Cannot get Zwave to work!

[asperber]

I bought a ISY994I ZW controller off smarthome.com (https://www.smarthome.com/universal-devices-isy994izw-controller-insteon-z-wave-support-with-insteon-dual-band-plm.html) and cannot get the Zwave module to work.  The firmware and the UI are both 4.6.2.  It says Zwave dongle not responding.  I have tried to update the zwave firmware but keep getting a firmware update error.  I tried cycling power to the unit.  

 

Any advice??

 

Thank you

[stusviews]

I believe that Universal Devices needs to activate the module. Submit a ticket: https://www.universal-devices.com/contact-support/

[alanpacbch]

Similar z-wave issue. I had 2 zwave devices. A Aeotek siren and Schlage connect.

i had the siren connected, set up the lock near the ISY but it would never work again once. Moved it to the door.

i finally just gave up, now revisiting the setup.  Now, I can not exclud or add a zwave device. I finally deleted the device, upgraded the zwave firmware but whe I go to include devices it never connects.

i have the devices next to the isy for setup

upgraded zwave firmware 

rebotted multple times.

any other suggestions would be appreciated

[oberkc]

Can you first exclude the zwave device, they try again adding it back to the ISY?  (I wonder if the device thinks it is already part of a network.)

I got to a similar point early in my zwave life, with a zwave lock.  I had to exclude the lock at one point before I could add it back to the ISY.

[alanpacbch]

6 hours ago, oberkc said:

Can you first exclude the zwave device, they try again adding it back to the ISY?  (I wonder if the device thinks it is already part of a network.)

I got to a similar point early in my zwave life, with a zwave lock.  I had to exclude the lock at one point before I could add it back to the ISY.

It never acknowledge the device existed when I attempted to exclude.  After  many attempts.  I also tried disabling the device.    I finally deleted the siren.  I still have the Schlage lock showing up as a device but when  I select Exclude or Include it starts listening and never has any action beyond that in the Event viewer until I finally cancel the action or it times out.

 

[DrLumen]

As a reminder, when you exclude a device you have to take some sort of action at the device (at least in my experience) while the ISY is in exclude mode. Sometimes it is pushing a button, sometimes it is removing the power and then power it back on. The device instructions will give the exclude/include steps.

[oberkc]

My experience is the same as DrLumen.  I recall this mostly done at the device, itself.  Unfortunately, I am neither an expert at this nor ambitious enough to look it up in a manual.

[asbril]

1 hour ago, DrLumen said:

As a reminder, when you exclude a device you have to take some sort of action at the device (at least in my experience) while the ISY is in exclude mode. Sometimes it is pushing a button, sometimes it is removing the power and then power it back on. The device instructions will give the exclude/include steps.

Excluding is the same procedure as Including...... For a switch, just press the switch ON or OFF and.....voila 

[alanpacbch]

Thank you oberkc and asbril

I tried the action button on the siren when I tried to exclude.  It excluded the device even though it did not show up as a device.  I was able to re-add it securely  I thought I was making progress.  Then I moved the siren closer to where the door lock is installed and ran a zwave heal.  It is fails during the heal process and will not test on the admin console.

What tips do you have for me this time?

 

[mwester]

So, the siren was added (and thus clearly could be reached) before you moved it.

After you moved it, you get errors trying to run a zwave heal, and presumably won't respond to any other actions from the ISY either.

It seems as if the topology is such that wherever your ISY is at, it cannot communicate into the part of the house that has the lock and the siren right now.  That could be because the distance is too great (unlikely), or it could be because there are too many RF obstacles in the path (metal ductwork, concrete/stone/tile floors/counters/walls, steel studs in the wall, metal appliances such as water heaters, furnaces, refrigerators, stoves, dishwashers, or even metal things like old bathtubs, etc.  Finally, it could be that there's another RF device transmitting near the same frequency used by Z-Wave that's very close to those devices -- things like baby monitors, remote-control extenders, wireless TV extenders, etc. all may be culprits.

You might get some more specific advice if you can provide some information on the topology and the environment -- we don't know if you live in a 30,000 square-foot sprawling stone mansion, or a 300 square-foot NYC-style mini-house... and it makes a difference!

[stusviews]

I was unable to get my first Schlage lock to function reliably, so I added an Aeon Siren. After trying a few locations for the siren, I found I got the best communication when the lock was between the ISY and the siren. In other words, the siren helped best when it was further away from the ISY than the lock was.

Siren--->lock--->ISY, which confirms mwester's contention.

[alanpacbch]

I decided to just focus on one wing in the house.   I limited to  ~2000 Sf house.   I have the ISY running at one end of the house because it is stable there next to a ORBI router.  I setup the siren there.  I moved the siren to the opposite corner.  This is directly above the garage which is partially underground.  I previously had this setup working.

I tested your theory.  I went and put the siren back to setup location.  It healed, I moved it 2 rooms down the hall it healed.  I moved it to another room and it failed.  I tried 3 other outlets and they all failed.

The lock I want to get connected is about 25 feet from a working location and then 1 floor down.  i will attempt to get the lock working.

I briefly had the siren plugged in the garage next to the lock and everything worked for about 1 week then it stopped and I have never gotten it working since.

[stusviews]

Do you have the external antenna for Z-Wave? Also try rotating the ISY (e.g., from horizontal to vertical).

[alanpacbch]

2 minutes ago, stusviews said:

Do you have the external antenna for Z-Wave? Also try rotating the ISY (e.g., from horizontal to vertical).

No,  I didnt know one was available, do I need one

 

[alanpacbch]

34 minutes ago, stusviews said:

I was unable to get my first Schlage lock to function reliably, so I added an Aeon Siren. After trying a few locations for the siren, I found I got the best communication when the lock was between the ISY and the siren. In other words, the siren helped best when it was further away from the ISY than the lock was.

Siren--->lock--->ISY, which confirms mwester's contention.

Im not able to quite set it up  in your example and get the zwave to heal.  Also I can not get the Schlage to enroll using the code.  I have done the factory reset.  Looks like I have another issue to sort out.

[stusviews]

The external antenna was discontinued awhile back. ISY found that it was too directional for most installations. Obviously, you can't relocate the lock, so try a few different locations for the siren. A difficulty is the different vertical locations. The Z-Wave RF is propagated primarily horizontally which is why I suggested rotating the ISY.

[MWareman]

You likely cannot build a reliable zwave mesh with any less than 3 powered (non-battery) devices. ISY counts as one, and a siren counts as a second. What third powered device is used?

Zwave sort of depends on there being more than one way to route packets between any two nodes if it’s going to be reliable.

I’d strongly advise two sirens (or other gen5 powered devices) to allow a lock to communicate with anything close to a reliable link.

I believe that the external antenna was removed because it generally does not help. The internal ceramic antenna is omnidirectional, and external antennas were causing directional radiation patterns, meaning response from devices becomes unpredictable.

[stusviews]

Again, I'll refer to my earliest Z-Wave installation experience-which seems to differ from others. Starting with the ISY Z-wave module and one Schlage deadbolt, I successfully included the lock, but communication was not reliable. I tried an Aeon DSD37 repeater which turned out to be utterly useless. Then I played with an Aeotec Gen 5 Siren. Placing the siren between the lock and the ISY helped, but communication was less that 100%, not satisfactory for a lock.

I tried a few more locations for the siren (I had already included it) and got great reliability when the siren was placed further away from the ISY than the lock was. So far, so good. But it gets better. Next, I added a Schlage lever, same door as the deadbolt. My success led me to experiment further. I moved the siren to a new location.

The topology changed from [siren--->locks--->ISY] to [locks--->ISY---siren]. In the first configuration, the siren was further away from the ISY than the locks were. In the second case, the siren is furthest away from the locks, but in the opposite direction. Both locations for the siren was equally effective, somewhat counter-intuitive. Removing the siren resulted in poor communication, as expected.

This leads me to believe that location matters more than proximity. Contrary to the results from other users, I found an improvement using the external antenna. Yet another oddity. I moved the ISY further from the locks (to accommodate an IR module) which places it even further from the siren and full functionality was maintained.

Since then, I've added a 2nd Schlage deadbolt, another siren, two MimoLite I/O dry contact bridges, two Aeotec doorbells and an Aeotec Range Extender 6. Needless to say, I have no ZWave communication problems. I did exclude every Z-Wave device except the locks and individually tested each siren, each doorbell and the Range Extender 6 and found them equally effective.

[lilyoyo1]

With the differences in home builds and the environment results can vary. Personally, I would rather start with a few repeating devices to ensure good communication rather than a minimal amount only to spend additional time troubleshooting. Once I know that I have a solid network only then would I move things around to see if things improve. 

Once I've established placement of my devices, I feel one should then extend it with more devices so that there are secondary pathways should a device go down. 

Is this overkill. Yes. However, to ensure my doors are locked I take no chances. I don't want to be in the middle of the airport wondering if I locked my doors and hoping the system doesn't fail.

[alanpacbch]

19 hours ago, stusviews said:

Again, I'll refer to my earliest Z-Wave installation experience-which seems to differ from others. Starting with the ISY Z-wave module and one Schlage deadbolt, I successfully included the lock, but communication was not reliable. I tried an Aeon DSD37 repeater which turned out to be utterly useless. Then I played with an Aeotec Gen 5 Siren. Placing the siren between the lock and the ISY helped, but communication was less that 100%, not satisfactory for a lock.

I tried a few more locations for the siren (I had already included it) and got great reliability when the siren was placed further away from the ISY than the lock was. So far, so good. But it gets better. Next, I added a Schlage lever, same door as the deadbolt. My success led me to experiment further. I moved the siren to a new location.

The topology changed from [siren--->locks--->ISY] to [locks--->ISY---siren]. In the first configuration, the siren was further away from the ISY than the locks were. In the second case, the siren is furthest away from the locks, but in the opposite direction. Both locations for the siren was equally effective, somewhat counter-intuitive. Removing the siren resulted in poor communication, as expected.

This leads me to believe that location matters more than proximity. Contrary to the results from other users, I found an improvement using the external antenna. Yet another oddity. I moved the ISY further from the locks (to accommodate an IR module) which places it even further from the siren and full functionality was maintained.

Since then, I've added a 2nd Schlage deadbolt, another siren, two MimoLite I/O dry contact bridges, two Aeotec doorbells and an Aeotec Range Extender 6. Needless to say, I have no ZWave communication problems. I did exclude every Z-Wave device except the locks and individually tested each siren, each doorbell and the Range Extender 6 and found them equally effective.

I tried moving the Aeotek Siren around but found it would not heal in many locations.  Appears if I move it to a different circuit I ran into problems but that could be just a random issue.  I ordered a 2nd siren which will arrive today and will attempt to expand my zwave mesh.  It seems like a lot of effort just to get an electronic door lock to function using the ISY as a hub.

[lilyoyo1]

Instead of simply ordering sirens, try a few of their plug in modules. That way you'll get the benefit of controlling additional devices which won't seem like a waste.

[stusviews]

If you have a need, the doorbell is a fun device as a repeater. The Aeotec Range Extender 6 is the least costly, but must be placed into security mode. As I mentioned, through somewhat lengthy testing, I found the siren, doorbell and range extender 6 to be equally effective. You may want to try the siren you have in a location you haven't tried, even if it's furthest away from other Z-Wave devices. The only investment is time.

[alanpacbch]

Update, thanks to Amazon same day delivery...I was able to install a 2nd Aeotek Siren and successful move it down to the garage and heal the network. I was then able to move the lock back to the garage door, heal the network.

It’s back working the moment.

thank you for the advice. 

[stusviews]

Well, that's good news. Do you now experience success with both Aeotec Sirens.

[Jason Miller]

I just added the z-wave module. Next, I added the Schlage connect lock. Works like a charm and by using a program, I have Alexa unlock the door as well, even though by default it didn't want to unlock doors. See my setup her: https://jamz.net/schlage-connect-smart-lock-universal-devices-alexa/

Also, I only have the ISY Device with the z-wave module, 1 Aeon temp sensor, and the Schlage lock. No repeaters, etc.

My biggest concern is how long the battery will last. Time will tell, but I did set up a battery notification in the ISY.