Other posts in this forum indicate that the entire Zwave network will operate at the speed of the slowest device. So if you put one older device on it, the entire thing slows down?
Other posts indicate that only applies to zwave devices used as repeaters, and that you can avoid this slowdown by using such older repeaters at the outer edges of the network.
Which one of the above is correct?
Is there a similar issue with Zigbee? - ie if I buy one of the old Orbit Iris zigbee hose controllers will that slow down my network?
Is there a place within HE that you can look up what type of z-wave (or zigbee if it also applies to that) each connected device has?
what are the types of zwave? Is it just z-wave and zwave plus?
False, only if it was being used as a repeater for other devices.
There is that and also the chip class, which can be 100, 300, 500, 700, 800. I believe all 100 and 300 are non-plus. 500 series is where Plus started. 700 and 800 are Long Range capable (LR is not supported by HE yet).
@calinatl To be even more clear, devices repeating through a repeater will have a max speed of the repeater it's going through. But lets say the repeating node is 100mpbs but the device connecting to it is only 40kbs max. That device will not increase it's speed.
You can look at the device page of any z-wave device. If it has the 0x5e cluster in the data section it is z-wave plus. Speed can be seem on the z-wave details page as well as the route its taking...
zigbee pretty much runs at the same speed though like z-wave they do their own routing.
What @rlithgow1 said. Plus, the Orbit valve is a zigbee end-device, not a zigbee router. So no other nodes communicate to the hub through it, so it cannot slow anything down ....
@aaiyar & @rlithgow1 : Thanks. Sounds like buying an old zigbee device would not cause slowdowns or other issues.
@jtp10181 & @rlithgow1 : Thank you - good info. So there is ZWave & Zwave plus, and within Zwave Plus, there is 500, 700 and 800. But HE does not yet do anything different with 700 & 800 than it does with 500.
@rlithgow1 : Thank you - I learn so much from you!! Went to Settings/Zwave Details and I see "Route"
Presume kbps is the speed? What is a good speed? I have speeds from 9.6kbps to 100kbps.
Presume the first part is the path of the zwave signal, where
01 is the HE
-> indicates the path is going to another device
next 2 characters are the 3rd & 4th characters in the Node column for the device in the path?
If the above is correct, all of my devices go directly from HE to the device except for the Inovelli switches. They go all over the place in illogical paths (ie they are not building a path from the HE to the Inovelli, rather they are tracing a path around the perimeter of the house...
Do I click Refresh or Repair in the device line to attempt to fix this? Which one?
700 and 800 in general are faster and support s2 encryption (some 500 does)
9.6k is the lowest, 100 is the highest. Some devices (like locks) don't go over 40 but no big deal as they are end devices that don't repeat. That said if you have 9.6 you have some struggling items. Post your z-wave details page in it's entirety (use Windows snip)
Welcome to the voodoo that is z-wave where even if a device is next to the hub it will route through the farthest device in the house...
I think it's my experience that it doesn't take much to make a z-wave mesh slow down. Change some sensors or switches out or whatever, it might take a while to get them going well again. I think sometimes also after a hub update or whatnot.
I have a Zooz ZEN34 wireless switch that I keep on the night stand to turn all the lights in the house on and off. I use it once in a while to "exercise" the meshes. I think it helps, but it's not scientific. It's easy though.
@rlithgow1 : So I did a bunch of reading in this forum and the HE Documentation and decided to click on "Repair Zwave" at the top of the Zwave details page.
That fixed the totally illogical path of both of the Inovelli switches.
One is now connected directly to the hub
The other Inovelli is going through a "Jasco" dimmer that is physically between the HE and the Inovelli. So now all devices except the one Inovelli are connected directly.
In regards to speed, that same Inovelli dimmer that is not directly connected remains at 9.6kbps. I've checked and both Inovelli dimmers have the same firmware, etc.
Zwave details:
Device 11, the one at 9.6kbps is 13' line of site across the room from device 13, through which it is repeating. Device 13 is 6' from Hubitat (but on the other side of the wall).
Also, Device 8, the other Inovelli, but the one at 40kbps, is in the same Jbox as Device 11.
I say the above because it seems to me there is something else going on other than needing a repeater. There are other devices, faster than Device 11, which are another 40' further from the hub.
The blacked out portion is the names I have given the devices.
I think that means I have to redo all rules associated with that device, is that correct?
Or will they just show an error and let me insert the re-paired device?
just use device swap. Create a virtual switch, name it what ever you want. Then use device swap to swap that into all rules using that switch, then exclude, factory reset, and re pair the switch then device swap back
I have never actually seen that make a difference. I think this might be left-over advice from the olden days of zwave before the "healing" mesh that dynamically adjusts routes.
One way to force a route change would be to knock one the hops offline (power off) and then query and toggle the device you want to re-route a few times until it starts responding to the hub again. Once it picks a new route it will hang onto that until it fails, then it will switch again.
Repair may fix some of these illogical paths, however, there is a high chance that you don't see how the waves are reflected by surrounding barriers in your environment, which often explain the odd routes that make no sense to the naked eye.
What Inovelli model the 9.6k dimmer is? In my experience, a Z-Wave Plus device that remains at 9.6k despite all efforts to improve the strength of the mesh by adding repeaters, is indicative of a bad device. I had to replace a few nodes over the years because I couldn't get them up to speed. Replacing a bad node could save you countless hours of effort trying to troubleshoot Z-Wave mesh instability.
After doing some of the suggested things above both Inovellis are now at 100kbps.
However, one of the Jasco Plug in Dimmers is now going through the other Jasco Plug in Dimmer to get to the hub, and it is at 9.6. I turned neither of them nor the hub off, and previously both of them were at 100 and were directly tied to the hub...
Since, according to my household, "everything is working" I think I'll leave well enough alone for now...
Happy to have learned how different Zwave devices may impact the network, and that I can use any zigbee device that will connect without negative impact to other zigbee devices...
