So I've had nothing but issues with my z-wave locking up. After going through the motions with support, they are saying I have ghost nodes on the stick (wish they told me day 1).
So I'm looking at getting a z-stick to plug into my laptop to monitor/view what is going on with the network, can anyone recommend some basic (free/open) software which I can use to look for ghost nodes and get a feel for what is going on with the z-wave mesh?
Disclaimer recommendations may result in me asking to translate/understand what the software is telling me
I'm fairly certain if you run Z-Wave Repair enough times hidden nodes eventually drops off on their own. If they don't, Aeotec has a version of Zensys Tools available from their support pages. Almost any USB Z-Wave stick works with Zensys Tools. The problem is I don't know if a secondary controller is allowed to mark nodes as dead or force remove them.
Zwave devices have a tombstone time that if they don't check in they are automatically considered dead and removed. It isn't a few hours or a couple of days, and I do not know what that time is but there is an automatic procedure.
The time is probably dictated by the Z-Wave spec. It's one of those things you might implement and then forget because you were just following a document.
This info from Sillabs gives an idea of when a node might be considered unresponsive.
A node is considered to be failed or non-responsive when a controller cannot reach the node, using routing and explorer frames. Sleeping nodes can be considered as failing after missing more than 2 consecutive Wake Up Periods.
Yes, @mark.cockcroft, the response wasn't very scientific, but as you can see, their info from the manufacturer of the Z-Wave chip is also not very scientific. Considering that every devices wake up period could be different, how can anyone know exactly when the failed node will be removed?
I don't think any of those will do you any good. You want Zensys Tools (or PC Controller) like the other thread says. It is behind a registration pay wall from Sillabs or you can sometimes find old versions linked outside like the one I mentioned on Aeotec's support website for flashing firmware.
I was upgrading firmware and saw some ghost IDs. Just be very sure which device you are talking too. I took a screen shot off all my z-wave devices (in the z-wave page) within HE before I shut it down and removed the stick. Then you can work out the numbering by looking at the two side by side.
Thank I'm not on linux, but searching found this site, and I think there is a windows version on the download page is this the right software http://www.openzwave.com/home
The OpenZwave software is just the open-source version of the Zwave protocol stack. It is used with some of the software in your earlier image to form some kind of Hub like HE. If you can't find the Zensys Tools software somewhere or the Aeotec version, OZWCP works well. Find an old PC and install Linux.
Yes, it does, you basically have a map of which device can talk what other device. You see the numbers to the left and on top.
Let's say on the left, we take device ID 14. Device ID 14 can talk to Device IDs 2, 8, 28, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43 (anything that is red). These are the numbers that you see on the top line.
The device ID you see here are the same that you see in the Hubitat under Settings->Zwave
ZWave is a mesh network, meaning devices can talk to several devices to build a route back to the hub. This map here illustrates each devices and the partners it can talk to.
