Ok! I got my Z-wave stick; I installed "Simplicity" & "PC-Controller; and I am now de-ghosted. So, what fun things can I do now? There has to be more than just waiting for another ghost.
Mike M.
PC Controller is a "low level tool" meaning it began life as some engineer's pet code to test out the ZWave microcode that was being developed. It's not likely to be much beyond what it is. It doesn't even do 700 series unique commands yet.. it speaks to the 700 series chips using the 500 series serial interface... which is why it's great for the 2nd Action... including non-S2 devices as "S-none" (not as S0, aka "unsecure").
Because it's joined to your Hub as a secondary, it can work with it to join new devices. When you tell it to go into Include, it gets a next node address from the hub and then will facilitate the join, without forcing S0. The hub will be informed and the device will show in the UI, where you can do a Discover if needed.
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I believe that some have flashed their Z-Wave stick so that it becomes a “Zniffer” for observing Z-Wave traffic on the mesh.
Search the forum.
Wonderful! The Z-Wave Stick giveth and the Z-Wave stick taketh away.
Mike M
I bet with a little poking around you could also do quite a bit of harm with it!
It is really great for updating firmware. If you do have any "secure" devices, S0 or S2, the stick will need to be paired with an equivalent or higher security to be able to fully talk to the devices. Then you an update the firmware through the existing network without pairing the device direct to the stick like I have seen some instructions suggest.
You can also set associations with it, or view associations.
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Agree with @jtp10181 - firmware updates, associations, exclusions, "no security" pairings, polling etc.. very handy to have in your techie tool box.
You could also use your stick with Home Assistant and explore HA's capabilities. Home Assistant has a lot of cool features but can be a lot more complex and time consuming to setup/manage than HE - so I generally don't recommend it for anything other than tinkering or as a secondary hub for devices that don't play well / are incompatible with HE for some reason or maybe for use as a cool dashboard. There are some excellent community apps that allow for bridging devices to and from HE.
