Z-Wave and Zigbee Can they both operate on ISY?

[Tominnh]

I've never been able to get either Z-wave or Zigbee to discover devices.  Anyone else have this issue?  Someone stated that ISY would support one or the other but not both. 

[larryllix]

Just now, Tominnh said:

I've never been able to get either Z-wave or Zigbee to discover devices.  Anyone else have this issue?  Someone stated that ISY would support one or the other but not both. 

So far, ISY Zwave and ZigBee are both PCB boards that fit into only one provided ISY socket.

ISY ZigBee is not compatible with other ZigBee devices. ZigBee has been a long time developing any standards and the ISY ZigBee is only compatible with some Utility meter standards.

[Tominnh]

Good to know about Zigbee. So the remaining issue is what's wrong with my z-wave card!

[larryllix]

1 hour ago, Tominnh said:

Good to know about Zigbee. So the remaining issue is what's wrong with my z-wave card!

I don't do Zwave. It's was single-sourced.

[lilyoyo1]

What devices were you trying to discover? Which zwave card do you have? Did it come with your ISY or did you add it yourself? What firmware/UI were you on? Distance to isy etc. There are many variables to adding zwave devices so the more information we have the better we can help

[Mecheng70]

Good to know about Zigbee. So the remaining issue is what's wrong with my z-wave card!

Do you have the SEP and the external Zwave dongle?
Which version of the software are/did you attempt to load?


Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[Tominnh]

The dongle is inside of the ISY unit. It was an add on if I recall.  On the administration page for the ISY it states "z-wave dongle not responding"

 

[Tominnh]

I'm actually not sure what would be running on Z-wave.  Is Hue Z-wave?   If so I am now seeing all those devices due to the Polisy install

 

[asbril]

11 hours ago, larryllix said:

I don't do Zwave.

You should Larryllix ?

[asbril]

10 minutes ago, Tominnh said:

I'm actually not sure what would be running on Z-wave.  Is Hue Z-wave?   If so I am now seeing all those devices due to the Polisy install

 

Zwave is an alternative as well a complement to Insteon. In this forum you can see numerous pros & cons of both systems. In short Insteon connects both through your electrical systems and RF, while Zwave only on RF. Insteon is manufactured by a single supplier, while there are numerous manufacturers of Zwave devices.  Insteon and Zwave offer largely similar devices, though Insteon has a better selection of multi-button switches as well as a fanlinc that control both your fan and your fan light. Zwave offers additional devices such as locks and control points as an example for automatic curtains.

The good thing about ISY is that it allows you to mix Insteon and Zwave. Most in this forum started with Insteon, or even X10 and the larger part of their set-up is still Insteon.

Personally, I dropped X10 and Insteon several years ago and my set-up consists of more than sixty Zwave devices, and I do not envisage going back to Insteon.

[lilyoyo1]

12 minutes ago, Tominnh said:

I'm actually not sure what would be running on Z-wave.  Is Hue Z-wave?   If so I am now seeing all those devices due to the Polisy install

 

Hue is not zwave. 

[Tominnh]

Wow, Yes I also dropped X10 as it was very unreliable. I primarily use Insteon though throughout the house. Hue was added a few years ago but I's a pain using different apps to control different items. Mobilinc does not show the newly added devices through Polisy so I'm not sure how that will work moving forward.  I think today I will power down the ISY and remove the z-wave card, re-install to see if that kicks it on. When working though it's never been able to locate any z-wave devices.  I'm certainly no expert in any of this just trying to make sense of how Polisy will pull it all together. The ISY on polyglot show a connected node for Ring however I don't see that listed in the node store for Polisy.  I think I need to fully read the WIKI on Polisy to get a better handle on this.  

[larryllix]

25 minutes ago, Tominnh said:

Wow, Yes I also dropped X10 as it was very unreliable. I primarily use Insteon though throughout the house. Hue was added a few years ago but I's a pain using different apps to control different items. Mobilinc does not show the newly added devices through Polisy so I'm not sure how that will work moving forward.  I think today I will power down the ISY and remove the z-wave card, re-install to see if that kicks it on. When working though it's never been able to locate any z-wave devices.  I'm certainly no expert in any of this just trying to make sense of how Polisy will pull it all together. The ISY on polyglot show a connected node for Ring however I don't see that listed in the node store for Polisy.  I think I need to fully read the WIKI on Polisy to get a better handle on this.  

I understand that the ISY internal Zwave card has a weak Tx/Rx signal area and requires a repeating unit very close to make it work with ISY, by boosting the signal. People were using some siren device for that previously. There may be better devices for that purpose now.

[lilyoyo1]

28 minutes ago, Tominnh said:

Wow, Yes I also dropped X10 as it was very unreliable. I primarily use Insteon though throughout the house. Hue was added a few years ago but I's a pain using different apps to control different items. Mobilinc does not show the newly added devices through Polisy so I'm not sure how that will work moving forward.  I think today I will power down the ISY and remove the z-wave card, re-install to see if that kicks it on. When working though it's never been able to locate any z-wave devices.  I'm certainly no expert in any of this just trying to make sense of how Polisy will pull it all together. The ISY on polyglot show a connected node for Ring however I don't see that listed in the node store for Polisy.  I think I need to fully read the WIKI on Polisy to get a better handle on this.  

What devices and so forth were you trying to add? You still haven't given any details on anything to help so the problem. Earlier you were asking if hue was zwave as well as having problems with both zigbee and zwave. This indicates that it could be user error in regards to devices. The more information you provide we can help with getting you up and running

[Tominnh]

There is a Wink Hub that controls a few non Insteon / Hue bulbs. That should connect No? 

[Tominnh]

Eventually I would like to add a lock device which I believe would be Z-wave.  I guess I expected Z-Wave to locate Hue devices and Kasa smart switches. Polisy has done both but cannot connect to Ring or Sense devices

 

[larryllix]

4 minutes ago, Tominnh said:

There is a Wink Hub that controls a few non Insteon / Hue bulbs. That should connect No? 

I owned a Wink hub years ago that I took back. Every device it supported was support for another hub.

Hue is proprietary ZigBee. You require a Hue Hub and apparently there is a limit of how many bulbs they will control, albeit about 50? . I don't know of anything else that can control Hue bulbs. I have a box full of the original bulbs that couldn't do green colours or stop coming on full brightness  in the middle of the night.

[Tominnh]

I will have to double check. The bulbs in question I thought said smartconnect. I will check and get back later today. Thank you!

[lilyoyo1]

Looking at your posts, I don't think your problems is isy/zwave related but lack of knowledge about the product you are using. 

Wink is a controller in itself just like the isy. They are not directly compatible with each other as they both want to do their own thing. Hue and kasa are not zwave so a zwave device would not directly talk to them. They can be added to controllers that work with them but generally thats via your network and requires specific steps to getting those devices added (depends on controller used).

For ring to work with isy/Polisy, it requires you to use the nodeserver for it which can be found by logging into your portal account and downloading it

There are zwave locks. However most likely you will need zwave devices to build out your mesh network. How many you need depends on many factors. Personally I would start with a minimum of 3 repeating devices. If what you buy does not explicitly say zwave plus (since you don't have any zwave devices yet, plus is the only way you should go) on it then it is not zwave.