ZWave Mesh Not Meshing

FYI - I'm gathering up a lot of stuff I'm going to be selling soon as well. :smile:

This actually explains a lot.... this would be why the vast majority of Insteon users on the ISY forum are all in Canada.... hmmm.

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Yes! Second day in a row. No reboot. Tested from 2:10am to 2:40am. All normal speed from 2;30am on. Around a 1 second or less delay before 2:30am. I have not had this stability for a long time. Probably not long after I decided to use the Aeon HEM in that way with a 1 second polling. :crazy_face: I was warned, but it's now working fine on the other hub with the other HEM. :+1:

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Code in Chicago area requires metal boxes and conduit. I have no problems with Z-Wave performance in my house. And I don't see lots of Z-Wave problems posted from other Chicago users in this or other forums. Local Home Depot and Lowes continue to stock Z-Wave devices.

I'm not saying interference caused by metal boxes is not creating issues in this case, just that it's not likely to be the only or even primary issue.

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The instructions were created for the available hubs at that time. For NWI to work, the hub needs to support it as well and 3 years ago most of the hubs didn't (hubs are usually a generation or two behind the available accessories...) so that's why we phrased the instructions this way.

We have other customers using metal boxes with their Z-Wave switches and while some of them have connectivity problems, most of them don't and this always depends on the individual layout of Z-Wave repeaters, overall constructions materials in the house, the hub antennae, and other interference issues. The quickest way to solve connectivity issues is to add repeaters in the same room to have strong signal around the switch.

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So, I couldn't sleep last night, so I pulled both of my problematic dimmers out of their boxes, and it didn't solve anything (left them this way until the morning), so while the metal boxes might have been an issue, it's not the whole issue. At this point, I have no idea why these switches cannot communicate in such an ideal situation (they're not even in the wall).

I decided to just put a bunch of my Iris Z-Wave repeaters right beside the Zooz switches; the repeaters can communicate with each other AOK (assuming the "Interrogate" button coming back with "Interrogation complete", and each of the attempts responding after the 1st request meaning all is good"), but a rebuild shows all except the closest repeater failing to rebuild. The garage switch still refuses to cooperate (despite being 6' away from a "functioning" Iris repeater).

@bcopeland I have been doing wireless network engineering since 2001... I would put money on the solid carrier wave analog interference source..

Just for you :slight_smile:

I managed to get my "spectrum analyzer" working on my laptop, showing no excitement on the 908.42MHz band (until I force a rebuild, which I made a video of it happening).

Note: In this video, I started recording when stuff started to happen (you can see the commands on the right). The last 5-ish seconds of video is what is happening 100% of the time if I turn off power to my ZWave devices (aka: no interference). I'd also note this spectrum analyzer is garbage, as is the antenna, but you can see the ZWave signal is dramatically higher than background noise.

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The one thing I would note from your spectrum analyzer .. and I'm hoping it's because of some artificial amplification.. But if this is correct your noise floor is at ~-55dBm that's high..

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It's only because the spectrum analyzer is garbage; paid like $10 for it off eBay, so it's SNR is abysmal.

If I pull out the antenna, meaning it is basically not getting any signal, it does not impact the noise floor. The only value the device really has in this scenario is to show that the ZWave signals are considerably higher than surrounding signals.

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Ok.. Sounds reasonable.. I retract my theory

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This is so annoying. I have now littered Iris ZWave plugs around, and now EVERYTHING works except one switch (which is in line-of-sight of a seemingly functioning Iris outlet, is only 8' away from it, and the switch is currently hanging out of the junction box ... TBD what's up with that guy).

However, during a rebuild, I get the 4x "Repair setting SUC route" on many devices, but they seem to be working perfectly fine (the switches respond instantaneously). Should I care that the ZWave rebuild seems to be failing on many devices?

I'm debating getting more of these seemingly problematic Zooz switches to strengthen my mesh (I "need" at least one more switch, maybe 2).

There are 4 slots for SUC routes, you're seeing each of them being set one at a time.

I was told seeing those 4x is "bad". It seems a "proper" rebuild goes start, ping, set SUC, update neighbors, request associations, delete routes, add return route, add node neighbor into, then repair done.

Many devices go start, ping, set SUC route 4x ... nothing else (no repair done, which tells me it didn't work). Only three devices of my 7 report the "proper" way, but the other 4 do the 4x SUC thing.

I think you are right.

Running a ZWave Repair on one of my meshes, I'm seeing 4x Set SUC when Zniffer is showing there are no ACKs to the command... indicating not received by the target device. Probably battery devices that aren't awake.

No, they're mains powered devices, a ZWave rebuild ignores battery devices.

So, it seems the signal between the devices is enough to allow commands to get around, but not to establish a back and forth communication (in some cases). Basically now just debating on whether I want to give Zooz another chance, in hopes that the 700 series chip comes along with something that solves my problems, or just get another brand.

Anyone else noticing Zooz switches not being selected as a repeater?
mesh

I have 3 Zooz switches (2 dimmers and 1 On/Off switch) and none of the 3 show up as being a repeater for the other devices. They're included in my list of devices and zwave repairs do include them in the repairs but never selected as a repeater?

Is it just a coincidence of my device layout or is anyone else seeing this also?

I noticed the same thing when my mesh was smaller. But as I added more devices the Zooz nodes eventually appeared as repeaters and at seemingly logical points in the mesh.
Though most nodes on my mesh are either direct or favor a route through the nearest Aeotec extender.

I have 42 total zwave devices and only 13 are battery powered non-repeaters. If yours eventually appeared it must just be a coincidence of my device layout and will monitor if it changes.

Of the 29 repeating devices 21 of them are also direct.

How do you get to that display? I suspect none of my Zooz switches are repeating either. I have had a really bad experience with my Zooz switches. Originally thought they were great

By installing this.

On a side note I still don't see any of my 3 zooz switches being used as a repeater, guess it's time to finally switch out those last 3 hold outs for Lutron's as the only reason I haven't until now was I "assumed" they were helping my mesh by being a repeater.

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