Starting to add Z-Wave devices - Best Practices ?

[telljcl]

My ISY 994ir / Z is on 5.12 FW, and has been working very smoothly  since updating to 5.xx and prior.

I've used just Insteon devices to this point (other than Nodelink devices - thermostats, sprinkler controllers etc... and devices connected to my ELK M1).

I'm now needing to replace a Morninglinc lock, so a Z-Wave "plus" unit is on the way.

I purchased a Honeywell (same as GE apparently) Z-Wave plus on/off module, and it added immediately to my ISY.  Seems to work as expected, and I think it reacts faster than my Insteon devices do.

Anyway, I want to make sure that as I begin to build / add Z-Wave (or Z-Wave Plus) devices to my ISY, that I'm doing it properly from the start.

Is there anything I should do to make sure I don't need to go back later and "rebuild" etc.?

I'm new to Z-Wave, so any help would be most appreciated.

Also - I have the original (~2 years old maybe?) Z-Wave card inside my ISY 994, using the external antenna. Range seems great, at least with this one Z-Wave outlet placed 3 floors below.

Is there a Z-Wave Plus card / dongle for the ISY at this point? Any issues I should be aware of?

         EDIT: I see on the Z-Wave wiki: 

         IMPORTANT NOTE

         "Since 3Q2018, all our Z-Wave dongles were migrated to 500 series. As such, and in order to support this board, you will need to upgrade your firmware to 5.0.13 and higher"

Well I've had mine since before that, so I'm sure mine is the "old" Z-Wave board - is there a way to upgrade? I should probably not start adding z-wave devices prior to upgrading the daughter board to the newer one?

Lastly, Is it bad practice to "add" a Z-Wave device plugged into a location that will NOT be it's permanent location? I.e. plugging it in next to the computer in order to add, then moving it wherever it will go?

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[lilyoyo1]

12 hours ago, telljcl said:

My ISY 994ir / Z is on 5.12 FW, and has been working very smoothly  since updating to 5.xx and prior.

I've used just Insteon devices to this point (other than Nodelink devices - thermostats, sprinkler controllers etc... and devices connected to my ELK M1).

I'm now needing to replace a Morninglinc lock, so a Z-Wave "plus" unit is on the way.

I purchased a Honeywell (same as GE apparently) Z-Wave plus on/off module, and it added immediately to my ISY.  Seems to work as expected, and I think it reacts faster than my Insteon devices do.

Anyway, I want to make sure that as I begin to build / add Z-Wave (or Z-Wave Plus) devices to my ISY, that I'm doing it properly from the start.

Is there anything I should do to make sure I don't need to go back later and "rebuild" etc.?

I'm new to Z-Wave, so any help would be most appreciated.

Also - I have the original (~2 years old maybe?) Z-Wave card inside my ISY 994, using the external antenna. Range seems great, at least with this one Z-Wave outlet placed 3 floors below.

Is there a Z-Wave Plus card / dongle for the ISY at this point? Any issues I should be aware of?

         EDIT: I see on the Z-Wave wiki: 

         IMPORTANT NOTE

         "Since 3Q2018, all our Z-Wave dongles were migrated to 500 series. As such, and in order to support this board, you will need to upgrade your firmware to 5.0.13 and higher"

Well I've had mine since before that, so I'm sure mine is the "old" Z-Wave board - is there a way to upgrade? I should probably not start adding z-wave devices prior to upgrading the daughter board to the newer one?

Lastly, Is it bad practice to "add" a Z-Wave device plugged into a location that will NOT be it's permanent location? I.e. plugging it in next to the computer in order to add, then moving it wherever it will go?

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

If all of your devices will be zwave+ then i recommend getting the new single to take advantage of the benefits zwave plus offers. You could still use the old dongle for now however.

When adding devices to the ISY I prefer adding them prior to installation. This goes for insteon and zwave. This allows me to verify the device itself works prior to installation. That way if it doesn't work after installation, I know I'm not troubleshooting a defective device vs spending hrs troubleshooting only to find out something doesn't work. With zwave, once the install is done, you can simply do a network heal to set your routing. 

My personal advice when using zwave is to invest in devices. I personally feel it's best to have more than you need rather than not enough. Trying to get by with the bare minimum will be an effort in futility and cause unnecessary troubleshooting which will still require you to invest in the end. Depending on house size and location, I recommend a minimum of 4 devices. This allows for multiple routes as well as increases coverage. You may still need more devices but 4 I feel is a good starting point. 

[telljcl]

18 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

If all of your devices will be zwave+ then i recommend getting the new single to take advantage of the benefits zwave plus offers. You could still use the old dongle for now however.

When adding devices to the ISY I prefer adding them prior to installation. This goes for insteon and zwave. This allows me to verify the device itself works prior to installation. That way if it doesn't work after installation, I know I'm not troubleshooting a defective device vs spending hrs troubleshooting only to find out something doesn't work. With zwave, once the install is done, you can simply do a network heal to set your routing. 

My personal advice when using zwave is to invest in devices. I personally feel it's best to have more than you need rather than not enough. Trying to get by with the bare minimum will be an effort in futility and cause unnecessary troubleshooting which will still require you to invest in the end. Depending on house size and location, I recommend a minimum of 4 devices. This allows for multiple routes as well as increases coverage. You may still need more devices but 4 I feel is a good starting point. 

Great info - thank you.

So I can build the z-wave portion of my network now, with the "old" z-wave board, and then just swap out boards to the newer "plus" board, w/out having to delete then re-add those devices?

And since I'm not familiar with z-wave basics, issuing a network "heal" is something that can be done anytime, and the devices communicate with one another and determine best RF routing etc...?

Lastly, if using Z-Wave plus devices, must all devices in network be "plus" in order to take advantage of "plus" advantages? I.e. if there is one "regular" z-wave device in the network will the whole network have to drop back to regular z-wave communication protocols?

Thanks!

[asbril]

45 minutes ago, telljcl said:

So I can build the z-wave portion of my network now, with the "old" z-wave board, and then just swap out boards to the newer "plus" board, w/out having to delete then re-add those devices?

Yes you can use  "old" Zwave dongle and later install new dongle without reset and reprogramming. However make sure to backup everything before change dongle.

And since I'm not familiar with z-wave basics, issuing a network "heal" is something that can be done anytime, and the devices communicate with one another and determine best RF routing etc...?

Yes you can do a heal any time, though I mostly do a heal after installing a new device (or replacing a defective device).

Lastly, if using Z-Wave plus devices, must all devices in network be "plus" in order to take advantage of "plus" advantages? I.e. if there is one "regular" z-wave device in the network will the whole network have to drop back to regular z-wave communication protocols?

I believe that some of the PLUS features may work even if not all Zwave devices are PLUS, but because of the mesh network you will only have optimum advantages when all your devices are PLUS. Some of my older devices do not have instant status reporting and I use query programs for those. Just make sure to look for PLUS when you buy new devices. Note that the 700 series of Zwave is being rolled out, but no or few 700 devices have come to the market at this time. We may need a new 700 dongle in a year ?

 

 

[simplextech]

50 minutes ago, telljcl said:

Great info - thank you.

So I can build the z-wave portion of my network now, with the "old" z-wave board, and then just swap out boards to the newer "plus" board, w/out having to delete then re-add those devices?

And since I'm not familiar with z-wave basics, issuing a network "heal" is something that can be done anytime, and the devices communicate with one another and determine best RF routing etc...?

Lastly, if using Z-Wave plus devices, must all devices in network be "plus" in order to take advantage of "plus" advantages? I.e. if there is one "regular" z-wave device in the network will the whole network have to drop back to regular z-wave communication protocols?

Thanks!

Regarding the card swapping... Yes and No... 

The Z-Wave network ID and device information is actually stored on the controller (typically unless ISY has done it differently).  What you will have to do is a backup of the Z-Wave network information on the OLD card and then restore the Network information to the New card.  This can sometimes not go perfect and may take a couple attempts (not an ISY issue but in experience).  If you can wait as in you're getting the new Z-Wave card within days then it may be worth just waiting to start the Z-Wave build out with a nice new ZW+ card.  I would wait if it was a matter of days.  If however we're talking weeks/months then do the build out and prepare/practice the backup process.

The "heal" terminology is a misnomer in regards to Z-Wave.  With Z-Wave there are two methods, one is optimize and one is optimize with route updates.  I am not yet sure about the ISY implementation, however in general when only one option is provided it is a full network optimize with route updating.  What this process does is tell all powered (non-battery) devices to perform a neighbor discovering to update their own local neighbor tables and with a full optimize it will update the route back to the central controller or to the z-wave controller that is controller (if you have multiple controllers).  With Z-Wave Plus the "heal" process is no longer a necessary thing as the nodes will perform a neighbor discovering/route update on their own but it is slower and takes time as the network grows.  The "heal" is historical but also good for troubleshooting as you can see in the logs if a node is taking too long to update/discover neighbors which may be a node issue or a network/mesh issue.  

You can mix/match z-wave and z-wave plus with limited effects.  If you have too many non-plus nodes you will suffer from speed limitations of the non-plus devices and the auto-healing or won't work as they don't support the "discovery frames".  You will also have to include non-plus devices as close to the controller as possible as they do not support NWI (network wide inclusion).  All in all it's preferred/best to have an all Plus network if at all possible is my suggestion.

[lilyoyo1]

1 hour ago, telljcl said:

Great info - thank you.

So I can build the z-wave portion of my network now, with the "old" z-wave board, and then just swap out boards to the newer "plus" board, w/out having to delete then re-add those devices?

And since I'm not familiar with z-wave basics, issuing a network "heal" is something that can be done anytime, and the devices communicate with one another and determine best RF routing etc...?

Lastly, if using Z-Wave plus devices, must all devices in network be "plus" in order to take advantage of "plus" advantages? I.e. if there is one "regular" z-wave device in the network will the whole network have to drop back to regular z-wave communication protocols?

Thanks!

Since you are starting new, I wouldn't buy anything that is non plus. There is no benefit from doing so except for saving a few dollars. Saving a couple of dollars simply isn't worth it as you won't receive most advantages of the plus devices that you have. 

Anything routed through a non plus device will not benefit from most plus features. For example, the additional range of plus will not help if you have non plus devices but extended battery life would still be there. 

[telljcl]

2 hours ago, asbril said:

 

So I was told that my current z-wave board is the older 300 chipset model, and the current board uses the 500 chipset.

So I'm still unclear on what the new board offers over the old one that I have currently.

Is the new board z-wave plus and the old one is not?

Thanks!

[simplextech]

New 500 is Z-Wave Plus. Older 300 is NOT.

There are many benefits of Z-Wave Plus.  Most notable is improved battery life, increased range, network wide inclusion, improved mesh routing/healing just a few that are the highlights.

[asbril]

49 minutes ago, telljcl said:

So I was told that my current z-wave board is the older 300 chipset model, and the current board uses the 500 chipset.

So I'm still unclear on what the new board offers over the old one that I have currently.

Is the new board z-wave plus and the old one is not?

Thanks!

As simplextech says, new dongle is PLUS, and noth the old one.  If all of your Zwave devices are PLUS then you should definitely get the new dongle. If you still use NON-PLUS devices, then there is no urgency.

[telljcl]

Thanks all - I ordered a 500 board as it sounds like I'll have better luck with it -vs- the old one.

 

[rccoleman]

4 hours ago, simplextech said:

network wide inclusion

I have the new 500 Series dongle and all of my AC-connected Z-Wave devices (several gen 5 Aeotec sirens, some gen 5 GE/Jasco on/off & dimmer modules) are advertised as Z-Wave Plus, but I have yet to be able to include or exclude non-secure devices without being within sight of the ISY.  I do have some older motion battery-powered devices (motion sensors, door locks), but I wouldn't think they'd be involved.  Is the ISY missing some component that allows network-wide inclusion?  Or is there something that I'm doing wrong?  My mesh seems fine, in that I can operate and configure devices all around my house without difficulty.

I just had an existing device summarily kicked out of my ISY for some reason when I added a new Z-Wave device (see other thread for details), and I tried excluding and including the lost device many times this morning without success.  I'm pretty sure that if I get it and the ISY together it will work fine (as it did originally), but I was hoping to avoid that.

[simplextech]

1 minute ago, rccoleman said:

Is the ISY missing some component that allows network-wide inclusion?

That's a good question that I can't answer.  I'm thinking @Michel Kohanim probably can.

NWI is part of the ZWP specification and capabilities.  It is up to the controller and software stack to utilize it.  For most battery powered devices I've found it to be very hit or miss so I just include them at my desk next to the controller.  For powered devices with only a few exceptions I can include/exclude them from across the house with various controllers.

Z-Wave also has a limitation of 4 hops from controller to destination.  So if you have a small mesh but the devices are spread far apart you may hit either a distance problem or a hop limit.  

The ISY is new to me and I have not started putting a lot of z-wave into it just yet so I can't provide more experienced information just yet.

[rccoleman]

Thanks for your reply and expertise.  In an ardent attempt to get it to work, I tried to add each of four plug-in modules last night from their respective destinations, failed, brought them in the room with the ISY, succeeded, healed the network, and went onto the next one which required the same dance.  I don't think distance is a problem with any of the devices.  The sirens are pretty powerful repeaters and there's rarely more than one hop to any device in my house.

[simplextech]

14 minutes ago, rccoleman said:

brought them in the room with the ISY, succeeded, healed the network, and went onto the next one which required the same dance.

Where were the devices during the "heal"?  Still in the same room as the ISY or at another location?  Were there any devices in between?

The heal will send out a discovery to each node asking them to do a node discovery of neighbors.  If they have no neighbors at the time of the "heal" or optimize however you want to phrase it then nodes beyond that edge node "don't exist" to anything except the controller (the ISY).  Over time discovery frames will be sent out an neighbors will be discovered but that usually is between hours to days.

When building out a z-wave mesh I start the controller and add powered devices in that room.  Optimize then move to the next closest powered device and add those.  When I hit one that won't include I will first try an exclude and if that also does not work then I'll go back and do a full optimize aka heal and then try again.  This process gets repeated until everything is done.  Only once all powered devices are complete do I then do battery devices.  Battery devices I do at my desk or site by the controller where I can just sit there and add them.  They have to be woken up to "heal" and that is a longer tedious process and is best done with 2 people.

[rccoleman]

Once I successfully added them, I brought them to their final destination and did a heal there.  I did a final heal after everything was added and placed last night, and then still couldn't include or exclude the Z-Uno device a few rooms away.  I think I did everything right and I can see the routes, so that's why I'm thinking that it's something else.

Yes, healing with battery-operated devices is a pain when they don't support beaming.  The ones that I have seem to work, but may not have optimal routes because I haven't put in the effort to have them heal properly.  I think the ISY does wait a bit during the heal operation to see if they eventually wake up, but most of the time they fail unless I trigger them.

[simplextech]

Sounds like everything was done right in your z-wave deployment.  So it could be a NWI issue with the ISY?  Have to wait for them to respond or you could open a ticket asking about NWI as it may be one of those "not yet ready" z-wave features with ISY.  Z-Wave is pretty new to ISY??? 

[rccoleman]

Z-Wave has been available on the ISY for a while, but support was much more limited on the ISY and Z-Wave device support was much more primitive back in the day.  ISY support took a quantum leap with 5.0.3/5.0.4 (almost 3 years ago!) when the whole node structure was reworked to make Z-Wave devices first-class citizens along with Insteon (+ node servers, too), and it's been improving slowly ever since.  I just assumed that NWI wasn't ready yet, or was somehow tied to the ongoing Z-Wave certification, but I'll submit a ticket if I don't hear back.  I often go a long time between adding new devices and I forget the pain until the next time

[simplextech]

Coming back to this... If NWI is not currently supported/working with ISY that will put a damper on my Z-Wave plans.... hmm.....

[Chris Jahn]

On 2/1/2019 at 2:55 PM, simplextech said:

Coming back to this... If NWI is not currently supported/working with ISY that will put a damper on my Z-Wave plans.... hmm.....

NWI is supported in the 5.x version of ISY and is used by default.  You can actually start including devices using the following from your browser, and play with options to see if you notice any differences:

/rest/zwave/node/include?power=true&nwi=true - Include a device
power - True means use high power
nwi - True means use NWI

/rest/zwave/node/exclude - Exclude a device

/rest/zwave/node/cancel - Stop include/exclude

[rccoleman]

Interesting, thanks. It was definitely not working for me on 5.0.14 over the weekend, but more devices arrived today and I’ll give it a try. Does ‘exclude’ also work across the network?

[simplextech]

1 minute ago, Chris Jahn said:

NWI is supported in the 5.x version of ISY and is used by default.  You can actually start including devices using the following from your browser, and play with options to see if you notice any differences:

/rest/zwave/node/include?power=true&nwi=true - Include a device
power - True means use high power
nwi - True means use NWI

/rest/zwave/node/exclude - Exclude a device

/rest/zwave/node/cancel - Stop include/exclude

@Chris Jahn that is some useful information there being able to do it from a browser.  Any chances we'll see a browser interface soon for simple include/exclude functionality with status?

I could have used this information the last couple of days as I added in a bunch of devices all around the house.  I gathered NWI was working correctly when I was including devices several rooms away that I knew were not in range.  First attempt failed as expected so I went back and added some "in-between" and optimized/healed the mesh a couple of times after adding the in-between devices and sure enough I was able to keep pushing the boundary further after each heal of the network to include the new nodes into the mesh.

[Chris Jahn]

2 minutes ago, rccoleman said:

Does ‘exclude’ also work across the network?

Not currently, that functionality wasn't in the Z-Wave API we used when we implemented our API.  I just checked and they did add that functionality in Z-Wave v6.61 so I'll add it to our list (option will be ignored if dongle you are using is older the v6.61)

[Chris Jahn]

23 minutes ago, simplextech said:

@Chris Jahn that is some useful information there being able to do it from a browser.  Any chances we'll see a browser interface soon for simple include/exclude functionality with status?

Not with status, all these APIs do is start/stop the process of including/excluding devices.

[rccoleman]

Ok, thanks. That wasn’t the problem with the devices that I added over the weekend (include worked right away when I brought them in the room with the ISY), but I’ll keep that in mind. Since the best practice seems to be to exclude before include, NWI may be not be as useful until exclude works.  

[simplextech]

8 minutes ago, Chris Jahn said:

Not with status, all these APIs do is start/stop the process of including/excluding devices.

Is there an api for status?