i also converted my kwikset zwave locks to zigbee in both houses. much more reliable.. the zwave requires only specific devices that can do beaming reapeating.. most cannot and then therefore cause issues.. you could try putting a aeon ver 7 repeater or ring right next to each lock.. but probably just as cheap to lock on ebay or amazon and get a used zigbee lock just to pull the card out and convert your kwikset like i did.. for the schlage you are on your own.
i know have 8 kwiket locks between the two houses running zigbee with absolutely no issues. other than one door where the tolerances are off and it occasionally sticks..
Put a repeater as close to the lock(S) as possible. Repair all the rest of that stuff without security (Except locks, they should pair at s2) While you're dimmer should be acting as repeaters, personally I like to have 1 or 2 open ones (ones not in a box).
Honestly, I've found z-wave great for everything except locks. I'm running 3 Hubitat hubs in 2 different houses, and I've only found 2 nasty issues:
Z-wave locks are trouble. The solution was to convert them away from z-wave or space out commands.
I have some Neo Coolcam z-wave smartplugs. The antennas on them are terrible, and can wreak havoc on the mesh. The solution was to install a better antenna in them.
But with those 2 issues fixed, my meshes are solid and devices are reliable. The key to remember is this. When you think that "my z-wave is being flaky", what that really probably means is, "I have a flaky device. I need to find the device that is causing this problem."
thanks, all - this gives me some good leads, ideas and things to try. Fortunately, locking the doors is not a time sensitive thing unlike garage doors. If the doors need to lock 5-10 minutes after everything else happens, that's fine.
I'm still confused about repeaters though. What's the difference between something like a Ring or Aeotec repeater and a ZWave+ dimmer? I have ZWave light switches adjacent to the door lock 1 foot away. Then hub is only 20 feet away from the door. That's what gets me is how close all this stuff is and it still doesn't work.
Guess I'll give this a try and see how it goes over the next few days. Feels so wrong. Maybe Wi-Fi is the answer for the industry. These kinds of issues won't fly with 99.99999% of the population.
So, I've spent all night rebuilding my Z-Wave network. I excluded every device in the house, factory reset them all, then added them back going closest to further away. I added about 20 devices in a 1200 sq. ft home.
I reduced my scenes down to just the necessary lights to test reliability. It was much better than it was before the rebuild but I was still getting 10 second delays when switching scenes.
Then I went to add my garage door opener and although it would pair/enroll, I couldn't get hubitat to open or close it or get status. unenrolled, re-enrolled, removed devices from the mesh, just zero luck getting it to talk.
So I dragged out my SmartThings hub that I thought I'd never need again and paired the garage door opener. Same exact hub-to-device distance. Boom, connection - open and close door. Worked like a charm.
Apples to apples, one of these hubs is better than the other at Z-Wave.
He’s explicitly locking each lock in his rule. Take those out. Have the rule set a virtual switch instead. Lockdown app sees that switch, and it then locks all the doors, about 10 seconds apart each, with retries if there are any errors.
I gotta rebuild everything today. I got frustrated and nuked everything and moved a few things back to SmartThings for the night.
I've lost confidence in Hubitat's Z-Wave capabilities based on some of the experimentation and comparison I've done. Z-Wave is just not as good as ST, period. I don't want to go back to SmartThings but I can't go forward with HE and Z-Wave as-is. My house is ridiculously small with tightly grouped devices, it blows my mind that HE isn't up to the task of doing it reliably. I know part of that is Z-Wave itself but again - ST is just plain better at Z-Wave than HE.
There's just so many things that don't work and new issues appear daily. Troubleshooting is like whack-a-mole. It feels like the HomeSeer and X10 days all over again.
I'm going to teardown and rebuild again today, use your lock app and give it another week to burn in and try to deal with the issues. I started with X10 15 years ago then realized it was junk, moved to Insteon and realized it was junk about 10 years ago then moved to Z-Wave and now I'm realizing it is also junk. Weak RF/radio on the HE hardware is not helping and HE seems to have a really hard time keeping up with the current status of devices which affects rule machine rules. Things don't trigger when HE doesn't know a change has occured. This is a theme that gets repeated on multiple forums when you search for Z-Wave/Hubitat.
I appreciate all the help so far. The only reason I'm publicly complaining is
in case someone from Hubitat is listening
to make anyone considering HE aware of these problems
To let anyone going through the same BS know that it's not just them.
otherwise I wouldn't normally be such a grump but I feel like this needs to be called out. I can get a headache for free by banging my head against a wall but I had to pay $130 for this one.
but I feel like this needs to be called out. I can get a headache for free by banging my head against a wall but I had to pay $130 for this one.
