I've been doing a ton of research on these after recently migrating to the C7 hub from a C5. Man oh man can the non-700 versions wreak havok on a zwave mesh with C7.
Yes, this is well documented here in the community but it wasn't until I started doing some real research as to what was going on that I realized the 4 of these I have were causing ALL of my problems and there were a lot.
This is my attempt to document my learnings and hopefully get a single place where it's helpful for others who might be using these sensors with a C7 unknowingly hosing their zwave mesh in the process.
My findings in terms of trying to use the non-700 versions with a C7 normally (I have 4):
All of the non-700 versions I have are labeled: ZSE40 Ver 2.0 on the back. Firmare: 32.02
They pair using S0 security which is from my research what causes the problem because they are also very "chatty" devices so effecitely it over-saturates the zwave mesh and kills it
The manifestation of the mesh being hosed is effectively things stop responding at all or do so very slowly. The hub itself is still accessible just none of the zwave stuff works properly at all. Also things like adding devices, removing devices, running repairs (whole mesh or single device) just behave poorly/strangely
The way to resolve this TEMPORARILY is a shutdown, unplug and restart of the hub. This will make things work as expected for some amount of time (I found it ranges from a couple hours to even almost a day). Eventually it all falls apart again though
My current approach is that I have removed all of these devices and it has made the mesh behave exactly as it should
There is NO warning that I saw in the UI, it takes research to discover these things are not C7 friendly - there may be some room for improvement here especially give HOW much of a disaster these things can be
The 700 version of these so far has been fine - I included it unsecurely with no problem.
There is a good bit of commentary about using a PC and secondary hub and doing a pair that way to force non-secure but I am a mac/linux house and don't have any PCs around - I didn't follow a lot of what was being explained there and the instructions clearly assume a bit of knowledge of a piece of software I'm not familiar with.
I will keep updating this as I learn more - I'd love to get these working again but I think the hope will have to be for a firmware update from Zooz or a Hubitat offering what is technically a non-certified by the zwave alliance option to force them to pair non-securely.
For the 500v2 devices get the 32.12 firmware from Zooz. They changed the way it reports motion on that version after tons of pushback from myself and this community. Instead of sending motion active every 8 seconds it only sends it once at the start of active and then again at inactive. It may be a little tricky to get the devices to update so let me know if you have issues.
Change parameter 8 as I have noted in the tips (you can change this for 32.12 as well): For the original ZSE40 (500 series) FW < 32.12 I would HIGHLY recommend changing Parameter 8 to "Notification Reports Only".
I feel if you do these steps the devices will stop causing so many problems. Since I have already paired mine with no security I cannot be certain so please let me know how it works.
Thanks - was already using your driver Do you know if the same driver is good for the 700 series sensor?
I'll try to update them after work today and see if that helps. I'd like to get the things working as I have 4 of them. I do have a few more 700 series on the way as well.
Yes it is designed to work with both and will detect the 700 series based on the FW version. I have 3x of the 500v2 and 1x of the 700 series. The 700 series I even have paired with S2 security for testing.
Oh also on the main Zwave details page make sure you do not have a "Firmware Update" button at the top, if you do have it, you need to press it and update the radio firmware which will also help with mesh issues.
My zwave radio is already updated, did that right out of the gate when I started migrating.
If I have time this week I'll try adding one of those 500v2 sensors back at a time and seeing how things behave, perhaps I can narrow in on a threshold of S0 included sensors that work.
I will almost certainly need help with the firmware update as I've not done this for any devices using hubitat yet.
Device Firmware Updater | Hubitat Documentation This should get you started at least. I would move the device close to the hub. If you have any other chatty sensors powering them off while updating may also help. Once it is complete I think the device should continue to work and talk to the hub. I would run a Configure on it from my driver after updating to make sure everything is set back up properly. The lifeline association sometimes gets cleared when you do firmware updates and the configure should set it back properly without having to reset and pair the device again.
Another option is to pair the sensors with no security using a z-wave stick paired as a secondary controller. (this is what I do with the 500 series) and with the 700 I just bypassed it altogether on pairing.
ZSE40 500 Series 4-in-1 Sensor 32.12 (only for base version 32.02/32.2, find the firmware version in your hub's interface)
This device has a very confusing change history and then they keep making it more confusing by calling the new model the same thing... and now have reverted the firmware version backward to 1.x as well. I think this is a documented guide book on how to make your version history confusing.
A bit unscientific, but I got 2 of the 500 series to pair to my C7 without security just by pairing them outside the house so they had a crappy connection.
The only thing you might be able to do is pair the devices to the stick using zwave js to update the firmware, but would have to remove and then add back to the hub after its done. From what I can see zwave js cannot join the stick as a secondary controller.
Yes that actually can work because it would begin the paring and the hope would be it fails the S0 bootstrapping and pairs anyway. May just fail totally though and not work afterwards.
On a C7 though, if you do get it to partially pair but its not working, and security says "None" you can reset the device, then refresh the zwave node until you get the replace option. Then do the replace to join it back in, it should join with no security into the same node and complete the pairing.
I have two of the 700 series. They occasionally get stuck on Motion. I've recently managed to get one working again but not the other. It says Motion is active 100% of the time. I'm not sure what I did that finally got one working again.
Has anyone else had this happen or know a way to correct it? I've tried most of the basic steps and also contacted Zooz but they only told me to do things I've already done.
You don't happen to also have the 500 series? I can't describe the volume of weirdness that went away in my mesh as soon as I removed them from it (on C7, they were fine on C5).
I don't have any of the 500 series. I knew they had issues so I started with two of the 700 series to see how they worked out. They were good for a while but I'm struggling now.
They first locked on Motion back in June. I was moving in July so I didn't do anything about it initially. They were offline for about 6 weeks when I moved. I replaced the batteries when I set everything up in the new house. These were still stuck on Motion. One has recovered but I'm not sure why or what change made a difference.
Do you know if the same driver is good for the 700 series sensor?
