Just started Hubitat 2 days ago, everything is great except for one device (in one location) The Hank RGBW Bulb driver works fine on Hubitat when placed in a socket "inside" the house, however when I place the bulb in it's use location (outside porch light metal fixture), I can no longer control the device. The fixture is actually a closer proximity to the Hubitat than the inside socket I was testing it at. This device in the outside fixture communicated fine when I was using Vera, so the metal outside fixture "should not" be an issue. Any help is appreciated.
You kind of tested if it's a signal strength issue already and proved that it is. Does your hub have a radio stick or the new one with internal radios?
If you have an outlet that can serve as a repeater as a test put it by the light on the inside, run a z-wave repair, and then test.
Always run Z-Wave repair when you move a Z-Wave device if you haven't already. Well I do/would, maybe that's not the official best way to use repair...
It's a new version hub with the radios built in. The hub is literally within 10 feet of this device in it's use location separated by one wall and the metal fixture casing. I have a repeater about 25 foot farther than this device is from the hub and a mailbox contact sensor over 100ft from that repeater showing instant open/close changes, so to me it's not really appearing as a "signal strength" issue.
I'm running zwave repair again to see if anything changes I've done it before many times with no luck.
Can take many hours for the neighbor tables to update. Give it time.
https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Z-Wave_Mesh
That is the official recommendation. Doesn’t correct a weak signal,excessive noise or other interference problem, but it doesn’t hurt anything.
But just because it looks like it only takes a few seconds in HE to do a Z-Wave repair, doesn’t mean the mesh won’t take several hours to actually stabilize.
https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Z-Wave_Mesh
It was originally installed on Monday so it's been 2 days since the first install/z-wave repair, but I excluded and re included and running another z-wave repair as I tend to define insanity......
Z wave is recommend to pair in final place, not like zigbee auto heal. Did you tried to pair it in the metal fixture?
That is where I'm seeing the problem is for reasons unknown, the "initial" first time I paired it, I did so at it's use location, and worked fine communicating perfectly immediately after pairing. When I noticed a rule didn't fire last night (come on at sunset) I went to the device and would not communicate. I tried repair, did not work. I excluded and "Now" am only able to include it by using an separate location. When I move it to it's use location, the only function that worked was turning the device "Off" and nothing else. Very confusing as this is the only device that I have an issue with and it's literally the closest to the hub, as well as this didn't have any issue at the same use location running on Vera.
I suggest removing the bulb from the mesh, temporary move another router device near this fixture, like a iris plug if you have one, repair the mesh, inside its fixture pair the bulb again, repair the mesh, move back the plug to the original position, repair the mesh.
I have different tools for z wave and zigbee, in z wave I seen devices when you pair them only getting one route, after a mesh repair they get multiple, maybe your case is the bulb was pairing directly to the hub, becuase the metal fixture it has interference, when you try to repair the mesh it still not repairing because it can't, adding the router near will help the bulb to get the info needed, like other routes, but maybe you get the same problem, still a possibility. Good luck.
I even tried both pairing modes (flicking switch on once) for insecure and (flicking switch 3 times) for secure inclusion, while at the separate location including, no difference.....but I will keep messing with it, and see what happens......thanks for your help!
Just remeber the bulb must be included insecure.
I have one of those and was testing the new color tile in Dashboard and it just started behaving bizarrely. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I'd set it to color, it would be fine. Set it to White (CT) and it would go white for a second or two and then go to solid red or solid blue. Logs show nothing.
I tried several alternative drivers, clicking Configure and nothing seemed to make a dif.
I unscrewed it... and was thinking of swapping it out with one of my Aeons... when I decided to give it one more try. Screwed it back in and it went through a cycle of colors and then to white... Worked after that.
So for me, power cycle helped.. doesn't seem to be that way for you BUT, I added the commentary about swapping, because I did have it unscrewed for 5 mins or so.
Bottom line: I'm sympathetic, cuz it's weird for me too, BUT I have no solid answer.
I have it paired again (at it's use location) I left the default settings alone (status after power outage/light change speed) this time, and I've only ran a z-wave repair about a half hour ago, not going to touch it at all until later tonight, to insure the mesh network is solid, then check it out.....we shall see, something is definitely fishy with this driver though, as I still can easily connect it to the old vera which is right next to the hubitat and it works fine with no issues......
Both should be paired in place for exactly the same reasons.
I don't know where the notion of zigbee needing to join off the hub then moved to final came from, but it's not good practice.
I left it incomplete, I meant zigbee will auto heal, sorry. I corrected it.
No good, device had no activity for over 3 hours, and the on/off is non functioning, tried different device handlers and none would work..... I guess I will have to be like some of those migrating from ST and keep a few devices on Vera. This and the Nest Protect is the only items left not migrated over all other 50+ devices worked fine, hub is much faster than Vera, UI and rules engine is much more dumb dumb friendly for the code illiterate, kinda missing the native app though.....
This caught my eye. Do you have the Vera hub still powered up while you're trying to join the bulb to Hubitat? Since you wrote "when I was using Vera" I didn't consider your Vera hub might still be in service. So I would try Exclusion from the Vera UI (add in a factory reset to the bulb if it has a separate procedure for that), and then power down the Vera hub before clicking the Zigbee and Z-Wave Discovery again in HE.
Sounds weird I know, and it's just a hunch that might be completely wrong. A few people with ST and IRIS hubs have had this problem with Zigbee, where the device was trying to pair with the old hub. I know they're totally different technologies, but it can't hurt to try.
Yes that is correct the Vera is still powered on as it still has my Nest Protect on it until hubitat gets authorized again, and I used it for when the bulb was stuck on the "initializing" part of the discovering new new devices in hubitat for 15+ minutes. Because once it's been initialized, it must be excluded before trying to include it again, and Vera makes it a very simple process to exclude device even those NOT currently added to the hub, which I don't see a way for hubitat to do this (might be but I haven't seen it, yet)....So during this, each time I have been excluding the device with Vera, before trying to add to hubitat. I will try powering down the Vera before adding again.
When looking at the status on the bottom of the device page, no updates/activity since yesterday, when I tested the device, the on/off worked perfectly for a couple minutes until I tried to change the color, from then on no communication even on/off no longer works.
I clicked on "save device" without changing anything to verify if the "last updated time" would change, it did. However after doing that looking at the events, every single event was a double entry. Not sure why? Also when clicking on/off these do not show up as events as they did earlier when it was working for a few minutes
It's making progress, it will work properly for a few minutes, then stop. If I go to the light switch in turn it off wait a couple seconds and turn it back on, it starts communicating again......hopefully the mesh network will begin to improve this. Haven't needed to try the powering off Vera yet, but if it gets worse I will try that.