Unused devices and ghost nodes

I have two devices that I won't use for at least six months, so they are currently unplugged and put away. If I leave these in my devices, will they eventually cause ghost nodes and mesh issues?

Are they repeaters? If so it would best to exclude them.

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I would either leave them plugged in, or exclude/un-pair them before putting them away. Don't delete the device (force delete) without successfully excluding them (z-wave) or unpairing them (zigbee).

If they're WiFi, then none of this applies.

Edit - Hubitat compatible WiFi outlets (like Kasa) are great for Seasonal Lighting! Thanks to @djgutheinz for that tip a long time ago!

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Actually, that's not a good idea for Wi-Fi devices either, as the driver will continue to try to connect to the unplugged device, and eventually will cause CPU load to go up. Unused devices of any kind that are unplugged, are best to be removed/excluded.

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These are bith zwave+ devices

One for sure is a repeater. I'm not sure about the other. It was Always outside in the farthest side of the house, so I never saw anything repeating through it. I just don't see much need for them until at least Halloween.

I have this weird situation where another repeater was repeating through it and a light bulb, (Inovelli), and that light bulb was repeating through that other repeater. On a related note. Is there some way to tell which is a stronger repeater?

I think I did that and now I have two unnamed devices that I cannot remove.

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If that's the case, make sure the devices are fully powered down. Shut down your hub from the settings menu. Unplug HE at the wall (not at the hub) for 20 mins. Power back up, click refresh on those entries in your z-wave details page until the REMOVE button show and click remove a few times. Hopefully that will be able to clear it. Ghosts are the bane of any mesh.

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I think both of the unnamed devices are Christmas lights controllers that I just unplugged and stored without removing them from HE. I unpacked one of them, plugged it in, discovered it, and removed it properly. Now, if I can just find the other device....:slight_smile:

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Good way to do it...

This is the most common root cause of many support tickets that report mesh problems for both Zigbee and Z-Wave.

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I'm kinda glad I asked this question!

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I tried Kasa outlets several years ago and I could never get them to work. Gave up and chucked them. that was when I bought the zen25's. those worked great on my C4 (now retired), they don't play well with my C7's. Giving up on them too. I'll probably be replacing them with Eva Logik soon.

What kind of WiFi router or mesh do you have? Does it assign a single SSID to both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands?

When I had that issue, I would configure the plugs using a spare 2.4 GHz-only router I had with the same SSID/password as my regular mesh router. And then unpower the spare router. The plugs connected to the main mesh and have been fine since ....

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Now, I have an Asus RT-AX3000, Yes it does, but I can change it, just have not seen the need to do so.

At the time we had AT&T. They hold you hostage, to their inferior Modem/Router combo and you can't dump it to use your own router. Yeah, I could have put it in bridge mode then connected another router, but seemed like two much hassle for a few devices I would only use a few weeks a year/

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Do you have a recommendation of what to do with all of the settings for those devices?? The problem for me in removing Christmas light zwave plugs is that I have a ton of automations and buttons set to control things that I don’t want to have to setup again later. I’m definitely experiencing some speed issues, though, when I simply unplug those devices from the network.

This is not recommended. And can destabilize a z-wave mesh. If you unplug devices, it is recommended to first exclude them.

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Any holiday zwave outlets i leave plugged in or move to a nearby outlet (behind a couch, wherever.)

For actual temporary holiday lighting control (mostly outdoor) I use wifi plugs from meross or tplink. Doesn't destabilize the zwave or ZigBee meshes after the season.

Wait while playing around with some devices I’ve deleted and repaired some and I’ve deleted at least one to never be used again

Should I have done something differently? Anything to do now? These were all zigbee and battery

Is there a way to view your ZWave or ZigBee networks in some sort of text format where you could inspect and manually remove ghost devices? I know I have a number of them from when my Leviton dimmer was wigging out and reset itself and removed itself from my Zwave network many times.

You can, for zwave, if you have a C-7. Just go to Settings -> Z-Wave Settings

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