ST then you have no comparison. You NEED line powered devices before your Z-wave devices will get stable. The more devices you have the better. At some point, your Z-wave network will just work.
Didymus, I'm the person referenced in your linked thread above. If you'd like an update, my experience is identical to yours. My first foray into home automation was with the Abode hub, which promised to be both an alarm system and home automation system. As I quickly found out, it is an alarm system with SOME home automation features. It wasn't adequate for what I wanted to do (but it's alarm features are better than any of the hubs I tried). Enter Smart Things, promised to do everything I wanted it to, but it didn't work as promised. Then enter Hubitat. I did a bake-off, not wanting to maintain 3 separate hubs. I'm now down to two. I have eliminated the SmartThings hub, and have Abode for the alarm features and Hubitat for the rest. I would love to integrate them someday to have one UI to deal with. However, just as you experienced, to make it work, I had to add 3 repeating nodes to my mesh network. SmartThings had the same sensors in the same locations with no repeating nodes and worked fine. My Abode system has sensors in much more remote locations, at least 3 times the distance, with no repeating nodes. However, I decided the repeating nodes were the price to pay, as aside from that gripe, I like the Hubitat platform much better than SmartThings. Let me know if I can add anything else, I still consider myself a novice at this.
I’m really surprised (and disappointed) that the Hubitat z-wave radio range is so poor compared to SmartThings. I wonder why there is such a difference? I wonder if the Hubitat company is aware of the issue?
If you have battery backup for your hub and router, with HE you now need to have it for your repeaters.
