Zwave intermittently unreliable - exercise in frustration

[telljcl]

994 w/ Zwave + 500 board, 6 Aeotec ZW + repeaters, 1 Aeotec ZW + current monitoring switch, 1 "GE" ZW + plug in switch, 4 ZW + Kwikset locks.

It had been working reasonably well - for the most part - but now the locks especially rarely work, and the others are spotty at best.

I bought all the repeaters since the range on this stuff seems so poor (and in fairness we have a fairly large space to cover). 1st is close to the ISY, then spaced out close to one another in an attempt to minimize distance between any 2 Z-wave devices.

I have run "Heal Z-Wave" countless times over last year or so - rarely helps anything.

I've changed location of the repeaters while watching the "Heal" feedback from the Admin console, in an effort to reduce the "xxxxx Failed" responses.

Tired of doing / re-doing all this.

I'd never have anything Z-Wave if I could find locks that worked w/out it...

Any suggestions on how to make this stuff work properly, or at least work most of the time?

 

[lilyoyo1]

How far apart are things? What's the size of the home, open space, construction type etc? How close are your repeaters to the locks, your firmware and UI? Are your devices all zwave plus

[telljcl]

All devices as stated are ZW+.

Home is wood studs and fairly large.

Probably no more than 20' straight line distance between any 2 ZW devices.

FW 5.0.16c, same UI

Thanks

 

[lilyoyo1]

What's fairly large (large isnt the same for everyone)? I'm assuming new construction so drywall vs sheetrock. How close are the repeaters to the locks? 20 foot straight line or line of site (no walls between)

[telljcl]

sheetrock and drywall are same thing - I assume you mean drywall -vs- plaster, so yes - drywall.

Not line of sight - multi-floors and walls so can't be line of sight between all.

I've had a repeater within 10' of each lock, still spotty. They are various distances now - no better or worse. Some of my non-battery powered ZW devices don't work reliably, and are close to other ZW devices that do (line of sight, within 20').

I had a mystery "water flow" device show up,  and a phantom "power meter" that had a different device number from the actual one. Tried to delete these from the Admin console but see there is a ZW delete also - how to properly delete a ZW device (phantom or otherwise?)

Thanks

 

[lilyoyo1]

23 minutes ago, telljcl said:

sheetrock and drywall are same thing - I assume you mean drywall -vs- plaster, so yes - drywall.

Not line of sight - multi-floors and walls so can't be line of sight between all.

I've had a repeater within 10' of each lock, still spotty. They are various distances now - no better or worse. Some of my non-battery powered ZW devices don't work reliably, and are close to other ZW devices that do (line of sight, within 20').

I had a mystery "water flow" device show up,  and a phantom "power meter" that had a different device number from the actual one. Tried to delete these from the Admin console but see there is a ZW delete also - how to properly delete a ZW device (phantom or otherwise?)

Thanks

 

It's not uncommon for phantom nodes to show up with zwave so I wouldn't be too concerned with that. You can freeze that and delete those. 

From my experience floors and walls cut down significantly on the zwave signal. I assume 10-15 feet max for each wall (leaning towards the lesser of the 2 depending on situation such as furniture and decorations). 

If possible, I would put your repeaters as close to each lock as possible and then use a couple more to fill in the gaps. My house is about 5400sq feet and it took a sizeable amount of devices to cover it for my locks and sensors. Granted I used in wall receptacles vs plugins but it works without errors. Zwave also has self healing properties so I added more to give a secondary path just in case the primary path failed

[Mecheng70]

In my case, there is a wired z wave within 3 ft of each battery operated device (locks, sensors, etc)

[telljcl]

That is good info - thanks.

I feel like nuking the whole zwave setup (delete all zwave devices via zwave menu, then deleting in the admin console list of devices?) then resetting the zwave dongle and adding it all back. I have numerous programs that I'll have to change the device in though, and the worst of it is having to move the ISY right up to the locks (which are all over) to re-add them back in. I'm not taking the locks out of the doors (again...) to do this.

Also, I have my repeaters NOT set as secure (I think that's right), so I can't use them to include / exclude devices initially I don't think. Seems like setting them as secure made the whole setup even more unreliable, but it's been awhile...

 

[telljcl]

5 minutes ago, Mecheng70 said:

In my case, there is a wired z wave within 3 ft of each battery operated device (locks, sensors, etc)

Gotta love Zwave. Extremely practical...

Thing is, even some of my wired devices don't react in a timely fashion, or at all. Some do, but they may not next month...

Battery devices clearly the worst.

I wanted 4 zwave locks, and now have about 8 more zwave devices I didn't want / need just to try and make those work...

I'm amazed the average consumer can make this stuff useful under any circumstances, unless its just the ISY's implementation that is especially poor.

 

[lilyoyo1]

2 minutes ago, telljcl said:

Gotta love Zwave. Extremely practical...

Thing is, even some of my wired devices don't react in a timely fashion, or at all. Some do, but they may not next month...

Battery devices clearly the worst.

I wanted 4 zwave locks, and now have about 8 more zwave devices I didn't want / need just to try and make those work...

 

That's the nature of all these systems. It truly takes a strong mesh to make everything work properly. Once that's been established, it works great for the most part. The journey is painful though. I try to install dual use devices (which is why I use outlets. Even if they aren't used immediately, I can always plug something into them in the future such as holiday lights. 

[lilyoyo1]

12 minutes ago, telljcl said:

That is good info - thanks.

I feel like nuking the whole zwave setup (delete all zwave devices via zwave menu, then deleting in the admin console list of devices?) then resetting the zwave dongle and adding it all back. I have numerous programs that I'll have to change the device in though, and the worst of it is having to move the ISY right up to the locks (which are all over) to re-add them back in. I'm not taking the locks out of the doors (again...) to do this.

Also, I have my repeaters NOT set as secure (I think that's right), so I can't use them to include / exclude devices initially I don't think. Seems like setting them as secure made the whole setup even more unreliable, but it's been awhile...

 

I wouldn't nuke it. That wouldn't change anything if it's a network issue. 

I don't think secure or insecure matters in your situation. Secure (S2) does slow down the system due to the encryption but that doesn't seem to be your issue. 

[telljcl]

I tried to remove my Aeotec Smart switch (which had generated some odd phantom devices at some point over the last year...).

Couldn't exclude it. Finally had to "remove failed device", which was clunky as well, but after rebooting ISY it seemed gone.

Added it back, and of course had to go back by hand and change devices in many programs that used it - no way to "Find / Replace" as any line that referenced the "old' entry was gone, with a notation saying "warning.....".

So all that took the better part of the morning - seems to be working reasonably well, although query commands for some of the devices are slow or will time out with an error, but turning them on or off seems to work...

I hate to add more repeaters as it is just more items to exclude / delete (which is not all that easy to do) if you want to take one out or try w/out it etc... unless it would help. It thought 6 plus 3 plug in devices I really didn't need was plenty to get communication to the locks, but apparently not.

I will say that it seems any device within 10 feet of the ISY has always worked properly - the farther away from it you get, the more pain is involved. More devices doesn't always seem better, even after running multiple "heals", but maybe it is. 

My zwave network is already way more complicated than I wanted it to be, so I can't get excited about expanding it even more...

Maybe my Aotec repeaters are not good units? They seem like they have good feedback, but I'll say the GE switches seem to respond very quickly to queries when the repeaters generally don't react as fast (sometimes very slow). But I can put one of those fast-responding GE boxes right next to a door lock and it doesn't seem to help the door lock any.

 

[madcodger]

Well, this may sound a little whacky, but what if you took about 2-4 repeaters away, did a heal a couple of times, and started back from there? I'm a big fan of Aeotec repeaters and use two per each ISY installation at our place (two separate buildings, each with an ISY). But z-wave hops are what worry me in your situation. As I recall, you only get four hops with z-wave. If for some reason your multiple repeaters are taking up hops between themselves, that wouldn't necessarily help. Admittedly, this is a bit of a stretch. But if you've tried other solutions, removing some repeaters and starting over with some heals is at least a low-effort thing to try.

Also, I've found that adding a device right beside the ISY, then moving it into position and performing a couple of heals, works well. Adding a device at its location has been erratic. And finally, sadly, I've had some zwave devices that were just never reliable, while another brand of the same type of device, at the same location, proved flawless.

I don't use z-wave locks (which seem to have a problematic history from my observations of forum conversations) and just use August locks that I've never attempted to connect to the ISY, although they now have a z-wave connection, I believe. Others here may know if that's possible, and if it works well. August was sketchy at first in my experience but recent hardware, and their firmware updates, seem to have improved things considerably (man, I hope I didn't just jinx myself with that comment). I've used them in four different buildings spread across three locations (500 miles apart) and overall I'm now happy with them, if that helps at all.

Good luck, and please keep us posted on progress.

[telljcl]

48 minutes ago, madcodger said:

Well, this may sound a little whacky, but what if you took about 2-4 repeaters away, did a heal a couple of times, and started back from there? I'm a big fan of Aeotec repeaters and use two per each ISY installation at our place (two separate buildings, each with an ISY). But z-wave hops are what worry me in your situation. As I recall, you only get four hops with z-wave. If for some reason your multiple repeaters are taking up hops between themselves, that wouldn't necessarily help. Admittedly, this is a bit of a stretch. But if you've tried other solutions, removing some repeaters and starting over with some heals is at least a low-effort thing to try.

Also, I've found that adding a device right beside the ISY, then moving it into position and performing a couple of heals, works well. Adding a device at its location has been erratic. And finally, sadly, I've had some zwave devices that were just never reliable, while another brand of the same type of device, at the same location, proved flawless.

I don't use z-wave locks (which seem to have a problematic history from my observations of forum conversations) and just use August locks that I've never attempted to connect to the ISY, although they now have a z-wave connection, I believe. Others here may know if that's possible, and if it works well. August was sketchy at first in my experience but recent hardware, and their firmware updates, seem to have improved things considerably (man, I hope I didn't just jinx myself with that comment). I've used them in four different buildings spread across three locations (500 miles apart) and overall I'm now happy with them, if that helps at all.

Good luck, and please keep us posted on progress.

Thanks for sharing these ideas. All make sense, and I think I tried getting it all to work before, and that's why I ended up with the repeaters (like you, I'd prefer to keep it as simple and with as few devices as possible). But, as you mention, this would be pretty easy. Question though - wouldn't I have to "exclude" the repeaters from ISY, then delete the devices, to try this (then add them back if needed....)? That's the biggest nuisance I guess.

Is there an easy way to see the zwave routes that are being used? Maybe taking a look would indicate problematic devices or routes that are proving unreliable?

EDIT: I see I can call this up in the admin console and see it in the event viewer...

And yes - these Zwave locks are problematic, but only due to signal strength / communication issues. I think if they were right next to the ISY there would never be an issue. The battery life of them is about 1 year (or a little more) in my use so far, the mechanical part works great, the multi-code features etc... work well and can be set via the ISY. So all that is good, but trying to get 95% plus communication to them is the issue for me.

[telljcl]

...So I just noticed looking at routes and neighbors, that 2 of my 6 repeaters aren't noted by the ISY as  being "Repeaters", and 1 of my 2 GE / Jasco switches is also not listed as being a repeater. 

I'd think that a repeater that isn't recognized as such would be doing nothing but confusing and slowing things down. 

Thought is to delete and add back those that aren't noted as being repeaters, and see if they are noted correctly upon re-adding them. If they still don't show properly, then I'll just exclude them permanently.

So I went to remove the 1st switch with plans to re-add it, but as before, excluding it doesn't work (the ISY "Listening" box just stays there, and after I press the button on the device nothing happens - device is still in my list and still responds to queries...)

Then, like yesterday, I had to try "Remove Failed Device" but now that doesn't work - gives some cryptic "unsupported Zwave command..." message. Yesterday this worked for deleting and re-adding my Smart Switch that had the phantom devices associated.

 

[lilyoyo1]

The hops do not matter. It's not like the signal is routed through the 1st 4 devices and then stops. If you had 10 devices in a row, the route could be through device 4, 7, 9 destination. Or it may be 1, 9, then destination.

More devices also helps because zwave is self healing. If the path constantly has poor connection or a device is removed, it can build a new route. Having a small installed system takes away the strengths of the system.

I use Yale and kwikset for my installations as I've found both work without issues with the isy. Schlage works but I've had more issues with them. Kwikset is used for lower cost installations while the yale touchscreen is used for higher end. With the amount of outlets I install for each location, all are error free. 

You'll need to remove your repeaters from your isy and then do a heal. Simply unplugging them the wall will not help. 

[lilyoyo1]

15 minutes ago, telljcl said:

...So I just noticed looking at routes and neighbors, that 2 of my 6 repeaters aren't noted by the ISY as  being "Repeaters", and 1 of my 2 GE / Jasco switches is also not listed as being a repeater. 

I'd think that a repeater that isn't recognized as such would be doing nothing but confusing and slowing things down. 

Thought is to delete and add back those that aren't noted as being repeaters, and see if they are noted correctly upon re-adding them. If they still don't show properly, then I'll just exclude them permanently.

So I went to remove the 1st switch with plans to re-add it, but as before, excluding it doesn't work (the ISY "Listening" box just stays there, and after I press the button on the device nothing happens - device is still in my list and still responds to queries...)

Then, like yesterday, I had to try "Remove Failed Device" but now that doesn't work - gives some cryptic "unsupported Zwave command..." message. Yesterday this worked for deleting and re-adding my Smart Switch that had the phantom devices associated.

 

They may not be listed because they aren't being used as a repeater. Just because it's there doesn't mean it needs to repeat. It's not showing anything down. 

It's like yelling to the kids to come eat. You call them and they don't answer. Your wife is closer so she calls for them. Your son is closer than your daughter but they both hear your wife and come running. Even though he's closer, your son didn't call his sister because she heard too. Had she been further away maybe then he would've needed to yell for her. Routing is similar to that.

Try rebooting your isy and clearing Java cache. Then see if you can remove at that point

[telljcl]

Thanks - I'll try clearing the cache (reboots don't help).

I cannot exclude anything it appears using the "-" Zwave device command, but can "remove failed" as long as I unplug it from the wall first.

I CAN fortunately add new Z wave devices back using the "+" Zwave device command.

I looked at routes for a number of device>device links and never are those particular devices listed as repeaters (but they are capable of being repeaters).

[lilyoyo1]

16 minutes ago, telljcl said:

Thanks - I'll try clearing the cache (reboots don't help).

I cannot exclude anything it appears using the "-" Zwave device command, but can "remove failed" as long as I unplug it from the wall first.

I CAN fortunately add new Z wave devices back using the "+" Zwave device command.

I looked at routes for a number of device>device links and never are those particular devices listed as repeaters (but they are capable of being repeaters).

As Madcoger said, zwave is limited to 4 hops so everything can't be a repeater. Its better to say repeat capable in some ways I guess as there is no promise it will be used as such. But then again, due to self healing, that could potentially change in the future

[telljcl]

So after removing (with the kludgy process listed above) and re-adding 2 devices that were never listed as repeaters, both are now listed as repeaters, in multiple device to device routes (same ones that they where they were never listed as repeaters before). So not sure it it is helping anything, but at least it shows the same thing for like-type devices now.

Network is functional (ran a few heals) again, and I guess I'll give it some time and see how it does.

 

 

[madcodger]

Sounds like you may be on the right track. As noted, z-wave is self-healing, so give it a few days (including uses of the locks over several days) and see how it goes. Good luck!