New user w/ Mesh questions

[user3522]

I am migrating to Hubitat from my (rock-solid) Vera system with about 50 devices. I'm having some setup issues and questions. The hub is c-7, upgraded to latest software and firmware.

We have a 3 story home, with the hub on the upper floor. I've added the devices nearest the hub first, working my way outward and downward, so the devices are added generally in order of how close to the hub they are. About 1/2 of the devices are z-wave plus, and the rest are older, some going back to the early ge/jasco switches. A few of the older sensors wouldn't pair properly, so I replaced them, but the mains and plugs seem like they've paired correctly. I physically took the hub near most of the devices to pair them.

The problem is that some devices are not very responsive, taking anywhere from a few seconds to minutes to respond.

I've run the z-wave repair utility several times, and each time there are some failed nodes. I then go to repair each node individually, but sometimes the system just bogs down. Should I keep running the z-wave repair utility over and over until there are no failures? Does it improve each time it is run or does it reset? Is the topology view (below) supposed to be all blue with no red? Are there any glaring issues with the zwave status report such that I can focus on a device that might be a problem? Will the system eventually self-heal if I just leave it alone? I have homekit and homebridge running - does that slow things down?

[terminal3]

@user3522

Will the system eventually self-heal if I just leave it alone?

I am sure some of the users who are more knowledgable will weigh in but yes that is the general recommendation. I don't think running Z-wave repair is necessary on a C-7 Hub, nor really recommended. So leave it for a day or so and things should settle out.

[rlithgow1]

Can you post your z-wave details page in it's entirety (easier for me to read)? Also take a look at this post ... It can help avoid some gotchas. Older devices that are not plus will be a big bottle neck... You have a lot at 9kbps which will be a huge bottleneck for anything routing through them,.

Are you new to home automation or Hubitat or coming from a different platform such as SmartThings, Vera, or Wink? This may help!

Just throwing this out there. It may or may not be a help and I'm sure many others will contribute to this thread. Here are a few things to start you off. Z-wave Devices: 1: You do not need Wink/ST/Vera etc. to exclude your existing z-wave devices. Hubitat can do the exclusion for you. (Make sure you turn off your old hub first!) In most cases this is sufficient before pairing. Sometimes though you may need to factory reset the device. Non Plus z-wave devices may have to be included/excluded …

The post above shows around 26... You also want to make sure that you don't pair anything but locks and garage door openers with security. Pair them with none.

[bertabcd1234]

@user3522

Should I keep running the z-wave repair utility over and over

Saying "over and over" with regard to Z-Wave Repair is enough to make some people cringe, so the most common answer you'll get for that is "no." (But this issue was likely exacerbated on original 700-series controller firmware where it could lock up for several dozen seconds on busy networks. If one of the "firmware" updates you did wasn't the Z-Wave radio, I'd certainly try that--look for the "Firmware Update" button on the Z-Wave Details page, or you're good if it's not there.)

@user3522

Is the topology view (below) supposed to be all blue with no red?

This is unlikely to happen in a real network, but in general, more blue is better than more red. If one row or column is all red, that's a problem.

@user3522

Will the system eventually self-heal if I just leave it alone?

Z-Wave Plus should, but it sounds like you have a mix of older devices, too. These can sometimes benefit from a repair, but since you've already tried that, I would suggest just leaving things for at least a few hours to see how things "settle."

@user3522

such that I can focus on a device that might be a problem?

Hard to tell, but the third-party app you're using to view these stats highlights things in red that might be a concern (though that just based on an in-app cutoff, not any guarantee of problems--or success--either way): slow speeds, lots of route changes, high error count, etc., could all be contributors. But for a new network, so could just needing time to settle, especially with older devices (some of which I do see with these concerns, but I'd see how things settle out).

I do see four S0 devices, and if these aren't locks or garage doors (where you need Z-Wave Security), I'd suggest trying to get rid of that. Some devices make this impossible if the hub requests security, as the official 700-series SDK Hubitat is using does; other devices have a different mechanism to put the device in non-secure/regular inclusion mode. And, of course, you can't avoid this for the aforementioned classes of devices -- unless they support S2, which you should use instead (but if they joined this way on their own, probably not). You'll often see recommendations to avoid S2 as well, but this is much less chatty than S0 and generally much less of a problem and even helpful in some cases (though probably not as often as theory suggests). You won't get as strong of a recommendation from me on that one.

[velvetfoot]

I have no idea if this will help, but I have a panic button, if you will, that turns all the lights on, and off. I use it once in a while, mostly to see if it still works and to listen to all the cool clicking noises. I think 'exercising' it might help the mesh. Not very scientific though.

[user3522]

I'm going to let the network settle for a while. I'll stop doing the zwave repairs since all the devices seem to have a path. But things are still slow.
I noticed that during one repair the devices closest to the hub had a direct connection to the hub, but now nothing is direct -even the closest devices are connected thru the thermostat (23) and others are connected thru a wall plug (0A). Is there any way to force some of the closest devices to go direct? Or at least thru a faster device?
Also, one change I made is that I had a Group created that included every device in the network, thinking I would use it as a master device to turn everything off. I deleted that to see if it was somehow slowing things down.

The 2 locks paired with security, as did 2 motion detectors from zooz. (zooz says there isn't a way to pair without security, so I'm stuck with that).

Here's a look at the details page if anybody can figure any ideas from that.

[rlithgow1]

Yeah let it settle. Likely within a day they'll go back to direct routes. Routing through something else provided they're at full speed is fine. The big issue are those ones that are at 9kps. They are really struggling. Depending on your lay out you may need some beaming repeaters. Are those jasco switches plus or non plus?

[user3522]

All the jasco are non plus, from the early vera days ..

[rlithgow1]

Those are definitely a bottleneck and they don't report without polling.

[user3522]

I'm turning on z-wave polling. I had resisted that since I thought it would use a lot of resources. I thought it was generally used to sync with a switch that was physically turned on/off. I found that some of the switches turned on/off from the dashboard and should have reported, but didn't report back until they were refreshed.
I also found a few devices that had drivers that would work to turn on/off, but not report the change in the device back to the dashboard. Still working on that .

[JasonJoel]

@user3522

since I thought it would use a lot of resources

It will (relatively speaking). How much depends on polling speed and qty being polled.

To make matters even worse, anything being repeated through the older devices is limited to 40 kb speeds, a 2.5x hit to max speed, further compounding the bandwidth and airtime problem.

I always recommend getting rid of any non-plus devices, as it is very impactive on the overall mesh speed of things repeat through them. Obviously not everyone can afford to do that though.

[rlithgow1]

Look at this post... specifically the z-wave section. It explains in a little more detail...

Are you new to home automation or Hubitat or coming from a different platform such as SmartThings, Vera, or Wink? This may help!

Just throwing this out there. It may or may not be a help and I'm sure many others will contribute to this thread. Here are a few things to start you off. Z-wave Devices: 1: You do not need Wink/ST/Vera etc. to exclude your existing z-wave devices. Hubitat can do the exclusion for you. (Make sure you turn off your old hub first!) In most cases this is sufficient before pairing. Sometimes though you may need to factory reset the device. Non Plus z-wave devices may have to be included/excluded …

[user3522]

I think I'll write a rule to poll less often than the built in app, and also add a switch on the dashboard to manually kick it off.
Then, I'll start replacing the old devices. Hate to do it, but it seems they aren't up to snuff any longer. I thought I'd replace the vera hub with hubitat, replicate my vera rules and be done with it, but it seems i've created a new project. sheesh.

[rlithgow1]

@user3522

Then, I'll start replacing the old devices

You might consider lutron switches/dimmer. They're just tanks.

[user3522]

@rlithgow1

You might consider lutron switches/dimmer.

I know that a lot of people recommend these switches, but when I look at the lutron docs I can find no mention of zwave. It just mentions a pico hub. Is pico a zwave privately branded hub and will the caseta switches pair directly with HE

[rlithgow1]

It uses the Pro 2 hub which directly integrates into hubitat via telnet. Pico's are button controllers (there is no "pico hub". These switches when paired with HE are fast and as I often say, they're tanks. Even the ceo of Hubitat primarily run them. You really can't be them. That said they are not z-wave, they are clear connect.

[user3522]

@rlithgow1

Pro 2 hub

got it! and thanks for the help. I'm trying to fortify my mesh which covers 3 floors and 55 devices. The old system (vera) must have built a great routing table thru time because it was fast and reliable. The new HE doesn't seem to be working well. Response time is slow (up to several seconds or sometimes not at all) and many devices will operate but won't report, even with polling or refresh commands.
I'm chest deep into the conversion, and there's no going back to vera so I'm going to replace 12 of the 20 non-plus devices with zwave plus. (the remaining 8 are relays/thermostats/contacts or battery). I stopped doing zwave repair and am hoping the mesh will begin to repair itself.
Lutron devices sound good, but at this point I don't want to add more complexity and think zwave devices will work to enhance the mesh.

[rlithgow1]

You shouldn't do whole mesh repairs. That said, how many of your devices are non plus? I see a lot of 9kbs devices which indicate to me they are old non plus devices. These will be a huge bottleneck on modern z-wave hubs. Max is 40k while z-wave plus devices are 100. So if you have a z-wave plus device routing through a slow device, it will be slow.

[user3522]

Just to followup in case somebody else is having the same issues, I've replaced the majority of the older zwave devices with zwave plus switches and plugs. Now I only have 10 non-plus devices out of the 55 or so total. I stopped doing zwave repairs, and just let the network try to sort out the best routes. For the most part, the network is responsive, but there are occasional delays. I plan on letting it sort itself out over time, and hopefully all the lags will disappear.