More Z-Wave Issues / Topology Map Questions

[danabw]

From Bryan some time back:

Node topology gives you an overview of the entire Z-Wave routing table. Blue dots are nodes that can see each other, and red are nodes that aren't neighbors.

Seeing a bunch of red is not an indication of a bad network.. Especially where battery devices are concerned, because they don't update their neighbors..

The point of this is to give you a quick look at what nodes can "see" what other nodes.. Gives you an idea of how things can route.. It can also be a good tool to decide where to place repeaters.. But with no context of where these nodes are physically and what type of device they are, you can't make a judgment based on this graphic alone..

Here is mine.. You can clearly see the bulk of my battery devices:

More info:

@JohnRob

I'm pretty new at this but I've learned:

1. Node 01 (and 02 to 05) is your hub.
2. Blue indicates the device on the horizontal axis and vertical axis are talking to each other (repeating)
3. Red is not connection.
4. Every device must have a "path" to the hub. I would guess the minimum number of repeaters between a device and the hub is better.

@csteele

One axis is "Hub to Device". The other Axis is "Device to Hub"

Ideally both axis match. A mismatch means that either the hub can't talk to the device or the device can't talk to the Hub. That better explains the white middle diagonal.. it's a "self to self" point in the chart.

The indicators come from Polling the devices.. the hub asks. "who are my neighbors? (who can hear this?)" Then the hub asks all the nodes to send their own neighbor list. An individual node might get this second query via a neighbor, and send the list of neighbors back the same way.

The Topology table is just a visual display of those answers.

This is the simplest Topology I can find, it says the hub can be heard by the device and the device can hear the Hub. The hub sent out a query asking for neighbors, and only one device answered. Then it sent out a mesh wide broadcast asking for each device to respond with their unique list of neighbors. One set of answers goes in one axis, the other set of answers goes in the opposite axis.

This topology shows that every device can hear the Hub (except one) and every device has the hub as a neighbor (except one). There's a problem with the 2nd device #9 in that it has only one neighbor, device 61. If that device has a fault, then I also lose device #9.

Does that help?

A critical element is that the queries for a list of neighbors is NOT run when you click the Topology Map button. It might have been run a week ago. In my example above, that #9 device is a strip of RGBW LEDs stuck to the upper edge of my kid's Computer Monitor. It was used during Covid and Zoom Classroom days. They used to automatically light when school started and go off when it was done. Doesn't happen any more AND the wall wart has long ago fallen off the wall. The device is a Ghost in the classic sense, although plugging it back in would probably restore it.

@jtp10181 has poasted some really good comments on the topology map in the past, maybe he'll drop by as well and share.