I am getting some very slow speeds for my Z-Wave devices - like 9.6 KBS. (I'll put in screen shots below). I have 18 Inovelli Red Dimmers V2, (LZW31-SN), 5 Black Series Switches (LZW30) and 5 of their fan/lights (LZW46). I also have 1 Aeotec Smart Switch 7 (smart plug), US version. I'm using a C7 hub on 2.2.6.137 as of 2021-04-03.
Through Hubitat I shutdown the hub. Then I pulled the plug and waited over 30 seconds to plug it back in. I had also rebooted my router about a week ago. That didn't seem to changed things at all.
Looking at the Z-Wave info page there doesn't seem to be a connection to how far away the devices are from the hub either. Since all my switches are Z-Wave Plus and the Fan/Lights and the Aeotec are Z-Wave long range/7 series I thought the mesh was supposed to re-map itself, but that doesn't seem to have happened either. (I haven't added anything new in a few weeks now except for the Aeotec that I just added the other day).
I've seen discussions back and forth as to whether or not one should do a Z-Wave repair with Z-Wave Plus devices, or if it should even be necessary (again as the mesh is supposed to build itself).
You have a bunch of devices at 9.6 kbps. Distance isn’t the only factor. Your home may have brick, concrete, tile, mirrors, etc., that radio signals mus pass through. Perhaps repeaters would help.
In order for re-routing to occur, there must be multiple mesh paths to try.
I suggest you install Tony Fleisher’s (@tony.fleisher’s) excellent Z-Wave Mesh Details app, which will give you insights into how many neighbors each device has, how many times new routes are tried, etc. It installs via HPM.
The 9.6k link speed is not necessarily an issue as long as the devices have good signal and are responding quickly; from the details posted there isn't any obvious problems. Are you having problems with the performance of the devices or is it just seeing the "9.6kbps" in the z-wave details page that is bothering you?
If there are communication errors, the devices will find new routes, but a solid working connection at 9.6k is not generally a problem so there is no need to change to a different route.
Some people have had some limited success getting devices to use different (better?) routes by running single device z-wave repair, but it is generally only recommended if there is something that indicates a problem or there are issues with the operation or responsiveness of the device.
I thought 1 switch which has been giving me problems was acting up again, but it turned out it was everything. Anything that wasn’t physically attached to a load quit working despite having a green dot on the hub. So I powered down the hub and then didn’t do anything with it for a few hours after powering back up and everything came back. But this flakiness is starting to grow tiresome and my frustration is building. I thought this stuff was supposed to just work once it was set up. I
Can you provide more details about the problems you are having? I can't quite tell from this description if you are having problems with all z wave devices or only with a handful of them.. (are there some devices that are "attached to a load" that are working on the network as expected?)
One common issue that has been seen with some of the devices you have is frequent reporting of energy and power use, resulting in network congestion. one common piece of advice is to disable or reduce energy and power reporting schedules and thresholds for devices that have this feature to reduce the network traffic.
Looking at your z-wave table you have s2 authentication on everything (well not everything but a lot) Personally except for locks, I would pair everything with no security. That would probably speed up things a whole helluva lot. JMO
To give you more details it seems anything that is directly controlling a load or was done by an association between 2 Inovelli Red Dimmers ("RD") continued to work, but anything that relied on Hubitat, such as a double or triple click up or down or pushing their config button or trying to control any switch with Alexa, Google Home or a Hubitat Dashboard didn't work. I say that as that happened yesterday when I went around checking more devices. I rebooted the hub yesterday, went out for a few hours, so everything had a chance to settle in, and when I came back it was working last night. BUT, this morning I got the same thing happening: i.e. anything that had to go through Hubitat has stopped working.
I am in the midst of converting all of my Rule Machine rules into Button Controller rules. I am also putting all rules for a switch into one rule instead of having separate rules for each push. I will then reboot the hub and see what happens. I will try to figure out how to turn off energy reporting. I haven't touched any of those, so they are all at their defaults.
04/05/2021 Update. So good news, bad news. The good news is that rebooting the hub and setting most of my devices seems to really have helped the speed issue. The bad news is that this is about the 4th reboot I've had to do in the last few days. I had to shut the hub down as the last of my switches were being installed, so hopefully things will settle down.
@Stu_The_K Like I said above as we,, all those devices set at s2 you should set for none for security (except for locks) this will lower the chatter and help strengthen your mesh. S0 is the worst though for chatter.
I'm in the process of doing excludes/includes to remove the security. However, for most of the last 2 days I couldn't do an exclude on many items until I would do a reboot of the hub. Then I could get a few done until I'd have to reboot again.
BTW, if I was able to do an exclude/include I waited a few hours before reinstating the rules that pertained to that device. I am also down to only 3 Rule Machine rules and have moved the rest to Button Controllers.
Cool. Another helpful thing instead if just rebooting is shutting down (via the settings menu) then unplug the hub at the wall (not the hub) for 5 mins then power back up. This clears the z-wave radio which a simple reboot will not.
Forgive me for not being precise. By rebooting I meant I did do a power down from the Hubitat menu and I then pulled the power cord. I had been waiting 30 seconds before plugging it back in and have increased it to a minute in the last day or so.
BTW, my daughter just came and told me that an Inovelli Red Dimmer with a line and neutral only on it that is to turn on the light to an Inovelli Fan/Light via a Button Controller rule wasn't working only to say it had just come on.
I did the last shut down/re-start last night about 1 am. I guess it is already starting to slow down significantly. I have an appointment to go to so I'll see this afternoon if the hub is still responding and if I can continue to exclude/re-include the 8 or so devices I still have with security on.
I removed security from all of my switches and it made a noticeable difference. Even though it can take a bit of time, I would definitively recommend it.
First I would try a soft restore to rule out any database problems. Then make sure you are running on the latest build. Then check zwave details and see if you have any ghosts. If you are feeling adventurous I have another tweak that would make a huge improvement.
The main problem I see is a weak mesh as shown by the sheer number of route changes on your devices. A stable mesh should only have one or two max over several months. From the sound of things though you are rebooting much more frequently.
Thanks for the reply. I'm leery of updating the hub as I saw the issues they were having between versions.
But, that aside, you say that the sheer number of route changes suggests I'm rebooting the hub much more frequently. In fact, that is not the case. I've only rebooted it maybe 5-6 times in nearly 2 years, and only when it slowness got overwhelming. I also have it plugged into a pretty big UPS with a very light load, so it isn't like the power going off is causing it to reboot.
I don't know what to do to make it stronger. I have the hub in a central location. I have 2 Aeotec 7 repeaters about 1/2 way between the farthest points of my 2 primary paths. I live in a 1 floor condo that is about 2,500 sq. ft. All of my devices are Z-Wave. I have 20+ Inovelli red dimmers and 5 of their fan+lights. I also have 2 Aeotec 7 plugs and 2 Philips bulbs that go through the Philips hub. I also have 1 Aeotec 7 4 button controller. I've turned off the Zigbee radio.
I have what may be 2 big downsides in that 1 do have a big mirror in the room with the hub and all but 2 of the dimmer switches are in metal boxes that I cannot replace due to the condo rules.
I did do a total Z-Wave repair about 6 months ago or so when things were going badly.
I have not added any new devices in months and all are running without any security (not just S0).
I wish I could force routing, but I understand there is no way to do that.
My Aeotec repeaters were added after virtually everything was in place in an effort to beef up the mesh, again, a good 6 months ago or more, but they seem to be ignored in the most part.
For giggles try moving the repeaters more to halfway between the end of the house devices and the hub. Then shutdown and unplug the hub (from the wall not the hub itself) for 20 mins and bring back up. Let it settle and see how things are.
