Newbie with Z Wave

[silverton38]

I find if you group devices it helps with the management.

 

If you remove a device then it uses the next node number no matter what.

 

The Scene button might be for a double tap on the switch.

 

[danbutter]

Just scanned through so I may have missed it, but did you ever do a Heal?

After installing new zwave devices put them where you will leave them and then do a heal so they can decide who talks to who for what and when.

After that you will have a mesh...not until.

I would suggest doing the whole move the isy close to the door thing again for the inclusion of the door lock before the Heal though.

I set mine on the isy when I did them because a few feet wasn't enough the first time I did it. Of course if you don't want to remove it from the door the only alternative is move the isy.

[asbril]

1 hour ago, watson524 said:

Not sure what you mean? It adds the two items to the list, an on off power switch and a scene button (which has nothing in the right/big screen where the other one just has "on"

I did the exclude/include about 5 times and still get the same issue along with that "not implemented" error

 

Unfortunately, I have nothing else to suggest. Others in this forum are much more experienced than I am and may have better ideas. Good luck.

[watson524]

53 minutes ago, danbutter said:

Just scanned through so I may have missed it, but did you ever do a Heal?

After installing new zwave devices put them where you will leave them and then do a heal so they can decide who talks to who for what and when.

After that you will have a mesh...not until.

I would suggest doing the whole move the isy close to the door thing again for the inclusion of the door lock before the Heal though.

I set mine on the isy when I did them because a few feet wasn't enough the first time I did it. Of course if you don't want to remove it from the door the only alternative is move the isy.

Never heard of "heal" so nope, I never did that. The crazy thing is it's not just the lock, a simple plug in outlet thing doesn't even work and both of those (that I got purely to help build the mesh network) don't work either. I have one outlet right next to the ISY and it doesn't work right. I at one point did move the ISY to the base of the door, still no love. It's like the ISY doesn't like z wave.

[lilyoyo1]

Since you don't have many devices, I'd start with a clean slate. Factory reset your zwave dongle and lock. Clear your Java cache, Take your plug-in modules close to the ISY to get them to add. Exclude then include.  Add the one you plan on using closest to the ISY first, then add the next. Move them to the locations you think they will be most effective. Once done, bring the ISY within 3 feet of your lock, exclude it and then include it. Leave it there for a few minutes just in case it has nodes that need to show up.

Once all that is done do a network heal. 

[watson524]

2 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Since you don't have many devices, I'd start with a clean slate. Factory reset your zwave dongle and lock. Clear your Java cache, Take your plug-in modules close to the ISY to get them to add. Exclude then include.  Add the one you plan on using closest to the ISY first, then add the next. Move them to the locations you think they will be most effective. Once done, bring the ISY within 3 feet of your lock, exclude it and then include it. Leave it there for a few minutes just in case it has nodes that need to show up.

Once all that is done do a network heal. 

Sorry,  What is the dongle? Maybe I'm missing a big part of this. I thought I just needed the isy with z wave capability on it

[danbutter]

The dongle is the zwave card in the isy.

[silverton38]

I would try the heal you network first. You can find this under tools (first item).

 

[watson524]

I can't believe I'm going to bring up a 2 year old topic (I was the OP so it's ok right???) but I'm still having the same darn issue. In the last 2 years I haven't played with it much because I didn't need to but now.... We've sold a house, moved into the one that had the ISY/z wave plug in units before and I STILL cannot get this to work. Factory reset of the dongle did nothing and it seems like it just keeps adding z wave on/off power switch and scene buttons but always says "not implemented". I have the Inovelli plug in unit 3 feet from the ISY so it cannot be a distance issue.

Any way to solve this mess?

[lilyoyo1]

Id factory reset everything and start fresh. Make sure the Isy firmware is up to date, clear your Java cache so that firmware and UI matches

[watson524]

I can't believe I'm about to say this but on my phone using Agave, I can control the light just fine (within a reasonable distance from the ISY of course since it's my only zwave device at the moment). Yet on my PC in the admin console activity log, I get error after error with every comment sent to the Inovelli plug in unit. 

Looks like my firmware is 5.0.13 and the UI is 4.7.3 (both from summer 2018) so I'll read up on getting things upgraded and see what happens. So weird tho that it seems to work in Agave (only shows the zw02 on/off switch, nothing for the seen like I see in the admin console, if it's even important).

My insteon switches and such aren't the most stable things in the world so I also need to read up on zwave in general to see if maybe it's time to start switching over.

[watson524]

From what I just read on the wiki, if I go to a higher 5.x then I will lose the 300 series z wave capability and I'm pretty sure that's what I have based on how old the ISY is and the looks of the back of it when the partly cut out circle. 

[oberkc]

10 hours ago, watson524 said:

From what I just read on the wiki, if I go to a higher 5.x then I will lose the 300 series z wave capability

I do not believe this is true.  I ran the series 300 board all the way through 5.0.16.  I believe that the need to go to 500-series board is related only to 5.2.0

One thing that caught my attention on your post is that you have 5.0.13 software and 4.7.3 UI.  Mismatch between software and UI seems to be a common topic and have unpredictable results.  If you are having issues, you may want to resolve this problem first.

Edited November 23, 2020 by oberkc

[DennisC]

To add to this, you should be using the ISY Launcher which will automatically select the correct UI to match your firmware. You can download it from the firmware upgrade post, just follow the directions.

[lilyoyo1]

12 hours ago, watson524 said:

I can't believe I'm about to say this but on my phone using Agave, I can control the light just fine (within a reasonable distance from the ISY of course since it's my only zwave device at the moment). Yet on my PC in the admin console activity log, I get error after error with every comment sent to the Inovelli plug in unit. 

Looks like my firmware is 5.0.13 and the UI is 4.7.3 (both from summer 2018) so I'll read up on getting things upgraded and see what happens. So weird tho that it seems to work in Agave (only shows the zw02 on/off switch, nothing for the seen like I see in the admin console, if it's even important).

My insteon switches and such aren't the most stable things in the world so I also need to read up on zwave in general to see if maybe it's time to start switching over.

Clear your Java cache and use the launcher from the 5.3 forum page

[lilyoyo1]

12 hours ago, watson524 said:

I can't believe I'm about to say this but on my phone using Agave, I can control the light just fine (within a reasonable distance from the ISY of course since it's my only zwave device at the moment). Yet on my PC in the admin console activity log, I get error after error with every comment sent to the Inovelli plug in unit. 

Looks like my firmware is 5.0.13 and the UI is 4.7.3 (both from summer 2018) so I'll read up on getting things upgraded and see what happens. So weird tho that it seems to work in Agave (only shows the zw02 on/off switch, nothing for the seen like I see in the admin console, if it's even important).

My insteon switches and such aren't the most stable things in the world so I also need to read up on zwave in general to see if maybe it's time to start switching over.

If you're going to switch over, you might as well upgrade to the 500 board and use all zwave plus devices

[watson524]

10 hours ago, DennisC said:

To add to this, you should be using the ISY Launcher which will automatically select the correct UI to match your firmware. You can download it from the firmware upgrade post, just follow the directions.

 

11 hours ago, oberkc said:

I do not believe this is true.  I ran the series 300 board all the way through 5.0.16.  I believe that the need to go to 500-series board is related only to 5.2.0

One thing that caught my attention on your post is that you have 5.0.13 software and 4.7.3 UI.  Mismatch between software and UI seems to be a common topic and have unpredictable results.  If you are having issues, you may want to resolve this problem first.

I can't believe I forgot about the launcher. When I used to link from my desktop, all is right with the world!! Firmware and UI versions match and it no longer says "not implemented". Woot woot!!!! So now I think I'm going to look for some more zwave plug in units since zwave seems like it'd be more stable than insteon. Might even do some wall switches too tho I need to read up on how 3 way or 4 way switches work with zwave (if their install is any different than insteon).

 

9 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

If you're going to switch over, you might as well upgrade to the 500 board and use all zwave plus devices

What does zwave plus do vs zwave regular? Can I keep the 300 board for now, get zwave plus devices and have them work but maybe not to their full potential?

Thanks guys for the whack over the head about the launcher!!

[simplextech]

24 minutes ago, watson524 said:

I think I'm going to look for some more zwave plug in units since zwave seems like it'd be more stable than insteon. Might even do some wall switches too tho I need to read up on how 3 way or 4 way switches work with zwave (if their install is any different than insteon).

I don't want to interject here...but I'm going to

More z-wave devices (powered/plugin) is always a good thing to extend the mesh robustness.  However you may want to decide on a final goal/direction of protocol first.

Do you have Insteon switches already?  If so you should think of keeping them for the Insteon network to be robust.  Insteon lighting is much better than Z-Wave lighting.  (IMHO).  If you really don't want Insteon for lighting then skip Z-Wave and go Lutron.

What's the goal or use case for Z-Wave?  If it's sensors, locks, etc then plugin modules are ok but you might want to think about receptacles to build out a nice strong z-wave mesh that can't be unplugged by accident.  Then use plug-in modules to extend or grow when you can't add receptacles.  The receptacles (almost all) provide "beaming" which is a necessity for locks to function properly.  Most plug-in units do NOT provide "beaming" so if locks are what you're looking to add you need to be aware of that.  You can use plugin-in z-wave range extenders and they do support beaming and they can augment a z-wave mesh.

28 minutes ago, watson524 said:

What does zwave plus do vs zwave regular?

Several things.  Most importantly is a stronger signal and what's referred to as "instant status" or the simple thing of a device telling the controller when it's manually turned on/off so you don't have to query the device to get accurate information.  Useful for programs.  There's a lot of benefits to Z-Wave Plus so if you're starting fresh with Z-Wave and going to be adding new devices just bite the bullet and upgrade to the Z-Wave 500 series board now and only buy Z-Wave Plus devices. 

I do Z-Wave device testing and add to this list when I test something new.  If there's some device you're interested in but not on the list I may be able to get one for testing.

https://github.com/UniversalDevicesInc/Z-Wave-Devices/issues

You can also add to this list if you want.

[lilyoyo1]

13 hours ago, watson524 said:

 

I can't believe I forgot about the launcher. When I used to link from my desktop, all is right with the world!! Firmware and UI versions match and it no longer says "not implemented". Woot woot!!!! So now I think I'm going to look for some more zwave plug in units since zwave seems like it'd be more stable than insteon. Might even do some wall switches too tho I need to read up on how 3 way or 4 way switches work with zwave (if their install is any different than insteon).

 

What does zwave plus do vs zwave regular? Can I keep the 300 board for now, get zwave plus devices and have them work but maybe not to their full potential?

Thanks guys for the whack over the head about the launcher!!

Zwave isn't more stable than insteon. Both have pros and cons. Depending on environment and setup your system can be really good or really bad with either one. People tend to blame the device first and move on when reality is, it's usually something else. 

You can keep the 300 board and upgrade later. However, as with any upgrade, things don't always go right. You could end up spending more time fixing things after upgrading vs just doing the right thing from the start. Not only that, it's much easier with PLUS due to increased range and network wide inclusion to add devices than it is with the 300 series. 

[watson524]

On 11/23/2020 at 7:59 PM, simplextech said:

More z-wave devices (powered/plugin) is always a good thing to extend the mesh robustness.  However you may want to decide on a final goal/direction of protocol first.

Do you have Insteon switches already?  If so you should think of keeping them for the Insteon network to be robust.  Insteon lighting is much better than Z-Wave lighting.  (IMHO).  If you really don't want Insteon for lighting then skip Z-Wave and go Lutron.

What's the goal or use case for Z-Wave?  If it's sensors, locks, etc then plugin modules are ok but you might want to think about receptacles to build out a nice strong z-wave mesh that can't be unplugged by accident.  Then use plug-in modules to extend or grow when you can't add receptacles.  The receptacles (almost all) provide "beaming" which is a necessity for locks to function properly.  Most plug-in units do NOT provide "beaming" so if locks are what you're looking to add you need to be aware of that.  You can use plugin-in z-wave range extenders and they do support beaming and they can augment a z-wave mesh.

Several things.  Most importantly is a stronger signal and what's referred to as "instant status" or the simple thing of a device telling the controller when it's manually turned on/off so you don't have to query the device to get accurate information.  Useful for programs.  There's a lot of benefits to Z-Wave Plus so if you're starting fresh with Z-Wave and going to be adding new devices just bite the bullet and upgrade to the Z-Wave 500 series board now and only buy Z-Wave Plus devices. 

 

On 11/24/2020 at 8:40 AM, lilyoyo1 said:

Zwave isn't more stable than insteon. Both have pros and cons. Depending on environment and setup your system can be really good or really bad with either one. People tend to blame the device first and move on when reality is, it's usually something else. 

You can keep the 300 board and upgrade later. However, as with any upgrade, things don't always go right. You could end up spending more time fixing things after upgrading vs just doing the right thing from the start. Not only that, it's much easier with PLUS due to increased range and network wide inclusion to add devices than it is with the 300 series. 

I do have some insteon switches yes and they seem to work fine. We put a phase coupler in the box years ago when we set the system up for my mother but I did notice some unreliability when we first moved into the house (this is my parents old house where the insteon already existed) that wasn't there originally so we weren't sure if things that got added with the remodel caused it or not but as of now, things seem ok with the switches. Now with Christmas upon us, I have old x10 plug in units in the mix as well so we'll see how those behave (also used in the past during the holidays when my mom was here but with the remodel who knows). I would actually like to add some more switches and perhaps outlets but it seems everything on amazon and smarthome is out of stock. I even tried to get an outdoor plug in module (we already have 2) and no dice on those. We aren't putting up our 12' tree this year since we're still unpacking boxes and that needed a filter with it so I'm hoping to limp through this holiday season and then really take a look at things over the winter when maybe stock comes back up. I do have a bunch of insteon switches and some X10 outlets I pulled from our old house before we sold it that I plan to try to make use of, I'm just not great with multiway switches and how those get wired so it's always a "trial".

If I can get the bugs worked out (or kept at bay) I'm perfectly fine sticking with the insteon and x10 since it's what I know best.

Going to post some separate threads related to used equipment (I have two smarthome hubs and an ISY) that I don't think I have use for now that we just have the one house and also looking for options to deal with a particular type of switch that I have for an overhead fan/light in the bedrooms.

Edited November 28, 2020 by watson524