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Posted (edited)
19 minutes ago, Michel Kohanim said:

@asbril,

At the moment, I very much doubt we'll have anything at $19.00 for any hardware. Z-Wave certification alone, with membership fees, is $$$$$.

With kind regards,
Michel

Michel,  I was joking as I doubt that a 700 series Zwave USB dongle for  $ 19 can be of good quality. However that is what it shows on the Mouser electronics  link.

Edited by asbril
Posted
Hello all,
1. We have the dongles in stock: https://www.universal-devices.com/product/z-wave-module/ 
2. We do offer discounts: https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=Z-Wave:_Ordering/Assembly_Instructions#Discounts
3. You don't have to upgrade if you want to stay with 300 series
With kind regards,
Michel
I'm not sure I understand. Does #3 mean "you don't have to upgrade your ISY software" or "you don't have to upgrade your Z-Wave hardware, but can continue on the 5.x.x soutware upgrade path?"

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Posted
11 minutes ago, bobchap said:

I'm not sure I understand. Does #3 mean "you don't have to upgrade your ISY software" or "you don't have to upgrade your Z-Wave hardware, but can continue on the 5.x.x soutware upgrade path?"

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

Some are still on 4.X. And if your 5.0.16 works fine, then there is not much to worry about.

Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, Michel Kohanim said:

Hello all,

1. We have the dongles in stock: https://www.universal-devices.com/product/z-wave-module/ 

2. We do offer discounts: https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=Z-Wave:_Ordering/Assembly_Instructions#Discounts

3. You don't have to upgrade if you want to stay with 300 series

With kind regards,
Michel

@Michel Kohanim FYI, the email address on that page appears to be miss-typed.  (but the link is correct)

Edited by gzahar
Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, asbril said:

I just noticed that "Heal Network" disappeared in 5.2.0  . Am I right in assuming that a manual Heal is no longer necessary ?

Actually, this was gone in 5.1 as well.  I made a comment about that in the 5.1 thread.  From what I have read, 500 series are self healing, so maybe this is no longer necessary in the post-300 series world?

Edited by blueman2
  • Like 1
Posted
@gzahar, Thank you. It's fixed.
@bobchap, it means that you can really do not have to upgrade your ISY software if you want to stay with 300 series.
With kind regards,
Michel
But if I want to take advantage of 5.1.0 (and beyond) fixes and features, then I must upgrade to 500 series hardware?


Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, bobchap said:

But if I want to take advantage of 5.1.0 (and beyond) fixes and features, then I must upgrade to 500 series hardware?


Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

@bobchapthat seems to be the case indeed.

Edited by asbril
Posted
5 hours ago, asbril said:

I just noticed that "Heal Network" disappeared in 5.2.0  . Am I right in assuming that a manual Heal is no longer necessary ?

Technically by the Z-Wave Plus specification a "Heal" is.... "Not necessary".... Now the details of that is because Z-Wave Plus introduced "Explorer Frames" which when a route to a device no longer works the controller will send out lots of explorer frames that essentially ping the neighbors and ask who their neighbors are and the controller will "self-heal" and rebuild the routing table.  This normally actually works ok and the mesh will re-route within seconds.  The spec and docs say something like "up to X seconds" if I remember is something like 5-6 seconds for max time to send/respond to explorer frames.  In general this does seem to work well in a ALL Z-Wave Plus mesh....

Now the kicker hits if you are running in a mixed Z-Wave environment..... some Plus devices and some NON Plus devices... Non Plus don't understand explorer frames so they don't respond and this can leave a hole in the mesh or inability to communicate with devices that can only route through that one non plus device.  Now this is an extreme example of a broken mesh of a single device being the single route to another device... BUT... it can happen and the more non plus devices in your network the higher the chances of this happening.....

In a mixed environment like lots of z-wave networks TODAY I think (my opinion) that network heal/optimize should be left in the controller as an option and in my preference I like it when controllers allow doing a per-node optimize so instead of "healing" the whole network one device at a time I can choose the node I want to optimize and force a neighbor update on.  Like when I add another node and I just want to ensure the neighbors get the message they have a new neighbor.... knock knock here's some cookies :)

 

  • Like 2
Posted
27 minutes ago, bobchap said:

But if I want to take advantage of 5.1.0 (and beyond) fixes and features, then I must upgrade to 500 series hardware?


Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

It seems 5.1+ is about zwave+ certification. There is no point in going to it without the 500 series board as you don't get the benefits of + with the 300 series board anyway

  • Like 1
Posted
54 minutes ago, bobchap said:

But if I want to take advantage of 5.1.0 (and beyond) fixes and features, then I must upgrade to 500 series hardware?


Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

Yes.

With kind regards,
Michel

Posted
24 minutes ago, simplextech said:

Technically by the Z-Wave Plus specification a "Heal" is.... "Not necessary".... Now the details of that is because Z-Wave Plus introduced "Explorer Frames" which when a route to a device no longer works the controller will send out lots of explorer frames that essentially ping the neighbors and ask who their neighbors are and the controller will "self-heal" and rebuild the routing table.  This normally actually works ok and the mesh will re-route within seconds.  The spec and docs say something like "up to X seconds" if I remember is something like 5-6 seconds for max time to send/respond to explorer frames.  In general this does seem to work well in a ALL Z-Wave Plus mesh....

Now the kicker hits if you are running in a mixed Z-Wave environment..... some Plus devices and some NON Plus devices... Non Plus don't understand explorer frames so they don't respond and this can leave a hole in the mesh or inability to communicate with devices that can only route through that one non plus device.  Now this is an extreme example of a broken mesh of a single device being the single route to another device... BUT... it can happen and the more non plus devices in your network the higher the chances of this happening.....

In a mixed environment like lots of z-wave networks TODAY I think (my opinion) that network heal/optimize should be left in the controller as an option and in my preference I like it when controllers allow doing a per-node optimize so instead of "healing" the whole network one device at a time I can choose the node I want to optimize and force a neighbor update on.  Like when I add another node and I just want to ensure the neighbors get the message they have a new neighbor.... knock knock here's some cookies :)

 

That makes a lot of sense. When I bought this smoke detector, I forgot to check whether it is Plus..... and it is not. I did perform several heals before upgrading to 5.2.0, so I can not blame this communication error on the new firmware. Most likely this smoke detector will end up in the big box of tech debris, as it was a gimmick purchase, already having hard wired smoke detectors throughout the home. I like the Pushover messaging use of it.... so who knows.

Posted
26 minutes ago, hart2hart said:

I’m not home now but curious if you can look at ISY to determine which are series 3 and series 5 devices.

300 board had a blue light in the back. 500 doesn't. 

Posted
2 minutes ago, asbril said:

That makes a lot of sense. When I bought this smoke detector, I forgot to check whether it is Plus..... and it is not. I did perform several heals before upgrading to 5.2.0, so I can not blame this communication error on the new firmware. Most likely this smoke detector will end up in the big box of tech debris, as it was a gimmick purchase, already having hard wired smoke detectors throughout the home. I like the Pushover messaging use of it.... so who knows.

Like @lilyoyo1 said... send it back... return it.

  • Haha 1
Posted
44 minutes ago, simplextech said:

Technically by the Z-Wave Plus specification a "Heal" is.... "Not necessary".... Now the details of that is because Z-Wave Plus introduced "Explorer Frames" which when a route to a device no longer works the controller will send out lots of explorer frames that essentially ping the neighbors and ask who their neighbors are and the controller will "self-heal" and rebuild the routing table.  This normally actually works ok and the mesh will re-route within seconds.  The spec and docs say something like "up to X seconds" if I remember is something like 5-6 seconds for max time to send/respond to explorer frames.  In general this does seem to work well in a ALL Z-Wave Plus mesh....

Now the kicker hits if you are running in a mixed Z-Wave environment..... some Plus devices and some NON Plus devices... Non Plus don't understand explorer frames so they don't respond and this can leave a hole in the mesh or inability to communicate with devices that can only route through that one non plus device.  Now this is an extreme example of a broken mesh of a single device being the single route to another device... BUT... it can happen and the more non plus devices in your network the higher the chances of this happening.....

In a mixed environment like lots of z-wave networks TODAY I think (my opinion) that network heal/optimize should be left in the controller as an option and in my preference I like it when controllers allow doing a per-node optimize so instead of "healing" the whole network one device at a time I can choose the node I want to optimize and force a neighbor update on.  Like when I add another node and I just want to ensure the neighbors get the message they have a new neighbor.... knock knock here's some cookies :)

 

So I'm a bit worried about this as I still have quite a few devices that are not "Plus"/500 series.

I have two thermostats, outlets, plug in modules, multiple door locks that would likely cost me $1000 or more to replace all of to get a newer zwave plus equivalent.

So do I upgrade to the 5.2.x firmware now or not?  Will this leave me in a spot where I can't make something route correctly without the "heal" or no?

Posted
48 minutes ago, simplextech said:

Technically by the Z-Wave Plus specification a "Heal" is.... "Not necessary".... Now the details of that is because Z-Wave Plus introduced "Explorer Frames" which when a route to a device no longer works the controller will send out lots of explorer frames that essentially ping the neighbors and ask who their neighbors are and the controller will "self-heal" and rebuild the routing table.  This normally actually works ok and the mesh will re-route within seconds.  The spec and docs say something like "up to X seconds" if I remember is something like 5-6 seconds for max time to send/respond to explorer frames.  In general this does seem to work well in a ALL Z-Wave Plus mesh....

Now the kicker hits if you are running in a mixed Z-Wave environment..... some Plus devices and some NON Plus devices... Non Plus don't understand explorer frames so they don't respond and this can leave a hole in the mesh or inability to communicate with devices that can only route through that one non plus device.  Now this is an extreme example of a broken mesh of a single device being the single route to another device... BUT... it can happen and the more non plus devices in your network the higher the chances of this happening.....

In a mixed environment like lots of z-wave networks TODAY I think (my opinion) that network heal/optimize should be left in the controller as an option and in my preference I like it when controllers allow doing a per-node optimize so instead of "healing" the whole network one device at a time I can choose the node I want to optimize and force a neighbor update on.  Like when I add another node and I just want to ensure the neighbors get the message they have a new neighbor.... knock knock here's some cookies :)

 

Note that "update neighbors" is still there, which really is all the heal you need.  

Posted
1 minute ago, danbutter said:

So I'm a bit worried about this as I still have quite a few devices that are not "Plus"/500 series.

I have two thermostats, outlets, plug in modules, multiple door locks that would likely cost me $1000 or more to replace all of to get a newer zwave plus equivalent.

So do I upgrade to the 5.2.x firmware now or not?  Will this leave me in a spot where I can't make something route correctly without the "heal" or no?

I am running mixed environment with about 1/2 300 generation devices and 1/2 500 generation. And even 1 700 generation.  No problems with me.  I did have to do a "update neighbors" on a couple devices, but that was about it.  I now have a better z-wave mesh than ever after going to 500 series dongle.  

  • Like 2
Posted
7 minutes ago, danbutter said:

So do I upgrade to the 5.2.x firmware now or not?  Will this leave me in a spot where I can't make something route correctly without the "heal" or no?

No it wont cause a "problem".  @blueman2 pointed out that the "update neighbors" is still available which will work for some/most mixed environments.

I'm currently treading in somewhat of an unknown here as well as I no longer have a mixed environment to test with.  However my concern which could be unfounded is that the explorer frames are not being responded to by the non plus devices.  This may not cause any problems at all if doing the update neighbors sends that information back to the controller to update the routing table with. 

So what I'm getting at is... No you shouldn't be alarmed about this.  But aware that the "heal" being removed is not some "new to ISY thing" I've seen it with other systems as well.  How this will affect things in real world scenarios I can't tell you as I don't have a mixed environment.  So far I've not heard from any systems that don't have a "heal" the screams of bloody murder and calling for heads to roll from any users... about this issue.. :)

I think many more pains are involved from those trying to implement S2 security (across the board with all systems) at the moment and I'm curious when that will emerge from the depths to the ISY and how "SmartStart" will even be handled....

Posted

I just completed my upgrade from 5.0.16C to 5.2.0.  No issues at all.  While doing a review of programs, I noticed 2 were yellow, indicating an issue.  But both were phantom programs that I had deleted long ago that came back for some reason.  I deleted and did a save. I also have done z-wave synchronize on all of my battery devices and most of my powered devices.  No issues at all.  A few "Basic" nodes were created, but I just put those in my 'Unused Devices' folder to keep things clean.  None of my nodes needed to be fixed after doing the synchronize.  They all came back just as they were, and retained their names and position in programs and scenes.  

Well done, Chris and Michel!

  • Like 2
Posted
18 minutes ago, danbutter said:

So I'm a bit worried about this as I still have quite a few devices that are not "Plus"/500 series.

I have two thermostats, outlets, plug in modules, multiple door locks that would likely cost me $1000 or more to replace all of to get a newer zwave plus equivalent.

So do I upgrade to the 5.2.x firmware now or not?  Will this leave me in a spot where I can't make something route correctly without the "heal" or no?

I have a mixed environment, though gradually moving entirely to ZW Plus.  I upgraded to 5.1.0 without a problem and recommend that you do.

I actually believe that if the routing of your Zwave PLus device goes through other Plus devices, then you should get the benefit. However, even if one along the "route" is not Plus, then no benefit, but neither a negative. As pointed out above, there is the "Update Neighbors" option (even though that did not work with my battery powered smoke detector).

Posted (edited)

I did have an issue initially after re-synchronizing a battery powered door sensor (Gen 5).  I removed it and brought it near my ISY to do the synchronize.  Worked fine.  I then walked to the back of my house and re-installed it.  It would not communicate.  I then put the device in awake mode, right clicked on the device in the ISY admin console, clicked "update neighbors", and after few seconds, it was communicating again.  So it would appear the "update neighbors" does something.  Just not sure what.  I do think I had a Gen 3 device in the path and that might have been why the "update neighbors" was needed?  

In any case, I am very happy so far with 5.2.0.    

Edited by blueman2
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