I started out with a smartthings system then shifted to hubitat and installed a second hubitat system at my work. I initially used cheap zigbee xiaomi devices but switched to zwave and much more expensive devices which still seem to reliably fail after a while. All devices I have had (35+) seem to fail from a few days to two months apart. Are people actually having a long term stable system out there with 8+ zwave or zigbee devices?
My home network mainly consists of zwave aeotech smart switch wall plugs (~20) which I have turned down all the power monitoring and reporting to limit network traffic. There are a few other aeotech zwave sensors and a coupla zigbee plug switches. I have rebuilt the network from scratch a few times and also done 40+ zwave repairs but after randomly working (I never know how it gets stable or unstable) devices allways stop working and I never get stability for more than 6 weeks. Usually the zwave repair doenst do anything and takes hours and so I often have to remove and re add the offending devices which requires setting up all their programming again taking hours and hours and often it then fails or doesnt even work again after that.
The work network I set up is much simpler and has a newer hubitat hub c7 and only 7 aeotech zwave smart switches and 2 remotec zwave button pannels. That one has been stable much longer (4 months) but now after several complete rebuilds (remove all devices and resetup all automation) it is still not triggering all switches reliably. This system is setup just to manually turn on several groups of outlets, nothing else and it neeeds to be solid to do that but I'm about to throw it all in the bin! I upgraded the small system from those old direct wireless non smart wall switches due to them sometimes loosing sync to the remote after a power failure but it sure was a lot cheaper and easier to fix.
I have looked at a lot of posts on this forum to try and diagnose issues, ask questions and ultimately rebuild zwave/zigbee networks from scratch but I feel like Im very close to throwing in the towel and giving up on the ~$2500 I have sank into my home netowrk and also the simpler network at work. Whats the point if it just isnt reliable and fixing it can take from 30mins to 40+hrs each time if you can even get it working again on the same day...
Just to reiterate, I have had issues with zigbee and zwave on a variety of different devices and all of which ultimately fails randomly at some point but none of the devices are permanently broken (always intermitent).
What is the secret to a reliable system?
Is there an alternative relaible system?
Will things get better in the future with the smarthome alliance or newer hubs/networks etc?
Maybe if you only stick to one manufacturer including the hub you could have a chance of long term reliability?
Does homeassistant somehow increase reliability as I have seen many people switching to that?
It's been a long, sad and expensive journey, I am just wondering where to go from here if anywhere at all...
I started my Hubitat journey with a single hub, a C-3. It worked quite well and eventually I had 65 ZWave devices moved from ST and other, older hubs. I had stopped at 65 devices because the repeatability wasn't there. ST has it's problems and cloud issues are a lot of them. Because the first Hubitat worked better than ST, I started adding more ZWave devices. Eventually I crossed over 85 and decided to split the devices between two hubs, Upstairs and Downstairs. There's a lot of reasons, each not compelling, but combined, it was an easy decision. I had, prior to buying that first C-3, 4 systems combined to get the automation I wanted. In other words, I was very comfortable with multiple hubs. About a week after getting the 2nd hub working with the migrated devices, I got a 3rd Hubitat hub to offload the Internet facing functionality.. like Alexa, Google Home, and Weather to name the top ones. That hub still has zero ZWave or Zigbee devices.
Last year I added yet another Hub, a C-7, mostly for geek reasons (wanting the cool features.) I further subdivided my home to have "Front" which has devices from both the previous Upstairs and Downstairs. I didn't need that 3rd Z-Radio hub, but it's filled that urge for cool stuff.
Here's the device "load" on each of my 4 Production hubs:
57 zwave; 0 zigbee; 107 total devices C-5
25 zwave; 23 zigbee; 69 total devices C-5
0 zwave; 0 zigbee; 163 total devices C-7
13 zwave; 0 zigbee; 18 total devices C-7
I have had maybe 4 devices completely fail (burn out) and have replaced them over the 4 year journey.
Because I haven't had any of the issues you mention, I can't say there's a "secret" beyond the obvious of building out a good mesh. I don't think I have great meshes, but they are good. Or at least good enough.
Which model Hubitat Hub? A new C-7 hub 700 series Z-Wave controller firmware version 7.17.1 is being tested in Beta right now. Many have reported significantly improved Z-Wave performance and reliability.
A lot of us here tinker with Home Assistant and there are Bridge apps that can share devices with and from the Hubitat. It has some really nice features but can ultimately be very complex once you get past the basics even for seasoned technical people. In order to use Home Assistant as a replacement you'll need both a Zigbee and Z-Wave+ controller stick (or use the older Nortek combo if in the US).
A reliable system starts with known good Z-Wave+ (note the "+" bit this is important), Zigbee (and possibly Lutron) products and ends with a "strong" mesh.. which means devices within range of each other in order to propagate signal.
Also the type of security you have on your devices - S0 is very chatty so should only be used with older locks. S2 is fine but I prefer pairing all my devices with no security except for garage relays. Also I prefer Zigbee locks to Z-Wave.
Stay away from the super cheap devices as they can be prone to failure or are not compatible (or fail to repeat). If going cheap make sure the devices are Zigbee 3.0 which are supposed to be backwards compatible.
I generally keep to a few manufacturers like Zooz, Inovelli and newer GE switches (older ones can have issues). Aeotec has some nice stuff but I've had issues with the Recessed Door sensors (5 & 7), their repeaters (7) and Multi-Sensor 6's.
Beware of sleepy Z-Wave FLiRs devices like locks - they seem to have an issue impacting the mesh if they run out of batteries. edit: This seems to be a C7 only issue though
Lastly the latest update currently in Beta from Hubitat contains a new firmware update from SiLabs (edit: for the C7 only). This resolves some of the Z-Wave routing issues but ymmv.
edit: I have 3 hubs at my house - C7 for Z-Wave, C5 for Zigbee devices, and a C5 for cloud network apps/devices.
The answer is no one really knows, it's all magic. My experience parallels yours, tons of headaches, which have gotten better with removing Xiaomi devices and 2 years of updates.
Still spending many hours per month troubleshooting. Twice, support told me my hubs are going bad, still using both hubs and I seriously doubt there's anything wrong with them. I'm thinking support doesn't have hundreds of hours to dig into every single user's issues.
We don't have great insight into what's going on, so I went repeater crazy, over 20 zigbee and over 20 z-wave repeaters, in about 1800sq ft home, got somewhat better but still spending way too much time troubleshooting.
None of these systems are perfect, and I'm here for the long run, or until the next greatest thing comes out.
TLDR- home automation is not there yet, regardless of platform. Iris was dam close, but didn't have all the advanced functionality we have.
This might help...could you imagine a Model T running for 200,000 miles? It took many years to get there, so we're just getting started.
I agree with what you are saying but there are certainly things you can do to improve your chances of a more reliable system. Settling on a few known devices, using the "lite" versions of RM wherever possible, keeping stock drivers as much as possible, follow the instructions on building a strong mesh etc..
In my case it is multiple hubs, select vendors and offloading all my rules logic to Node-RED. Has been working well for me and my clients so far..
I also agree that Home Automation is far more complex and immature than what we are being sold by the fancy marketing claims of HA product manufacturers/resellers..
Thanks for sharing your experience. Thats certainly a lot of devices and hubs!
You have given me another direction of developing a better mesh. I can say that I could not get the zwave devices to pair in their intended location as sugested by the hubitat guide. From reading that now though pairing at the intended location seems to be the only new thing to me (that also doesnt seem to work for me). Any other tips on mesh, keep them comming.
Maybe its all down to the aeotech switches which seemed good to start with, I also have some aeotec multisensors and trisensors...
My home hub is the c-5 with an external zwave stick, step one for me is to reboot and replug in the stick (complete zwave fail is often). I dont seem to have access to the advanced features of the C-7 to see ghosted zwave devices (is there an external app/code to see this?). Here is my zwave details (currently mostly working with a bit of lag).
You might start another thread asking about reliable devices in your country as I assume you are not in the US given your C5 has a separate Z-Wave stick.
I've not had much luck with the Aeotec multisensors - issues with poor repeating on usb power - now only have 2 left and they are on the edge of my network (one to detect luminance the other for my garage lighting). Have not used the TriSensors.
I have had the opposite experience as well. Periodically I get an old old Leviton dimer module to miss going on but that is about it. I only have about 60 devices. My devices are a hodgepodge of brands and types, including some custom Zigbee devices.
So perhaps there are other issues that might cause your problems. I know you mentioned you have issues both at work and home but I'll ignore that for this response.
Could you post the Hub type and Firmware?
It might help to expand on those issues that required you to spent a significant amount of time to repair. I've only had one device issue that had me going for a while. It was a wall dimmer that could go on intermittently at night. Never found the root cause but unpairing and repairing fixed the issue.
Could you expand on your expectations? Most of us here "play" with their(s) hub regularly and are running beta firmware. There are likely some "glitches" that just pass by unnoticed due to this.
I would look for:
An appliance or device that is causing a lot of RF noise. I have a router once with a bad wall wart. Replacing it cleared up a lot of my WiFi issues (was still at X-10 back then).
A problem device causing excessive traffic on your mesh.
Neighbors with similar systems.
Poor / non central location of the Hub.
I have always considered the phase of the moon the root cause for many issues I had been working on Or perhaps solar flairs.
Looking at your screen cap - you do have a lot of (I assume) MS6's - for me these have been problematic - they just didn't seem to make good repeaters - the ones on usb I mean. To be fair others have had better luck. I like Zigbee sensors as they are a bit faster.
The other thing to consider is memory consumption.. My C5 "Cloud and Network" hub shows a gradual decline in free memory and I have to reboot after it gets too low. Consider adding a watchdog app that can reboot your hub in a controlled fashion rather than being forced to do it when things stop working. Here is a pic of my hubs - notice my Network C5 is already in decline even after a reboot yesterday evening. I suspect my Flume water monitor driver - something I've done with the configuration not sure.
Your Zigbee devices need to be in range of each other, the frequency of their signal is higher (2.4 GHz) so WiFi can cause interference and the signal does not propagate as far as Z-Wave. I use channel 15 to try and avoid WiFi interference. Zigbee seems better then Z-Wave at adapting to changing situations though.
Lastly I would consider not running a Z-Wave repair all the time. Z-Wave+ generally has the ability to adjust but it seems to take a while - few days to weeks.
I'd bet that @JohnRob nailed it. Something is likely causing interference, and or you have ghost nodes.
Also, while a lot of people say dedicated repeaters aren't helpful, I had many problems until I installed two in each building. Then my problems went away in about a day or two. Many people also claim that newer z-wave devices don't need to be paired physically close to the hub, but that has not been my experience for reliability (I pair close, then move to location, then wait a day or two for the device to route).
I've had a lot of enjoyment and gained a lot of utility from my system, which is spread across three buildings (three hubs) at home. We have another at a small shop we own a couple of miles away. Except for some zigbee temp sensors that die when the battery drops down a bit, all is well. My advice: 1) Build all networks by starting with things close to the hub, then building out from there, and add no more than 2-4 devices per day. 2) Stop the moment you have trouble, to see why it occurred. Don't just keep adding devices once you have trouble, assuming you're building outward from the hub without big physical distance gaps of more than 10 or 15 feet between devices. 3) Take another look at what @JohnRob advises.
Ghost devices are harder to detect and remove on a C5 but it's been a while for me as I use my C7 for this - they will need another Z-Wave usb stick and the (free) SiLabs PC Controller Software.
Yeah. I'm up to 41 Z-Wave devices now without issues.
That shouldn't be necessary. One of the benefits of z-wave is interoperability between other certified z-wave devices. That said, all of my devices are z-wave plus (I removed and replaced all non plus devices) and in my case virtually everything I have is Fibaro. I did find when I used a couple of Aeotec devices, although they worked, they had very few neighbours compared to a Fibaro equivalent in the same location. I had similar poor coverage with some cheaper Neo Coolcam power outlets.
This tells me you have a lot of z-wave traffic, because ghost devices probably wouldn’t slow it down this much. I have mostly Zigbee devices (>200), but have at least 35 z-wave and can run a z-wave repair on my hub in a matter of minutes.
If it were my system, I would buy another hub, connect it with hub mesh, and slowly move over your z-wave devices until you discover a device that causes problems. Then remove/exclude that device and see if the problem goes away. This is exactly how I found out what was causing problems on my Zigbee mesh a few years ago. I got rid of the offending devices and now run two Zigbee meshes; one with lights (where I also try out new devices, and one with extremely reliable repeaters and mission critical devices such as locks and sensors.
I have about 80 zwave devices and another 80 or so zigbee devices, plus lots of hue and lutron stuff. My zwave and zigbee networks are stable but it took a while to get there. I find in general zwave requires more attention but also has more tools for diagnosing issues. The devices are stable... my rules, less so, but that's a me thing not a hub thing.
I've been careful about the placement of repeaters (I also use the ring2), and I don't do things like power reporting. I've tried to eliminate or limit problematic brands and devices, and I don't use any s0 devices. I use device watchdog to keep tabs on things and I check it regularly. (Problematic for me means Fibaro devices that only pair with s0, zooz devices in general but particularly the ZSE40, ge/jabsco, and leviton zwave switches.)
I have actually had excellent success with both multisensor and trisensor but I do not use them as repeaters, just battery operated end devices.
"It's a journey, not a destination." - that was the mindset that saved me from throwing out the whole kit and kaboodle numerous times!
As so many post before me have said, there are things that can be done to minimize the problems around you.
One of the best things I did, in my own personal opinion, was to toss Z-Wave. By standardizing on a single network type, I cut my diagnostic requirements in 1/2. I also stay away from IP based devices.
Once I really understood - by trial and error sadly - the truth about zigbee networks - their distances, their designs - my problems reduced further. I put a zigbee outlet in every room. building from my hub, adding the device to my network while in my office where the hub is, then
placing the repeater in the room nearest me. I built outward. I overbuilt.
When a device acted up, I stopped and worked on the device. A light bulb that wouldn't go on every time? I'd research the manufacturer, the other users success. I learned of things to stay away from - problem items (Which I think we should have a running list) such as Peanut outlets, old Sylvania bulbs, motion sensors that don't report often or accurately....
In the end - I am now rock solid. I haven't had a problem in weeks - I swear! I've had issues, but they're explainable and resolvable (like bad rules - ugh. that was a big part of the learning!)
Summarily, change your mindset first. HA is a DIY project. Understand and expect problems. Cut your potential problem sources down (ie; choose zigbee, or zwave, and commit to it!) Don't give up, just remember that a community as technically powerful as this will always, eventually... help!
In one hand it is a convenience; and one could argue that certain lights going on is a safety feature.
On the other hand its a hobby.
I fully expect if I stopped playing with the controller the hub would continually to operate functionally with no or few issues. From what I've seen the few times I haven't played with it for a period of time this is not an unreasonable expectation.
I may be just lucky(?) but my Zigbee and Z-wave mesh seems stable. I've done nothing specific to make it that way. For the Zigbee I do have 3 - 4 custom controllers based on the TI cc2530 device what seems to be a good repeater.
Another negative about my installation, I have all metal boxes (with plastic switch plates). So each device is shielded on 5 sides by the box and in front by the switch bracket.
I have 6 Xiaomi Aqara devices that are very stable (Temp Humidity Pressure, Lux, Contact)
I wish I could state what is about my system that makes it different from those who have been seeing a lot of issues. Reset assured If something becomes obvious I will certainly post it.
Haven't browsed this entire thread....but alot of what I've read underlines the value in:
Keeping things simple no matter how tempting it is to tinker beyond the boundaries of standardization and "built in" functionality
Walking, instead of running, into the depths of automation with a myriad of new devices
Hitching up to other people's success
The big take away is that perhaps Hubitat, and the Community, could do a better job of organizing the Knowledge Base, Best Practices, and Best Kit.
For example, (to the chagrin of various vendors) we should have a "Top Five List" of Devices by type.... and the only way you get on that list is by exhibiting Community proven reliability, longevity, excellent battery life, helpful support, and HE compatibility (I left off affordability on purpose because that may be a factor that leads to problems).
We all have a sense from the legacy of HA that the OP's failure is the failure of HA to come fully out of the realm of "hobby electronics". But we also know this is the BEST it's looked, in, like, forever. Like LEAPS and BOUNDS better.
The impasse isn't from the bits and pieces being the kluge HA once was...but there STILL is the hurdle of finding what works and integrating it into a user friendly system. With all due respect I still find Hubitat resistant to features that would improve on the latter.
As with everyone else. I have around 40 or so z-wave devices, around the same amount of zigbee devices, about 10 lifx bulbs, 50 or so lutron switches/dimmers/picos. I honestly have few issues (mostly the ones I do are simply dead batteries). I use repeaters strategically. Usually when something does happen it's my fault. I even have some of the most problematic devices running smoothly (3 schlage be469 locks and a few zooz 4-in-1's)
Things you do have to take into consideration are, metal boxes (switches and outlets) What's in your walls? Mesh? (from plaster and lathe) Galvanized pipe? Iron pipe? All these things. One thing you might want to consider is the external antenna mod. This may make your meshes a lot more solid. It has for the majority of the folks that have done it.
Or perhaps solar flairs.
