ZWave Issues with Warranty Hub

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One thing I did do with the latest hub was plug it into a USB power bank. I never let it get direct power from the adapter. That may be why my issue is better now, not sure.

I also got rid of a few ghost devices on the hub that the issue started on, and though it didn't help on that hub, I am now wondering if not having the ghosts present during the last migration helped things.

I can almost live with ZWave going down every couple weeks, it is certainly better than when it was going down every day or so. Still, I would like to get it resolved.

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I got the Zooz 800 stick. I only have one running windows machine - Windows 10 Pro.

Plugging the USB stick in was a complete failure. Didn’t recognize it and it started me down a rabbit hole of inf files. It all reminds me why I switched to Mac years ago.

So I gave up on that and plan to use one of my touchscreen controllers which are running windows 11 on NUCs. I am hoping this will actually recognize the usb stick the first time.

I get that this is not a Hubitat issue but I am extremely disappointed in z-wave. It has never been that reliable but these recent issues where the network just shuts down without warning are vexing. And the resolution process is insanity - downloading developer tools and running basically low level stuff is out of control. I hope I can use the guides to make this work. And I appreciate the time people took to document this. But there has to be a better way? For me it is partially to move to Lutron for lights.

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The guide has detailed instructions. You should install the Simplicity Studio first IMO.
It is not just plug and play, the software is made for engineers and hardware developers so it is a bit rough, and this is an old community cooked up solution.

I have it working on multiple Win 10 machines just fine.

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:point_up: The is the way! :sunglasses:

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Runs fine in windows 10. You need to install simplicity studio first with the z-wave module, then it will be recognized. Please follow the guide. You can also run a demo copy of windows 10/11 under parallels and just expose one of your usb ports to the VM

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Ok, I have finally solved this issue.

Short Answer: Two EvaLogiK Dimmer Switches were the cause of the issue, they have been replaced. I found them by air-gapping individual switches when Zwave was down. These got the network back up when one or both of them were air-gapped and reset.

Long Answer:
These two switches were installed on the C7 about six months before I upgraded to the C8 in early 2024. I had totally forgotten I had this strange brand installed. I had switched out two wifi switches that were put in way back when using SmartThings, to make everything ZWave.

Thinking back now, in the last six months of 2023 on the C7, I did have a few times that on of these switches would stop responding, and if I just air-gapped them they would reconnect and work fine for awhile. Never took down the whole ZWave network so I didn't give it much thought.

Then I upgraded to the C8, and Zwave was fine, but Zigbee had issues. I got the warranty hub that fixed Zigbee, but that is when the ZWave issue started. It was right after the migration, so I thought it was the C8 warranty hub. Somehow, that migration from C8 -> Warranty C8 changed something and caused these switches to now take down the whole network.

I deleted ghosts that had been following me since the C7 hub, and that did not help. Then I migrated again to the 2nd warranty hub, and things got much better. I assume because this migration had no ghosts involved. Still, the issue came back.

The EvaLogik switches were in a 3-way config, with the traveler being HOT. This was an option for the original wifi switches. The EvaLogik worked fine switching hot to the traveler, but now I am wondering if I should have switched neutral to the traveler, and that may be what caused the issue with them?

Anyway, when these switches became unresponsive, they apparently still present themselves as valid repeaters, but they do not repeat when in this state. I think that is what ultimately would take down the whole network when they froze up.

I found the issue by air gapping only a single switch, and seeing if the network recovered by itself. I found that one or both of these switches would get the network back up when air-gapped when Zwave was down, but not others. So clearly they were the cause.

I replaced them with Minoston Zwave Dimmers that specifically allow for a hot traveler and everything has been good since. I don't know if the hot traveler was actually the issue with the EvaLogik dimmers, but those switches were the cause.

I plan to install one of them in a non-3way config and see if they still cause issues.

Note: When I removed one of the switches, it created TWO ghosts. The other switch created only one ghost. I deleted those, but it is strange two ghosts appeared when deleting one of the switches.

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