Great.. Glad your devices are working..
that must be the record for zwave devices.. never seen a table that blue.. wonder what the device status/log page looks like?
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I had to chop off the bottom of that screenshot - was taller than my 4k monitor. I have 122 ZW devices and 51 Zigbee devices (like no wonder nothing answers, right?)
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We recommend not doing more than 40 or 50 on a hub. Z-Wave is a bit fragile. It's really easy to get a mesh storm.
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Looks like your timing out at 2.5 minutes ish?
Hey Bruce,
I thought the max was 200+ or so. That said, is the C7 more fragile than the C5 was? This all started when I migrated.
So what you're really saying is I should have 3 hubs dedicated to ZWave? Assuming I add one or two more - is there any "easy" way to move ZW devices from one to the other? HP worked great to move them "all" - but manually removing, adding, then putting back in dashboards and rules would be - tough.
How many Zigbee can a hub support?
232 is spec maximum. But spec and real world are two different things. This has nothing to do with the hub -- only with Z-Wave itself. A larger mesh is vulnerable, and the fragility goes up with size.
Zigbee is very different. One guy had 400 devices working, but then broke it up into multiple hubs.
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oh well i have 99 zwave devices.. is it really better to get a 2nd hub.. aren't they also going to be issues with crosstalk/interference. with two hubs in the same location.
your zwve devices must be a lot closer to each other than mine.. as my topology table looks nothing like yours.
here is the first part of mine
the ones all red are remotes like a remotec and minimote.. i guess those only go direct to the hub.
You know, if it isn't broken, don't fix it.
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On the other hand, some people enjoy obsessing about things, and Device Watchdog is the perfect accessory for that. Lot's of reported problems are from Device Watchdog, that turn out actually not to be problems at all. Hmmm, "watch dog", "crying wolf"... write to support, etc.
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i am using device activity check not device watchdog.. but never had any false alarms only actual battery devices that dont check in very often and it found dead batteries for me more than once.. but i have the parameters quite wide for expected activity
ie
Yeah, I have a battery checker also.
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Wow, that was a real slap in the face. I don't necessarily "obsess" over things, but in the past I have had zwave devices go "offline" and stop working and didn't know it forever. Then I'd find them and have to get them back online. In comes Device Watchdog. I only use activity monitor and battery monitor - but it accurately notified me when devices quit talking (and needed attention).
Then I migrated to C7 a month ago and "last activity" for a lot of devices suddenly stopped updating within 24 hours - which is out of normal. So I started investigating. The crux is detailed above. Not sure this qualifies as crying wolf - Bryan appears to have given up because my devices can be controlled. I think you're onto something with too many devices on one zwave network (though it worked fine with C5). So I ordered a second C7.
Now I have to figure out how to get things working with 2 C7 running zwave, plan to move zigbee back to my C5 and likely my automations and cloud back there as well (unless folks tell me there's a better way).
Happy Saturday!
Whoa, I was not referring to you personally in that post. I was reporting the fact that I mentioned, namely: "Lot's of reported problems are from Device Watchdog, that turn out actually not to be problems at all."
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Oh, I didn't take it personally at all - sorry if you thought I was upset - def not. I saw it as thinking some people "obsess" over their systems way more than I do. I only obsess when things aren't behaving as they should.
Now my goal is to figure out the "easiest" way to start using 3 hubs (2 C7s and 1 C5) where only one does all the work currently - sounds like a lot of effort.
If I were going to monitor for z-wave devices dropping off, I would use device activity check. I don’t think it does any refresh, just a notification. That way you’re not flooding the mesh. I use it for my battery operated Zigbee devices.
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This really should be in a FAQ. Many of us have found this limit by very painful experience.
FWIW, I do think it is a bit hub dependent though. I was completely stable with 122 nodes on a C5--ran that way for more than a year. With moving to the C7, I was never able to achieve stability with more than 70-80 devices. I ended up splitting into 3 segments (two C7s and one C5).
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That's the pain I'm feeling today.
It is very dependent on a wide variety of factors -- not so much the hub as the environment the hub is in. Our insight into this is not from any engineering based approach, simply by observation of what seems to work and what seems to cause problems.
I can tell you, as a personal observation, that Z-Wave seems a fragile protocol. It is prone to issues that are hard to diagnose and correct. I often get the impression that it works better in theory and in the lab than in the real world. Z-Wave Long Range should be a huge improvement, as it uses a star network instead of a mesh. @bcopeland on the other hand, loves Z-Wave.
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I agree with with your observations. I would add an additional observation of my own: The 700 series is significantly less reliable than the 500 series. Both for controllers and for end devices.
As to @bcopeland, he is a Z-Wave Hero. Without him, I think the Z-wave boat might be in danger of sinking.
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