Power went off last night and fried my GE z wave switch. Going to get a new one and tried to exclude the current one but it doesn’t have enough life as it is wigging out. If there a specific thing I can do to get the device off of my hub since I can’t properly exclude it? Also can I use the same name when I install the replacement? Thanks in advance for the guidance.
I've had very similar problems, as GE/Jasco devices are getting older, and caps are going bad when power is re-applied (mine also failed on a power failure) - You get the "dreaded blinking blue lite" on the switch.
There are numerous threads on YT on how to repair/replace the cap, and it's fairly striaght forward, but does require soldering. See: https://youtu.be/KOSwWhFS7U8?si=Code1xSvR_v4uL6L - I just bailed and moved to a Leviton Matter Wifi switch. But I'm starting to reduce my Z-wave footprint, where that's feasible, for failed or problematic devices
But to directly answer your question, of how to get this "dead device" off your Z-Wave mesh - It's basically a ghost, and requires the Z-Stick dance with the Si Simplicity software to force it into a failed state - One of the detailed threads is: How To: Remove Z-Wave Ghosts (including using a UZB Stick)
Good Luck!
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Post a screen shot of the device from your Z-Wave Details page. Will look something like this:
You might be able to "catch" the switch and exclude it by starting exclusion on the hub and enabling exclude mode the switch hub exclusion is running.
Assuming that doesn't work, you can try to use the hub's built-in Remove capability. You can try:
- Shut down the hub and pull power for 30s
- Restore power and let the hub boot up (this clears the Z-Wave radio)
- Pull airgap on the switch to ensure it's off power
- Hit Refresh on the switch on the Z-Wave Details page
- The Remove button should appear - click it
Unfortunately, in many cases the switch will have neighbors that will block HE from removing it. Give that a try and post back on results.
also if you disconect the switch and use refresh on the zwave page if it is dead you may be able to get a remove option there without a stick.. it has been working better lately. you may have to try a few times or right after a hub reboot.
I had a ge switch act Goofy on me before. I got angry with it so I pulled it out of the wall and I connected it to within about a foot of the old c7 I was using at the time. There was a process to air gap that sucker and then I think I pressed the down paddle after clicking exclude. This excluded the god forsaken GE switch. It didn't want to exclude from a distance.
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If this is the classic case of a date code 2017 switch not working after a power outage (the heretofore discussed capacitor issue), it may be fruitful to contact Jasco support even though it has been almost seven years. Just sayin'.
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No doubt your GE/Jasco failed, likely do to some power-up transient. However the capacitors in these parts are not prone to ageing in the time period you likely had them. I have 9 Leviton modules and 3 linear dimmer switches all purchased the beginning of 2016. All of them have been working fine since the beginning of 2016. I suspect the GE/Jasco has some marginally rated part(s) that if periodically stressed beyond the rating could cause failure.
In general electronic issues are very reliable the worst stressor is thermal cycling.
I have no like or dislike for GE/Jasco (although with these types of issues I'll likely stay away) I'm just looking at the issue from an electronic engineering point of view. Something to consider when you purchase replacements.
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I've had a total of six (out of 7 installed) GE/Jasco switch failures. All had 2016 date codes and all failures were after power failure/power restored events. Three of the failures occurred within the Jasco 5 year warranty extension period. The other three (2 of which were ones I repaired by replacing the cap) occurred a couple of months ago. Of those, two failed when power was restored, the third a week or so later. Replacing the cap fixes them, but it seems like a temporary solution which has me thinking there's something more than cap reliability issues with switches from 2016/17.
By comparison, I've not had a single Jasco dimmer failure out of the approx 25 that are in service.
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...all because of some cheap chinese electrolytic capacitors. 
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Here is the screenshot and I am about to disconnect and try your procedure….ill report back and thank you
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Why would it show package error 6 and no route? Seems it did communicate (poorly) with the hub at some point.
Unfortunately the switch is showing three neighbors so it may not work.
Go ahead and try the Refresh-Remove combo a two or three times, pausing for a minute in-between, if it doesn't work the first time. Sometimes the second or third time is the charm...
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This worked by rebooting, refreshing then removing. Thank you!!!
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Great, glad it worked out for you.
Tagging @jtp10181, wanted you to see this. A Z-Wave device with multiple neighbors was able to be to removed via the built-in remove option. Surprising.
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I appreciate every single one of you that responded to help me gain insight in my issue. Love the hubitat community great people always helping each other! Thank you all
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Ditto.
I've proactively removed all of my older (14xxx) GE/Jasco devices (switch, dimmer, and fan controllers), except my motion dimmer models, because of that.
I haven't had that issue with any of the newer Enbrighten models (so far), so maybe that issue was fixed when they redesigned it.
Same experience...aside from the early gen Z-Wave switches my GE/Jasco/UltraPro switches and dimmers have been solid.
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You’re reducing your z-wave footprint in favor of WiFi devices? Interesting, because I’m doing the opposite. What is the reasoning?
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Well, mainly Matter over Wifi, versus Z-Wave - I like the lower frequencies and frequency isolation of Z-Wave, but I hate troubleshooting a problematic Z-Wave mesh, and/or removing failed Z-wave devices, per this thread (I'm recently completed my third go round with a Z-Stick and ghost removal over about a 2 year period). - The lack of visibility or control of routing over a Z-Wave mesh is painful, IMHO - Don't get me wrong, for battery devices - WiFi isn't feasible, and there isn't that much Matter HW selection (yet), so I'm still have 60 Z-Wave nodes.
But I have multiple SSID's in my house, on a Wifi mesh, on different channels & subnets, and troubleshooting WiFi (surveys and WireShark) is SO much easier to control what AP is used in what part of the house, and all the AP's are hardwired over ethernet. - No odd Z-Wave S0 & S2 security, no ghosts (just delete a WiFi device like Zigbee), no tuning of power reporting. Most of my "heavy bandwidth devices" are on 5G or hardwired, and I have a 2.4 G channel devoted for IOT. I do networking for work, so WiFi is much easier to work on and troubleshoot and the tools are infinitely better versus the black box that is Z-Wave, IMHO
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anywhere NEAR totally removing Z-Wave (nor Zigbee) - That's not even a goal, given the diversity of devices that are in-use - It also depends on the device manufacturer, as some Matter firmware is still pretty rough (aka Nanoleaf), but for in-wall switches/dimmers/Smart bulbs, I find Matter/Wifi just much easier to deal with. The multi-admin, and nearly limitless bandwidth (for IOT stuff, anyways) of 2.4G seem to make devices much more responsive, without "occasional" Z-Wave delays. I'm still making up my mind on Matter over Thread versus Zigbee...
Obviously, YMMV - There are obvious use cases for Z-Wave (Z-Wave LR is nice) and Zigbee, but I find WiFi much easier to deal with (perhaps this is just work experience and access to good RF survey tools)
So what is your rational to remove WiFi (getting rid of Wifi cloud devices obviously makes sense) and move to Z-Wave?
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I like the low frequency non-2.4 GHz mesh network that Z-Wave provides. For me it’s been the most reliable. Of course I take no chances with cheap, off-brand stuff and I try to stick to two main brands. I have a few WiFi devices and they’re mostly reliable—they work 99% of the time. But when there’s been an occasional missed signal in my home, it always seems to be one of the WiFi devices. You mention Z-Wave long range—interesting, but I don’t foresee using that actually. Loses the advantage of the mesh. Maybe it’ll be useful for single point-to-point applications like my mailbox which is 150’ from my house.
Also, I want to avoid WiFi devices that require cloud or “phone home” like the Meross garage door opener. A lot of people don’t even know it does that. And there are reports that if you firewall it off it fails intermittently. No thanks. Zooz Zen16 for me, with wired sensors.
That reminds me, and this may be only tangentially related, but I’m also trying to avoid batteries where possible. For example I don’t go crazy with motion detectors, but the ones I have are all wired (or plug-in) and participate in my robust Z-wave mesh.
I’m keeping my eye on matter-over-thread, but it seems it’ll be 5-10 years before I’ll have the variety of options and reliability that would make it worth replacing what I have. If it even gets there.
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