New to Hubitat and having problems with Kwikset 914 z-wave

I'm in the process of switching over from ST to HE. So far, it's gone pretty well, until I tried to move my Kwikset 914 (z-wave) lock.

Background: It was unstable in ST until I added a few beamers. I have two Leviton z-wave plugs, and two Iris plugs set up as both zigbee and z-wave. One of the Levitons is about 6 feet from the door, and one of the Iris is about 8 feet. Once I added those plugs, the lock has been stable and responsive on ST for at least 9 months.

Before I started on the lock, I excluded all of the plugs from ST, added them into HE, and did a z-wave repair. All of the plugs showed up in the repair, and I can successfully operate them via HE.

Once the plugs were taken care of, I moved the lock near the hubs and excluded it from ST. I then discovered it in HE. The lock was discovered as a "generic z-wave lock." The codes were found. I moved the lock back to the front door and ran a z-wave repair.

HE can see the lock, but the status does not update, and the lock is unresponsive to commands.

I've gone through this process several times. I have tried factory resetting the lock before discovering it in HE. I added new codes after the lock was discovered and none of the codes were found by HE.

I'm not sure what else to try. I've read through all of the Kwikset lock threads and it appears that the process I tried is the one that most people are having success with.

Any other suggestions I could try? Thanks in advance.

Many of us have found that "beamers" sometimes isn't enough that these extenders which also amplify the signal have solved our problems. Scan through this thread you'll see some detailed information. Also there are many other threads regarding your lock and many other zwave lock issues.

1 Like

Another thing you can do is swap out your Z-Wave module for a Zigbee module. Very easy to do. I have not had one hiccup with mine since doing so.

Here is a listing for one on eBay. I got mine for $50. Just keep checking back there.

Thanks for the responses.

I'll try a range extender and hope that does the trick. Honestly, I swear I've even done the hokey pokey while pairing the darn thing.

I'm still a little confused, though. I'm not sure why it was stable and responsive with ST with exactly the same setup. Is it a difference in the hub radios? Please note -- not looking to get into a "which is better" discussion. I'm moving to HE, so it should be obvious which I think is better, and I'm wiling to do what it takes to get this resolved. I'm just curious about what the difference is. (Years of doing root cause analysis.)

If you search these forums you will see MANY discussions on this, me personally I believe there is a difference in the zwave radio on these hubs, but really the only devices that "seem" to have any issue with the radio is zwave locks/garage doors (secure devices)......somehow when they "go to sleep" the radio from the hub doesn't seem to wake them up very reliably unless the lock is within 10 feet of the hub OR what we have seen is the signal is amplified by these repeaters (it does take more than one usually though) All other devices haven't seen much issue with.

1 Like

Thanks for the response. I think it has to be something like that.

I also have a contact sensor on my back door that insists it's open. It's not, and I can't seem to get it to believe that.

I'll scatter a few extenders around and see if that helps.

One thing to also check if this is happening to verify on the device edit page that the driver listed matches the one listed on the supported devices wiki, if only the generic is listed, you might try different drivers/settings to see if it fixes. I had the HankRGBW bulb when I first started HE that I kept having issues with, finally figured out me changing the default "response time" made the device unresponsive, if I left it on the default setting it worked fine.

It's an Ecolink contact sensor. The supported device wiki says "Generic z-wave contact sensor," and that's what it paired as. It was working for a while, but now it doesn't seem to be talking to the hub for some reason.

You may trying running a zwave repair to see if it helps, although battery devices only wake up randomly so it may take a day or so for the mesh to settle down and fix itself. But the zwave repair will help your repeaters build their neighbor tables.

Oh, @waynespringer79, I can't begin to count the number of z-wave repairs I've run. :upside_down_face:

I'm not too worried about the back door yet, as it did work when I first paired it. I know it may take a while for everything to shake out.

So far all of the zigbee devices that I've tried have paired flawlessly. Even the Iris plugs managed to pair as both zigbee and z-wave without more than one sacrifice at the crossroads at midnight. The only device that just plain refused to pair was a Sensative contact strip. And that was the strip's fault. It would not go into pairing mode no matter what. So I'm replacing it. The thing was never that reliable anyway. It said the window was open every time the wind blew.

1 Like

Update: I added two of the Aeotec extenders yesterday — one by the hub and one by the lock, as suggested in the other thread — and ran a z-wave repair.

When I went to bed last night, the back door had realized it was closed. When I woke up this morning, the front door nor only knew it was locked, but also responds almost instantly to lock/unlock commands. I can add and delete lock codes via the device page, but so far haven’t managed to get the Lock Manager app to do so. But I’m glad I didn’t run out and buy a new lock.

The back door is still a bit slow to recognize close events. I have another couple of extenders coming today, so that might help. I have one more z-wave device to add — the Sensative Strip replacement — and then three Zigbee devices. I expect everything to become more stable over the next few days.

Onward and upward!

2 Likes

@bobbyD's suggestion has proven very helpful to several of us! I'm glad it helped you too! And also thanks to @waynespringer79 for his help!!

2 Likes

That seems to be a reasonable conclusion.

Yes! Many thanks! Without this discussion I would not have realized what a difference there is between beamers and extenders.

2 Likes

Lately what I'm finding is my 914 & 916 (zwave) stop responding to commands.

Even with Aeotec range extenders, I end up manually locking and unlocking and then they start taking commands from HE.

I'm seriously thinking of switching to Yale or Schlage. What I've been reading Kwikset is the low end of smartlocks with motherboard issues.

Have you tried the Reliable Locks app? I installed it before I added the extenders. It didn’t seem to help much then, and I sort of forgot about it, what with one thing or another, and left it running. I know it’s only been a few days, but so far my lock has been, well, completely reliable.

I’m not using the virtual lock on my dashboard or in routines. But I do have it refreshing ever 30 minutes.

1 Like