I'm personally hoping they just come out with a hub that has a reliable functioning zwave radio. Something that works solidly like wink, homeseer, vera, etc. I haven't touched a single zigbee device (besides adding more) during the last 6 months.
The zwave side is non stop having to mess with it. One day everything will work fine, then others the locks drop off. I add the range extenders everything works great for a few days lights stop blinking on range extenders, then back to locks and a few switches not working, exclude the range extenders back off the mesh and everything works great again (for a day). Then repeat the above steps over and over and over. Something has to change, and it will more likely be what I'm using as a zwave controller.
While my old Schlage FE599 (non Z-Wave Plus) lock has given me fits, I have not seen similar problems with any other Z-Wave devices. I see Yale has finally come out with a lever lockset that can use their Zigbee module. If I see a bargain on that, I may ditch the old Schlage (and it is old).
You sure Hubitat is to blame? I had the same issues with Home Assistant using two different z-wave sticks (the HUZBZB and Aeotec) and 4 different brands of z-wave plus dimmers. The reliability was about 95% at best. And once in a while devices would just disconnect for no apparent reason. Eventually I got fed up with z-wave and ditched all my gear, switched over to Zigbee and Lutron. Never had an issue since. And I mean NOT ONCE! It just works. I think the Z-wave protocol is just poorly designed.
P.S. It may work better with some other hubs because they might be creating custom handlers for each brand to overcome the inconsistencies allowed by the z-wave protocol.
Zwave does not work as well in Hubitat as some other hubs. Pairing is spotty/problematic and range seems to be lesser than other hubs.
That said, my zwave devices have worked very well on hubitat after getting everything paired. But I have a crap ton of repeaters, so signal differences are eliminated... And I replaced my zwave locks with zigbee, as I could never get them 100% reliable on HE (even though they were on ST).
I will say, though, that my comments on signal strength/range are based on the nortek stick/C4 hub. I don't have enough zwave devices on my C5 hub to comment on signal strength/range.
Pairing devices has been problematic on both hubs for many months for me.
Out of curiously, are you using a C-4, or C-5 hub?
Edit: I know it’s anecdotal, but I’ve got anywhere from 20-40 Z-Wave devices on my C-4, 2-5 on another C-4, but none in my C-5 (development hub). I’ve yet to notice any issues with it, but understand that cases all vary.
I have 33 zwave devices and never have any problems with a C4 hub. My home is 1500 sf 2nd floor and 1500 sf ground floor. I have 6 outside post lights and lights in my detached shop which is 100 feet away from the house. I don't think zwave problems can be attributed to the radio in the hub. I also have about the same number of Zigbee devices and they have not given me any problem.
I have 3 C-5 hubs, I have removed and rejoined all of my zwave devices at least 10 times since march trying each one of my 3 hubs, all have the same result. I even tried using an external zwave stick with a y-adapter (even worse). I have 37 Zwave devices at which 23 of them are repeaters at which 5 of those are Aeotec Range Extenders. Which leaves 14 battery powered devices which 3 are the notorious Schlage locks that post after post on here has complained about since I joined HE back in March.
Some have recommended replacing them with the zigbee version, that may solve the problem, but at a cost of over $600. Which will be far more than covering the cost of adapting them to some other platform that has reliable zwave.
Overall (most of the time) regular devices don't have much issue, it's mainly securely connected devices I.E. -- Locks. They drop off your mesh all the time. Other than those I would be happy as I have a battery powered contact sensor over 100 ft away from the house on a mailbox that never misses a notification.
For some reason something in this zwave implementation doesn't wake the Locks up from sleeping like other platforms apparently do.
If you look my old posts, you will see I had multiple problems with Z Wave, the way to resolve it was pretty easy, I created 2 meshes, one for all devices and the other for the locks and a couple of repeaters (the z wave part of iris outlets), yesterday I added 2 new devices, no problems, the mesh is fast after I removed the locks, and I have 2 HEMs flooding it. I have 2 c4.
Interesting. I don’t suppose you’ve tried this with HomeAssistant? I don’t have any more locks to try—all of mine are in use. The only issues I have with them are the deadbolts not sealing when the door isn’t shut all the way. ST would say ‘jammed’ or ‘unknown’ for the status of the locks when this happened, no such thing over here. I do miss that.
I don't have HomeAssistant (yet) Like others I had no issue with these locks dropping off when I had Smartthings and Vera (and had far fewer repeaters than I do now). I am currently researching HomeAssistant to see about putting my zwave on there and joining it to HE.
Im not familiar with the locks, but I remember reading something a while back that the device closet to the door has to do something or have something not all zwave devices have...
Yeah, but then you are still stuck with the same nortek stick. I've found the Z-Sticks have a much stronger signal (based on signal readings, not just 'feelings').
That said, I have a nortek on my HA install right now. lol.
If you have both a Nortek and a Z-Stick, Hubitat will use the Z-Stick for Z-Wave. (This is how the C-3 and C-4 hubs shipped in non-North-American markets; you'll need an extension cable for one since the USB ports are a bit too close together for both to fit side-by-side.) I've used both Hubitat and Home Assistant with both with minimal problems on either (I do confess that every once in a while one of my locks won't report a lock or unlock event back to the hub, but there may not be a good repeater in good range of that one, so I haven't ruled out myself here yet).
I was aware of that. I initially thought I would go that route (as I have 2 z-sticks already). But once everything was nice and stable after getting all my devices on, I didn't bother.
Now the only zwave issues I have are on the pairing side. Always takes 2-10 tries, multiple device factory resets, and a few hub reboots to get things to pair. But it always does pair eventually, and my devices work fine after they successfully pair.
As someone with a grand total of 7 Z-Wave devices, I'll chime in with the reason WHY I only have 7 devices; IMHO, the Z-Wave radio in the C5 isn't all that great compared to my Nortek stick (which I have on a 10' USB ext cable plugged into my home server). The devices that I was able to pair took numerous attempts after reboots and resets and excludes and such. Finally, my frustration got the better of me and I went and replaced everything that I could with Zigbee devices. I still have those 7 devices sitting on my HE, but I keep thinking about transferring them over to my HA install.
In contrast, I have 117 physical Zigbee devices and have yet to really have any "big" issues with them.
My Z-Wave Devices: 2 GE/Jasco dimmers, 2 GE/Jasco wall outlets, 3 GE/Jasco wall wart outlets, 2 Ecolink motion sensors, and 1 GE/Jasco Smart Fan controller. Of those, the 2 wall outlets constantly fell off the mesh after a couple of days and one of the dimmers absolutely refuses to pair, and so I never put them back on and they are just dumb outlets now. In fact, one of the wall warts is currently plugged into a "smart" wall outlet. LOL
I have the same nortek stick model/version on my home assistant box, and the exact same devices it takes 2-10 tries to pair on Hubitat it takes exactly 1 try on home assistant... Following the exact same exclusion/reset/pair steps.
The 4 zwave plus devices I have on my C5 hub were a nightmare to pair too... So I would guess this is a software issue, not a hardware as my C4 and C5 hubs have different hardware... Or I suppose it could be a common cause hardware issue that affects both the C4 and C5 hubs.
