Z-Wave Mesh Question

[mljennings]

Community:
I have discovered that maintaining the z-wave mesh appears to be more of an “art” than a “science” to me. I have been experimenting with this for over a year now, but really have not allocated the time to actually resolve my issues. Currently my smart house is acting more like a 14 year old teenager instead of the a well maintained system.

I realize that significant parts of the problem are mine. My hub is not located in the perfect spot. It is located in the family room and set on a table below the wall mounted TV. The family room contains wall to wall overstuffed furniture and a grand piano. The hub is centrally placed, but the table also contains routers and other audio-visual equipment. My wife is also trying to hide all of the electronics by placing picture frames in from of the equipment (including the hub).
Furthermore, my wife occasionally un-plugs several of the smart outlets. Some have been put back, but not all of them at this point.

Currently I have 34 x-wave devices defined in my hub. Actually, I have installed smart dimmers or switches throughout the house and hope to have about 120 z-wave device included when I am completely done. All these devices are powered (wall switches and outlets). When I do a z-wave repair only 14 of the 34 devices complete successfully. If I wait a few days, (several more devices definitely no most) appear to connect to the hub because they data is showing up in the log files.

To get a better understanding of what is happening I have:

1. Added notifications in all my current 4 basic rules. There are two sets of rules that turn lights on a sunset or turn them off at a given time or sunrise.
2. added notifications to the devices associated with the rules above
3. Adjusting the device settings to limit the output in the log files (Several of my Zooz devices sending log data every second).
4. Rebooted the hub
5. Did a z-wave repair
6. I rebooted the hub again.
7. Waited patiently for several hours.

The Basic Rules executed as defined and after a day or two all of the associated devices started to respond as desired. After about 5 days, some now all of devices have stopped responding even though the rules executed.

I realize I need to exclude or remove the 20 devices that are not participating, but given my desired goal, I don’t know if I should fix the individual devices or complete reset my hub and start over.

Hubitat Elevation® Platform Version
2.3.0.124
Hardware Version
Rev C-7

Curr

[erktrek]

I would recommend before going the reset route you upgrade to 2.3.1.129 and after the reboot go into Z-Wave details and update the Z-Wave firmware. There are some significant improvements to the 700 series radio that may help.

edit: easier to see and remove ghosts, the routing of devices seems improved..

[neonturbo]

@erktrek

upgrade to 2.3.1.129 and after the reboot go into Z-Wave details and update the Z-Wave firmware.

Definitely do this before doing anything else.

@mljennings

Furthermore, my wife occasionally un-plugs several of the smart outlets. Some have been put back, but not all of them at this point.

That can cause havoc on the mesh. Either exclude these devices, or put them somewhere else where they can't get unplugged. Having devices that are unplugged and other devices trying to route through them is a recipe for disaster.

@mljennings

. When I do a z-wave repair only 14 of the 34 devices complete successfully.

In theory, you are supposed to never do a full repair. Only do individual nodes if really needed. Zwave plus are supposed to repair themselves. With that said, some people found improvement in repairing the full network after that Zwave firmware update in 2.3.1.

Lastly, please post screenshots of your Zwave Details page, maybe there is something in there that would help us to diagnose things.

[erktrek]

@mljennings

When I do a z-wave repair only 14 of the 34 devices complete successfully.

This is from a poll taken by Hubitat, Inc about the need for a "full" Z-Wave repair.

Facts about Z-Wave Repair

With results in from various social media outlets, here is what people believe the right answer should be: [image] 31% thought true is correct answer [image] [image] 47% thought true is correct answer [image] [image] 28% thought true is correct answer [image] And the right answer is: FALSE And here is why: According to Bryan Copeland, our Z-Wave specialist, for the repair process to work, the hub must be able to reach the device. The first task of the repair is to request the list…

[dnickel]

I know it may be a bit more than you want to chew but the Z-Wave antenna upgrade is well worth the location/signal strength issues. Everything just talks better + the new Z-Wave firmware.

External Antenna

While I am no antenna expert, my experience with Radio Frequency (RF) from CB to millimeter wave, is that the antenna being used is hugely important. And bigger antennas are almost always better. From what I have read, the HE is considered to have a weak and not great antenna. When you take apart your HE C7 hub, you will find a bit of foil on the bottom of the case that acts as the antenna. One for Z-Wave and one for Zigbee. I have voided my warranty and added an external antenna to my HE (…

[csteele]

For the most part... your fellow Hubitat owners that are vocal here will hear:

• "my Automations are slow sometimes"
• "my Devices are not responding"
• "how do I factory reset"
• "I'm about to give up"

and interpret any of them to mean: "My Mesh is horrible."

It can't always be true, but is often enough that we collectively ask for screen captures (which as a new poster, won't be able to do yet) of your ZWave Details screens. (Settings:Zwave Details) We look down the right most column looking for blanks:

Then we look up and down the 2nd column looking for red flag values:

RTT Avg should be in the <5ms for most people while the RSSI should be double digit positive values.

Neighbors should be 2 or better and Route Changes should be 5 or less.

You can see that I have one where the RTT is 3864ms (that's almost 4 seconds!!!)

Once we know there are Mesh problems and get a feel for which of the many possibilities are found in yours, we can make suggestions. Up to and Including voiding your warranty and adding a bigger antenna Obviously that's not usually the best first step.