Anyone having trouble with these guys? I have a handful around the house, and sometimes they seem to disappear from Zwave. They won't respond to light on/off commands or respond to a Zwave Repair (the ping fails). Usually unplugging and replugging then from the outlet gets them talking again. I have 6 and they're all running 1.03.
I have them paired without S2 security, if anyone thinks that is related.
Thanks for any insight.
I've been doing a lot of testing with the Aeotec extender recently. I had an instance where a unit was unresponsive to a range test request and refresh, but it's unclear if it was a physical placement issue or not. I had the same issue with a Ring extender at the same time/location, so I wrote it off to physical placement or a general Z-Wave network issue. Both started working after replugging.
Few things I would suggest if it happens again:
This information will be useful when approaching Aeotec support.
No, it appears the only way to get them talking again is to unplug it and plug it back in. When they go in this mode, they don't respond to anything Zwave (indicator light on/off, refresh, range test) and they no longer repeat or respond. I feel like I've made it a little bit better by sending a Zwave refresh to each one once an hour, but eventually they'll go offline.
Perhaps this is just chance, but I do notice that there seems to be a correlation between a hub reboot and when they quit responding. I'll keep an eye on this.
Take it for what it’s worth, but it sounds to me like the device is having issues hearing back from the hub, and after so many retries it gives up and stops listening - at this point it shouldn’t be repeating either. Also explains why the refresh ping helps. Unplugging it causes it to reinitialize.
Number of factors that could be involved most of them environmental, but my guess is that you may need a few more repeaters. If you have a C7 or an external stick with PC Controller you may want to look at the Zwave Topology and see what it shows.
I have 8 of these things and they are all doing it.
I do have a ZStick+PC Controller 5.0 and a Zniffer. I'll see if I can identify the triggering condition.
If you're willing to try a different driver, you might take a few of them and try this driver. Leave debug logging enabled.
Are all 8 using S2? If so, I would also recommend trying re-including some without S2.
Based on previous recommendations, I got rid of all security on the network with a single exception for an S0 lock.
I'm using the driver that lets you turn the light on/off; I'll try different ones on different groups and see if there's a correlation.
Thanks!
The driver I referred to allows you to control the indicator, however it's presented as a preference rather than a switch.
Ah yes, it appears I'm running 1.4.0 of your driver currently! I use the preference to tell when a repeater is dorked up; I'll flip the indicator, save preferences, but it won't change. Unplug->replug and it's back to controllable again. That's been handy in troubleshooting.
I just checked the single one of these I have and it looks like it fell off my network on Jan 16, which was a day I had my hub shut down for a few hours to add a new switch that's on the same circuit. So I think you're right about that.
If you can get me a sniff of that, it would be awesome... Thanks!
How did you all get these to update? If I do an update with the 1.03 .gbl file through the c7 built in updater, it never gets passed 1%, even if I leave it for a couple of days, I've tried authenticated s2, unauthenticated s2, I paired it with my c5 and tried it with the user community 'z-wave firmware update' driver. I've also tried it with the 'z-wave pc controller' software for pc, which fails when I click "get" on the OTA tab. The device is within 3-5 feet oh the hub. Sort of at a loss on how to update these. Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks,
-Nate
I’ve only been able to get it to update if paired with NO security (all boxes unchecked), next to the hub. I have done 2 this way. It helps to reboot the hub before the update.
An alternative is to use a USB Z-Wave stick and PC Controller (part of SiLabs SimplicityStudio) to do the update, goes very fast that way.
The PC controller software, which I mentioned I tried, does not like the file in the format of .gbl. Also, I can't get it to read the firmware in from the repeater, so it fails before that point anyway. Other devices work okay, as I've updated the multi sensors with that software before. I guess I could try unchecking all forms of security and try it that way. So far these have been the biggest PITA of any z-wave device to update.
You have to use PC Controller 5. If you are using 4, it will not work.
I have version 5, I have a z-stick that was paired as a secondary controller to the c7. I could not get it to allow me to update the range extender at all. It failed on every request to it. I was able to update it by adding the range extender to a spare c7 I have, and it was the only device paired to it, it updated overnight and took about 9 hours. Seems weird I could not get it to work on my production c7.
At any rate, thanks for the replies, I got it sorted. 
I tried this today with no luck.
Brand new Aeotec Range Extender 7 with HE C7.
Paired the range extender, switched to this driver but when I click the off button on the deivce page the LED won't turn off. Nothing shows up on the logs.
Also, in the generic driver I believe Current States was shoing something like "main" (if I remember it right) now it is blank.
I tried removing the device from the outlet and plug it again (to power cycle it) but it didn't make any difference.
Device firmware is 1.03 (I didn't upgrade it since it is the latest).
Any ideas?
Have you tried the community-contributed driver by Denny Page (@dennypage) ? It’s very good. He is the one who found and reported a bug with the light (fixed with 1.03 firmware), and I know that his driver works (I have 2 Aeotec RE7 with 1.03 firmware).
The Aeotec RE7 driver written by Bryan Copeland at the beginning of the present thread isn’t supported or maintained by him since he joined the Hubitat staff.
Yep, works like a charm.
Thanks a bunch.
Have you had any problems with the Range Extender 7s?
I have a handful around the house. Awhile back, I found that I needed to generate some sort of activity to them on a regular basis in order to keep them online. I'm currently doing with a tweaked version of Idle Node Refresher which sends an off/on/off sequence to turn the light on then off and generate some Zwave activity in doing so. This steps helped tremendously, but I still lose a Range Extender 7 node every so often. When that occurs, I have to physically unplug the RE and plug it back in to get it online.
For example, I lost one 2 days ago:
Thanks for any feedback.
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