Hi, sorry for asking questions almost a year after this discussion. I have just migrated from the Vera hub to Hubitat C7, and two points became clear to me:
a. The antenna power of HE is very poor compared to Vera, so building the mesh network from the center to out is critical;
b. It is clear that after one or two days there is a huge degradation of the response of the devices, exactly as described in several posts at the beginning of this tread.
My questions after reading the 80 messages, I am still in doubt:
S2 security did not work on Vera, on Hubitat the devices connect without problem, but is S2 the villain of the z-wave network problems?
I understand that what appears as S0 in the z-wave management part of HE, is in reality the S2 security, what is as none, has no security, is that correct?
To remove the S0, is it necessary to remove the device and add it again, informing skip when the safe pairing question comes up?
One thing that caught my attention, I have two identical devices, paired one after the other, one is marked with security S0 and the other None. Any explanation?
Everything that asked to pair with security I said yes, but I see that almost nothing is marked with S0.
Additional information:
I have no ghost devices on my network;
I am using an HE C7, extremely up to date;
I don't run any rule machine running on the HE, I run everything separately from the Multi-System Reactor;
I have more than 70 devices, which should be no problem.
I see that despite all the messages, I did not understand if we reached any conclusions about the z-wave radio, and the slowness that starts to happen.
The final question is, would it be a good solution to reboot the HE every day during the night, in order to "clean" the z-wave radio?
No. S2 is correctly shown as S2, S0 is correctly shown as S0. None is no security.
Security mode is determined at inclusion. In order to change the security type, you have to exclude and re-include.
Rebooting should not be necessary at this time. There was a period where memory leaks would cause the free memory to evaporate, but most, if not all, of those cases are gone. If you are concerned, use the Hub Information driver (community contributed by @thebearmay) to monitor free memory and reboot based on an appropriate rule if the memory gets too low.
I only reboot when firmware is upgraded.
As for “cleaning” the Z-Wave radio, the only way to reboot the Z-Wave radio is to do a clean shutdown, then power off for 30 seconds, then power up and allow the hub to boot. Rebooting the hub does not reboot the radios; only a power off does.
Not quite true. Some devices are not capable of doing any form of security except S0. For them, you do not have the option to pair as none. It’s not a Hubitat issue, apparently, but is a constraint of the SiLabs radio API. For such devices, the only way to pair with no security is to run SiLabs free PC Controller software on a PC, using a USB Z-Wave stick paired as a secondary controller to the Hubitat hub. Search the forum for how to do this -it’s non-intuitive. Apparently the SiLabs software can do tricks that are not possible with the SiLabs Z-Wave radio API presented to Hubitat by the SiLabs Z-Wave 700 series chip used in the radio.
It's just that the PC Controller software is effectively running as a 500 series chip controller. It uses none of the 700 chip's features and talks to the 700 series as if it were a 500 series. (That's an approximate overview.)
Therefore, no matter which USB Stick you buy, 500 or 700 series, PC Controller talks with the chip over the older 500 series serial API not the 700 series API, which opens the option to NOT have security... S-none as I call it
Maybe. I think it much less problematic than S0. I don't think it necessarily bombs out the network like S0 does, but you really don't need S2 either. So why use it and potentially have issues unless you are required to use it for things like locks and garage doors and similar items.
None and S0 are two completely different things. Devices will show either none, S0, S2 or whichever security level they have.
S0 is the worst, it has 3 times as much traffic as any other security method. If at all possible try to avoid this unless you are forced to use it for locks, doors, and other security related devices. Your light switches and other devices very likely do not need S0, and some sensors like multi-sensors that send many different things like humidity, motion, temperature and lux can really be very destructive to the mesh when paired with S0.
Thank you very much for your comments, I have already removed the APP for daily reboot automatic, and I will build a routine that evaluates the memory as you suggested.
Thank you very much for your comments. I see that I will have to buy the USB Stick 700 and do the debugging you comment on. Can you recommend me the USB Stick from Amazon that you think is better? Thanks.
Thank you very much for your comments. I now have a dilemma, if S0 is not S2, where did all the devices go that I accepted security pairing? I don't have any S2 and I am sure that I have accepted several for S2.
If S0 is bad, then I will try to remove it, from my almost 80 devices only 4 are S0, strangely a siren, a smoke/co detector and another exactly like it is not with S0, a lock and a lamp. In short, by your explanation, only the lock could be accepted with S0.
Mission to remove everything and try to make the pairing again.
Hi, today I finally removed and reinstalled what I had S0, however 4 devices there was no way to enter without Security, and not to create a problem in Hubitat z-wave network, I installed again in my old hub Vera: Door Lock Yale B1L YRD110-ZW-0BP, Smoke Sensor Smoke (2x) and Bulb Zipato RGBW2.US. Unfortunate that Hubitat can't work around this problem.
The unfortunate thing is that this is a requirement of the 700 series Zwave chipsets, Hubitat probably would rather not be burdened with this requirement. I think your blame is misplaced here.
The door locks are OK to have with S0, they don't seem to be the offenders to crashing the network. They are only intermittently transmitting, and they aren't devices that are sending lots of things at one time like a multi-sensor does. So you could put that back on Hubitat without much concern.
In general if you have only a couple S0 devices, or if you adjust settings to minimize what and how often devices are transmitting, you probably won't have any problems.
It is when you have lots of S0 and they are chatty devices like multi-sensors or power reporting devices (especially when these types of devices are misconfigured) do you have issues.
Thanks for your comment, and it makes sense what you mention about returning the lock, even though it is S0. I will do this.
I think a big problem I had, was a siren (Aeontec ZW080 US) that was the second device I added, and I was looking at that it turned out to be a big repeater on my network and it was S0. When I removed it and added it again, it didn't ask the security question, but came back without the security key, so that may have been one of the reasons for the failures.
Well now I have one step to do to improve my network, I will install the external antenna on the hub, I already bought the accessories and next week I will return with the result.
Thanks.
Hi Lewis!
Please, I have a question.
The material arrived, and I will follow your step-by-step instructions on how to install the external antenna.
After I make this change, how should I make the Z-Wave network devices search for Hubitat again, and understand that there may be a better way, and maybe direct to the hub?
Thanks.
Time is your friend. It will take several days/weeks for your hub to settle with the new stronger connection. I upgraded mine months ago and things continue to change daily.
Plugging it back in a lot of devices will go direct right off the bat. Maybe 75% or so and the rest will take a little time. It varies based on device count, number hops that devices have to muddle through to figure out the better path. An individual device repair could help as well as air gapping the device if it has it. It will take some time as well.
Yes, it had become very bad, I removed everything, cleaned and put new contact with minimal solder. I forgot to take a picture, but already saw the excellent result quickly.
What country? Really depends on the antenna. The filter on the zwave radio will filter out the other frequencies but a tuned antenna will usually perform better if the frequency center is right at the correct frequency.
