Z-Wave Distance Getting Worse with More Devices

I certainly don't know. But I read the Hubitat Wiki called "How to Build a Solid Z-Wave Mesh" here:
https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Z-Wave_Mesh

Which said:
If you use Z-Wave devices, your Z-Wave mesh is the backbone of your home automations. This mesh network is the way Z-Wave devices communicate with each other and with the Hubitat Elevation hub. Z-Wave devices build this communication mesh automatically, but it is not instantaneous. You MUST give your Z-Wave mesh time to establish itself BEFORE automating your Z-Wave devices. Automating devices too quickly can lead to frustration with routing issues. It may take several hours for your Z-Wave mesh to automatically find the optimal routing.

So I figured that after a repair it may still be taking some time (hours) to figure out the optimal route.

So after I did my Z-Wave repair and waited some 4 hours I tried to do an exclude on 4 devices. The first one, my dinning room, which is in the same gang box as my kitchen light wouldn't exclude. When I did a range test on it, it failed. I have no idea how this is possible as the kitchen switch in the same gang box passes. And, as I mentioned before, this was one of the 1st 3 I did and I had been doing automations on it with no problems for weeks and weeks.

I then went to another room. All 3 passed the range test. I started with the one closest to the hub. I was able to do the exclude/include with it. I then went for the next one. It wouldn't exclude. So I tried the one in the same gang box as #2. It wouldn't exclude either.

So then I tried to do individual repairs for those 3. The dinning room failed but the other 2 passed. I tried to exclude them again, and again they failed. This time though they both failed the range test. So I tried to air gap one and even turn the power off to the room. That didn't work either. So I tried to repair them both individually. They also failed to repair and both say they are unreachable. I then tried to repair one of them again. It said it did repair so I tried a range test on it right away. It failed. Not surprisingly, it also failed to exclude then.

What can I do now?

I would force remove the switches you still have S2 on. Then factory reset the switches making sure that you have no ghost devices before adding them back with no security. Also you’re being too nice to your zwave network get mad and start Cursing at it, usually works for me

Also you’re being too nice to your zwave network get mad and start Cursing at it, usually works for me<

I have a job where the first and most important item listed on the application was temperament.

So I have 2 other choices. Let me know if you think either is better than a force exclude. 1. I do have a frickin' long RJ45 network cord. (I think it is about 20' or so. I'd have to replace the ends, but I still have my crimping tool and some spare RJ45 ends from when I did some networking back in the late '90s, early 2000s). I also have a couple of MOCA boxes that will let me run the network over coax. I could then hook the hub to one of them. Either way that would let me move the hub much, much closer to each switch and try to do at least the exclude from there. I would then move it back to its home and see if I could do an include from there.

There is also a third option to buy a mesh network and plug the hub into one of the satellites. I've been toying with that but haven't as my coverage isn't too terrible throughout my 2,500 sq ft. condo. Plus, did I see someplace that maybe the hub doesn't like mesh networks? Would it matter if it was in a satellite and not plugged into the one that was plugged into the modem (which is essentially the same case as using the MOCA devices).

Update:
So it is hard for me to tell if the items are truly in range or not as my hub crapped out on me again requiring yet another reboot. I am truly getting to my wits end trying to figure out why this is happening. I'm literally rebooting it multiple times per day.

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What do you mean by "crapped out on me again"? What is actually happening? Whatever is causing this would likely wreck havoc with everything else you're trying to do. Send me a PM with your hubId.

7 or 8 times out of 10 it's a device causing the issue. The other handful of times an app. If you're sure there aren't any ghost nodes, then I would start to look at any power reporting devices and slow down the reporting as much as possible or disable the reporting completely. Additionally, 4-1's have been causing a lot of problems lately, especially if paired with S0 or you have more than one.

You can use the little x to the right on the devices page to selectively disable devices. This can help narrow down the problem device. It will give you a column you can select to disable the device.

Since I had to shutdown the hub anyways, (which I do gracefully through Hubitat) I took the opportunity to put my longest RJ45 network cord on the hub, which is about 5' long, and move the hub that much close to the devices that were reporting out of range and could not be excluded. (Which of course, moves it about 5' away from the devices on the other side of my condo - but they have already been set to no security and are working - when the hub is working).

With that I was able to exclude/re-include the last of my Inovelli devices. (Though it took over an hour for me to upgrade the firmware on my last fan+light from 1.34 to 1.36, which only took about 12 minutes on all the other 4 fans - but that is now done).

So now the only S2 device I have is my Aeotec Smart Switch 7, which I included with Smart Start (the only device I did that with) and now I can't get it to go back to exclude mode, But I'll work on that later.

Others have mentioned reducing reporting. I haven't touched that before. I'm not sure how to do that. Please tell me where that is and what to set it to.

As to ghosts, I have one strange one. It was appearing in my Z-Wave table, but after getting Remove to come up, after doing a Refresh a few times, I was able to remove it from the Z-Wave table by clicking Remove a couple of times. However, it is still listed under devices. So I don't know how to get it removed from there. When I go into the device it says it is #51, but there is no device 51 in my Z-Wave table (which is what I'd expect).

Here are some screen shots of the mystery device:
At the Devices screen:

Inside the device:

If there isn't a device 51 in the zwave table click remove at the bottom of the device and it should go away. If it prompts you to force remove then pause there. We'll need to look at your zwave table again.

It did! I was worried because it said follow the instructions from the manufacturer on how to put it in exclude mode (which, of course, I couldn't do) but after about 30 seconds of just letting that message sit there, the dialog box went away as did the mystery device. Hopefully, it is gone for good. I also made sure again it is not in my Z-Wave table and there are no ghosts there.

One other, BTW, I converted all of my Rule Machine rules to Button Controllers, except one that does need RM. So whatever strain RM puts on the hub (which I've also seen threads about) are virtually all gone.

You're good then. The exclude mode stuff is for removing when it's part of the zwave table. Deleting it from there just cleans up the database stuff. Usually removing it from the zwave devices it cleans up the database but I have seen sometimes when it doesn't as you just have.

Thanks for all your help. Just as a last thing, how do I cut down on the reporting?

The problem with RM is the power of the app. It's easy to do "dumb stuff" and create loops or whatever.

I was just setting dimmers to X% and/or turning them off with button taps. I was using RM as I figured I'd might as well get used to it. It was time consuming, but no big deal to move them to Button Controllers.

Reporting settings are typically under the device settings for each device. Not all devices have reporting. Usually this is on outlets, power strips, muli-function devices (4-1 etc), vibration sensors, humidity/temp sensors (although these are typically already rate limited to save battery).

OK. I Only have 1 plug. The rest are Inovelli Red Dimmers, Black Switches or their Fan+Light. I have 10 motion sensors back ordered, so I'll be mindful of that when they come in.

For the innovelli switches there is a driver by Innovelli that exposes a ton of settings. Some particular settings worth mentioning if you add smart bulbs later down the road is the Smart Bulb setting and disable local control. This will allow the switch to remain on when turned off but send commands to the lightbulb to turn on and off so it doesn't screw with your mesh. After setting the values you can change back to the built-in driver. The button mappings are different between the Innovelli driver and the built-in one. I prefer the built-in mapping but you don't get as many buttons out of each switch.

I’m using the Inovelli mappings. I was never quite clear on what the smart bulb setting did. They have a ton of features, but sometimes don’t explain them well. I do have 1 switch that controls 2 Hue smart bulbs via various presses. I’ll have to see if I turned on disable local control.

I also use param 51, to disable the built in 700 ms delay (so they can detect multiple taps) on those switches where I’m not doing double or more taps. By setting Params 1, 3 and 4 to zero it turns on virtually instantly.

Yea, you'll want to use the smart bulb feature with any smart lights.

In case you haven't figured this out since then: it basically keeps the dimmer level at 100% (Z-Wave level 99, technically, so you may also see that somewhere) whenever the switch is on. It doesn't actually always keep the switch on, so you'll almost always also wanted to enable at least local protection (and possibly also remote if you don't trust yourself not to send on/off or "set level" commands via Z-Wave, though on some devices this has undesirable side effects beyond that, and I can't remember if this was one of those)--and make sure the switch is on before you do. It's nothing you can't basically already do on your own if you're careful, but it may help avoid accidents.

This terminology is not universal; I've seen other manufacturers use it to just mean disabling local control, either with or without tracking an internal switch or level state without actually electrically modifying the load (so "mirroring"-style automations would still work--though I personally prefer just responding to scene/button events and manipulating the actual smart bulbs that way instead). So it can definitely be confusing. :slight_smile: And Inovelli, last I read, was working on a way to maybe add some of these features into future firmware, so this very well may change at some point, too!

I appreciate you taking so much time to explain this so throughly. But, something came to me in my sleep last night. (It's sad that these are are kind of things I dream about). My switch that controls those 2 Hue bulbs and the switch that controls my Aeotec Smart Switch do not attach to a any load. They both are just attached to a line, neutral and ground. So in that scenario is there any reason to set the Smart Bulb param and/or disabling the switch? I can't think of any reason either would effect the bulb or switch itself.