Understanding ZWave Neighbors List

[gduprey]

Howdy,

 

I've been doing a lot lately to shore up my ZWave network.  It's been pretty reliable, but I'm trying to push things up closer to 100%.  Amongst other things, I've replaced all my old "repeaters" with the Aeon Doorbell (which, like their siren, is a security-capable and seemingly high power repeater), moved repeater devices around to be physically better distributed around the house and done multiple network heals.

 

Using the ZWave "Show Information" option, I've been comparing the output before and after a heal to see what devices are considered neighbors and have some questions about interpreting the neighbor list output:

 

1) When I see the neighbor list, some have a "Repeater" prefix and some don't.  Can someone explain the purposes of non-repeater neighbors? Is that informational only or do those neighbors do anything on behalf of the target ZWave device? 

 

2) I thought battery powered devices effectively do not get updated during a heal - they just send data and when other nodes hear them, they lets the ISY know they can be reached through it (assuming it's a repeater).  Is there anything actually updated in a battery powered device after a heal completes?

 

3) Related to the door locks, which require repeaters capable of security, does the list of neighbors marked "repeater" for a door lock/security device only include those neighbors that have security routing abilities?

 

4) When using the ZWave "Show Information in Viewer" on a repeater device, is it reasonable to assume that the list of neighbors for that repeater are effectively the list of devices being "served" (I know that's not the right word, but...) by that repeater?

 

5) When doing a network heal, is any "previous" routing information preserved or is each heal a complete discard and do-over?  In short, do multiple heals "build" on each other or is the 10th heal going to have exactly the same outcome as the 1st?

 

Sorry for so many questions -- I know a lot are likely more Zwave than ISY related, but trying to understand how to use the data that is available for making my ZWave network as reliable as possible.

 

Gerry

[Chris Jahn]

Hi Gerry,

 

You are getting into some detailed questions, I suggest you have a look at this site:

 

http://z-wave.sigmadesigns.com/design-z-wave/z-wave-public-specification/

 

Here's some quick answers:

 

1) Non-repeaters are shown because they may just be the destination, and not used to route a message.  Generally, Z-Wave builds a neighbor table of the whole network, and each controller has a copy of that table.  The controller uses that information to create routes to devices in the network.

 

2) During the heal we make sure that the associations back to ISY are set in battery devices.

 

3) Repeaters for devices like door locks need to support FLiRS beaming to be useful.  This is the ability for a device to send a special "beam" wakeup to the device so that it can accept commands (this is not the normal "wakeup").

 

4) Generally yes, it may use any of its neighbors, but it doesn't use it to determine the route, the controller does.

 

5) There are various ways routing is handled in Z-Wave, but in general it uses the last work route and thus is sort of self-healing as long as the neighbor information is up to date.  When it sends a message it tries the last working route, if it fails, it tries another route (calculated using neighbor table), etc.