I have two z-wave outlet devices I only use at Christmas so recently disabled then removed them. Then did a z-wave repair to reset the network, but the two removed and disabled devices show an error during repair. I could see a problem perhaps if they were still plugged in, but they are not. Should repair show errors for disabled and removed devices or is that a bug? I don't really want to delete them so I can just plug them in again next year. There is a basic rule that uses these devices but it too is disabled. Thx, Dave
Disabling a device does not do anything for your Z-Wave network; that's a hub feature you can use for troubleshooting (e.g., to stop runaway code) or as an easy way to effectively suspend any automations "triggered" by device events without needing to figure out a way to do that on the app side instead (since, when disabled, the driver cannot send any events). It sounds like you've actually done that for the app, too, assuming the Basic Rule is the only app using this device; in that case, there's no need to do both.
But as far as the Z-Wave radio is concerned, that device should still be there -- i.e., this is not a bug.
Z-Wave can get unhappy with missing "repeater" nodes. If your network is all Z-Wave Plus, devices should eventually figure things out on their own. The safest option is to politely exclude the device. You can create a virtual/temporary device and use the Swap Apps Device tool to make this easy (unless you have less common situations like child devices involved).
If you don't want to do that and still want to just leave this device hanging, I'd do a per-node repairs, one at a time, rather than a network-wide repair and, of course, avoid your missing node -- if you even need to (again, Z-Wave Plus should figure this out on its own eventually). You'll know if something doesn't work.
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Thx for the quick replay. I do have all z-wave plus devices. After the "repair" the network graph shows no routing using the disabled and removed devices. Only graph connections are from the hub itself. I'm happy to leave like this until next year if there is no impact to the efficiency of the network beyond missing a couple of repeaters since I don't need them, and things are working fine. Not sure what you mean by "politely exclude" if different than a z-wave exclude but would rather not have to remove then add them back later on if the z-wave network works with them physically missing as it seems to after the repair. Also not sure what you meant by "leaving the device hanging" unless that's the same as defined but disabled and physically removed from power? Dave
The most important part is if you are seeing any issues. I have a couple of Z-wave plugs I use only for holidays as well, and against all other advice I leave them included and just unplug them, same as you have done. My other devices continue to work perfectly fine since I have plenty of other repeating devices in my mesh. Then the next year I just plug them back in and enable my holiday rules, and I am ready to go.
I do mark the unplugged devices as disabled as well, just to prevent them from triggering anything. As you said, a Z-Wave repair will still try to repair that node and fail, its not a big deal since you know it is unplugged.
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I go through this every year before and after Christmas.
I keep it simple- I do an inclusion on the 3 devices I use before Christmas and add them to my rules. After Christmas, I remove them from my rules and then do an exclusion. I've been burned by ghosts before and I find this keeps my mesh clean.
