I'm new here and just purchased two C-8 Pros - one for the house (2,800sf upstairs and 2,800sf basement) and one for the barn (40x60 open space, metal siding). I have a few Z-wave LR EnBrighten switches in the house and a few in the barn so far. I also have a Kwikset 912 Z Wave lever lock on the barn. All of those devices connected and worked with no problems on the first try. Loving this setup so far. I just purchased 24 dimmers (RF9643-NDW) to replace the Legrand Adorne RF switches in the house that have been sunset and were problematic at best from new.
My question - any advice for a newbie setting up a Z Wave mesh for the first time? Anything you wish you had known from the get-go? Thanks for all your help!
Good luck. There are some other threads about this but a few items jump out.
Do a system backup before you start.
Add one device at a time. Don't add all of them and then start checking them. ZWave can be prone to ghost nodes so you don't want to compound errors by adding new devices when the old one didn't connect properly. Be sure you can control the node you just did before you add another.
Reboot the hub periodically. Some will say after each new device, but at least every few.
I found ZWave JS better for ghost managing. There are many who prefer zip though. Fortunately you can toggle back and forth. If you stay in ZIP and encounter a ghost problem you can switch to JS to repair the ghost and then go back to zip if that's your preference.
The network is dynamic so nodes will learn of each other when you are done adding. Its not instantaneous though.
You can do a rebuild route on the Zwave table for nodes that don't seem to be performing well or have formed what I call "tortured routes". This will attempt to find the best link to the hub.
You can do an entire network rebuild after you are done. Some say this isn't necessary and there are equal number who say it is. I would do it.
Do a few backups along the way and if you pause. Of course one at the end.
I did acknowledge I'm new to this. I did do some research and concluded that LR was not necessary given how close they would be to one another. Perhaps that was a mistake. They were only $10/each and I can return them, so not the end of the world. I'm open to any constructive advice you have if I've missed something here.
Got it. That's super helpful. Thank you. I didn't realize that the LR devices didn't mesh. Makes total sense now. What's your honest opinion? Is it worth 4x the price to go to LR? Money is not really an issue, but I'd sure rather put it into my car restoration than light switches if there's no practical advantage.
In retrospect, perhaps I should have posted here before choosing Z Wave over Zigbee also. It's not too late at this point - wouldn't be the end of the world to change. I went the Z Wave route to avoid interference with wifi.
number 7 is a ghost (improperly paired). Probably when you 1st tried to pair master bath hair. This will cause communications issues in the mesh. Any time you have a failed z-wave pairing you need to check for and remove ghosts. Click refresh on that line and then click remove. (might have to do it a few times) When removed, shutdown hub, unplug power for 1 minute then power back up and see how things behave.
Also, if he doesn’t pair the LR devices as Long Range, they will just be mesh devices. Most of my z-wave devices are connected directly to the hub anyways. I would only pay the LR premium for outdoor devices. I also would have gone with the C-8 Pro for the house, and only use zwjs for a new setup vs zip.
Thank you. You are correct. It hung the first time I paired it. Didn't realize ghosts were a thing. Is that obvious to you because it has no device listed?
LR isn't some magical panacea taking ZWave to nirvanaland. It's just a different approach, star vs mesh. It's kind of funny, 15-20 years ago self-organizing mesh networks was a very avant-garde topic now it feels like yesterdays newspaper and star networks (an even older concept) are the "in" thing.
LR has some nice features like advanced modulation, higher power permitted, more advanced battery life schemes, and larger potential network size (although I have yet to meet the HA person with 4000 nodes). For the average residential application either will work fine. If you have a mailbox 700' down your drive you might enjoy LR but I doubt you put a dimmer switch there. In fact, the likely locations for a dimmer switch should be handled quite nicely with a mesh network.
You'd be hard pressed to do better than $10 for dimmer switch. I would try one out and see if it works well. Is it tolerant of a range of LED bulbs or highly finicky? That can be a dealbreaker independent of anything ZWave. Can you get reliable commands to/from the hub? If those score well, you're golden.
ZWJS or Z-Wave Javascript is the future for interfacing with the z-wave radio. Zip has been abandoned by Silicon Labs. JWJS is being actively developed by Hubitat as the replacement and if it weren’t for a few old zw 500 switches, that have features that are missing in zwjs, I would be using it as well. You shouldn’t have that problem starting with new devices.
As @Ken_Fraleigh says above, it's "the future of Z-Wave" on Hubitat. There are two Z-Wave options on Hubitat, ZipGateway and Z-WaveJS. ZipGateway is proprietary code provided by a company call Silicon Labs and they required use of ZipGateway on hubs for official Z-Wave certification. They finally put ZipGateway on EOL which opened up options and Hubitat chose to go with Z-WaveJS, an open-source option.
Z-WaveJS has some benefits, including simpler/more reliable removal of any ghosts that may appear, and since it's the current official Z-Wave platform of Hubitat, it's where the majority of their efforts/activity on Z-Wave will be going forward.
Both use the same database on your hub, so you can switch back and forth between them on a C8-Pro from the Z-Wave Details page. Generally I'd agree w/Ken that starting out w/a new hub and new devices that I would start using Z-WaveJS.
It sounds crazy but put a new switch in pairing mode and run a ZWave Exclude first. More often than not, my hub has found a device to exclude. Then, when including, I have very rarely had a pairing issue and never had a ghost. (knock on wood).
