What does your current Z-wave details page look like? Any nodes in there? If so post a screenshot.
I agree though, I think those devices just do not play with the 800 chip in the C8. Zwave is supposed to be fully backwards compatible but that has its limits I suppose.
Oh, interesting to stumble on this thread - I found the same problems trying to re-pair a replacement Leviton VRI06 after upgrading from C7 to C8 (pro) hub. Like the OP my house is full of these - I wondered if I was the only person still stubbornly using them (but to be fair they have always worked great, until this issue).
Good to know it's not just me, anyway. For the VRI06 which I could never get to re-pair with the C8, I eventually swapped out with a VRMX1, which while it looks the same is somewhat less ancient - maybe that uses a 300-series zwave chip instead of 100 series (zwave alliance page says ZM3102 for the hardware platform?). Anyway, the VRMX1 did pair successfully with the C8-Pro.
Also FWIW my other existing VRI06 dimmers are still working fine with the C8 - they came over via migration from the C7, so never had to be paired with the C8 (ie, it's just the C8 pairing setup which seems to fail). Oh well, they are working for now. It could be a bit of a pain to replace them as they have some nice features (1) no neutral, needed in a few places, and (2) the fully matching remote dimmers are also nice for 3-way installs, though I guess the new Levitons do also have these, as do Inovelli (at a cost!).
I wonder if anyone at Hubitat is aware of this issue - I saw the suggestion in another thread about opening a warranty issue, but that doesn't seem quite right (and long past time for myself anyway). I wouldn't expect them to make heroic efforts to make these devices work, but (delusional optimism?) maybe they could be made to work with the right debug info. Or perhaps all the failures are deep inside the silabs firmware and nothing can be done.
I never really bothered pursuing it originally as I assumed no-one was still using these devices but clearly I was wrong about that part...
Wow, thanks for all the responses.
It sounds like the radio compatibility may be the problem.
It would be nice if the Hubitat team could confirm that.
Although my Devices page is blank, there is some information on the Z-Wave Details page.
I have a house full of these Levitons. Not gonna replace them.
I'll give the Hubitat tech team some time to respond, but the hub is being returned if I don't figure this out soon...
Again, thanks for all the help everyone!
JP
I would return it and get a C7 instead. They should be able to pair to that. You could always add a C8 later and keep the C7 just for the old devices.
You also have at least 2 ghosts right there
Yes, and there's a way around this.
Use a secondary controller to pair these 100-series devices to your C-8. This could even be a device as simple as an Aeotec minimote. Or any other secondary controller.
Thanks for the comments.
I'll have to learn more about what ghosts are.
I feel like I'm starting a marathon, but half the field has crossed the finish line already!
Thanks again for the info and patience.
Ghosts are caused by either incomplete pairings or improperly removing a z-wave device. The fact that there are discover buttons there and no conical names basically means they're a ghost. They can inhibit pairing and will badly affect your mesh in most circumstances. Click refresh until the remove button appears and then click remove. May take a few times. Factory reset the device before attempting to pair again.
While, as I indicated, it is possible to use 100-series z-wave devices with a 800-series controller (by pairing using a secondary controller), if you have a large number of such devices, I would recommend running them on a separate hub for many reasons, including:
100-series z-wave devices communicate at 9.6 kbps. Any device that uses them as a repeater will now communicate with the hub at that slow speed, even if it is a z-wave+ or z-wave+ v2 device. Such devices are capable of communicating at 100 kbps. And 300-series z-wave devices can communicate at 40 kbps.
100-series devices do not support instant status. That came with z-wave+. Therefore, the hub must poll such devices to receive updates after physical changes to the device (i.e. after manual control). So a network with a large number of 100-series devices will bog down further due to additional communication with the hub. And the hub bogs down because it is running an additional z-wave poller process, which it doesn't have to do for 500, 700, and 800 series z-wave+ devices.
Therefore, by off loading all those devices on their own z-wave network, you don't bog down the rest of your automation - either by virtue of device communication, or by the demands on hub CPU time.
A C-5 Hubitat would be a great hub to put a bunch of 100-series devices on. By coincidence, I have one for sale. $30 + shipping.
The Leviton VRI-06 Dimmers are 300 series, so comms are at 40kbps. I have a picture somewhere of one of the dead ones from my network.
These Leviton's support HAIL commands. When the Z-Wave controller, and associated device drivers, are working correctly there's no need for Polling.
This was true in the C-5's, but the migration to C-8 has broken down on a number of fronts - from a bit of reading of the HA forum, it sounds like the 700 and 800 series Firmwares are both fairly brittle (at least for them)**.
I wasn't able to find out the exact [Z-Wave] firmware versions used inside the C-8.
In my case, the C-8 Z-Wave module appears to crash when either Remove, or Pairing or the doc'd Ghost cleanup steps are performed.
ie. -> C8 Migrated VRI-06's (and their same-gen Switches) will work until they need to be replaced (failure, upgrade, split-to-C7) and then there are real issues with the C8.
I suspect it'll involve Sigma to get it addressed - minimally, they should never crash, and always permit device removal.
** Super common in the early versions of Z-Wave, since they had less space to support functionality and compatibility. Their newer chipsets aren't as space constrained as those early versions.
Thanks all for the information. I ended up buying a C7 and spent the weekend reestablishing all my home devices. The C8 is being returned.
I love the flexibility and power of the Elevation. There were a handful of weird problems that took a while to figure out (C8 vs C7 device compatibility being just one of them). When everything works, it's great for a novice. But as soon as things get wonky, it's a bit annoying. But that's the way it goes with such customized and varying systems. Good thing there is a community to support we noobs.
Appreciate all the feedback.
Maybe a week ago I would have taken you up on your offer. But I ended up ordering a C7 just before your post. It arrived on Saturday, and I spent the weekend setting everything up.
All my devices are 10+ years old, so I don't think I'll gain much by having two controllers. I'll reconsider if I see polling and latency problems. But so far, I am MUCH happier with the Elevation as opposed to the Vera Lite! Completely different experience.
Thanks for the information and offer...
I have wanted to respond with a summary for a while now, but I have been traveling and it’s the busy time of year. I finally have time today so here goes:
First off - Thanks to all that have helped or commented – it is much appreciated!
For the most part my original issue is resolved.
I started posting because I have a large number of Leviton devices I could not seem to pair to a Hubitat device. I won’t retrace all the details earlier in the thread but I did post models, procedures followed, etc. so others can see what I was working with and how.
What have I done to arrive at success?
I purchased a C8-Pro (original unit was a C8) and started over so I could include a USB controller. I kept the old one running to support the few automations it was handling until I could move them over. Why did I do this? Others talked about “ghost devices” and that seemed to be an issue I was having. Since migrating to this set up I have used the USB controller to eliminate ghost devices on two occasions. I believe the origin of them was a Leviton device but I can’t be sure. I feel it was worth the effort but it did not solve the pairing issue. It may have made it more recoverable (if the Leviton devices were causing ghosts I was at least able to remove them).
I spent a lot of time trying to pair a device that I had new in box that matched the model of one in use that didn't pair. Never had success. In the end, I believe this device is simply defective. Not worth my effort to try to answer categorically – I marked it bad (after the discovery below) and moved on.
I purchased new devices and replaced one set of switches that I could not (initially) get to pair. Expensive and time consuming but it worked.
After I replaced the one set - before replacing other older devices I repeated earlier efforts to exclude/include old Leviton devices. To my surprise that which had failed before now worked. I am certain I followed the same process. I still have some older devices that are not playing nicely with the new set up. I will re-visit them again when time permits. I will attempt exclude/include but, failing that, swap devices. Now that I know I have had success, however, I will be persistent in trying to pair the old devices with the C8-Pro.
I have not observed (or perceived) any slowness. Once paired devices all seem to work as expected/desired. My main issue was pairing them and once I have been able to do that those devices have functioned as expected.
I used Vera for a decade and do remember that the Leviton devices weren’t always a snap to pair. That said, pairing to the Hubitat seems to be more cantankerous. I don’t know why and there are a myriad of things that could contribute to this. I’m doing all of this with devices that have worked for years and I had paired before; it seems more difficult to me than it should be. More than anything, I don’t like the idea of having to throw away functional devices just because they won’t pair to the Hubitat (the devices are on the compatibility list, btw).
I am suspicious that there is likely some software configuration that might represent an opportunity for improved pairing ability but I have no proof of this. It might also come at the expense of newer devices' functionality.
Bottom line - once paired older Leviton devices work fine for my use cases. The trick is pairing them.
Download the Hubitat app
