Z-Wave firmware upgrade fun with the ISY!!!

[brians]

I just bought a Zooz S2 stick 700 in hopes of upgrading my Z-wave firmwares.

I have a bunch of Leviton wall outlets and a few wall switches.
I heard that upgrading to latest firmware for Leviton would provide instant status (spoiler: it doesn't and people reporting this in other forums I am not sure why they claim this)
Currently I use hail program to query Leviton which works fine, and I don't really have a need for instant status from a wall outlet anyways because its always controlled by ISY.

First thing I tried was the Silicon Labs ZWave PC Controller.
I linked up a Leviton wall switch I have as test and detects.
I found some Leviton hex files however it did not work... after some research it is determined these hex files found on Internet do not work.

I found how to add the ZWave PC Controller as second controller... I try to program Zooz ZEN-25 with no luck.

Next step... purchase HomeSeer Z-Flash utility.

I tried same Leviton test wall switch and it in fact upgrades firmware!

I then add the Z-Flash as 2nd controller to ISY usng Add To / Remove From Existing System button.
I get an error afer a while about adding secure device.

in the Z-Flash utility, nothing shown in device management, but I press Disable and then Enable and I see one Leviton device appear.
Toggling the Disable/Enable over and over in Z-Flash until I see all/most of my devices.
I select a Leviton outlet and it does update firmware - joy!
Sometimes Z-Flash quits after update and have to reload and Disable/Enable for a while all over again.

It seems that this is a bit flakey and have to mess around with Z-Flash but it does work sometimes.
Wall switches cannot update firmware this way so after updating about 4 devices (including my Zen25 - had to rename the file with .hex extension) I decide to remove as secondary controller from ISY.
But I couldn't remove using the standard way of remove device like I added, just didn't recognize... so I reset the USB in Z-Wave, then I removed the Node in ISY.

For the remaining Leviton wall switch devices I had to remove from isy, add to z-wave and remove then back to isy...

Conclusion is:
Silicon Labs software did not work for me to upgrade any firmware... new version is a pain to register and seems embedded now in a huge bloated front-end software.

HomeSeer Z-Flash seems to work flawless when connecting direct, but mileage may vary as a second controller option on ISY.

I did reset a Z-Wave device using Z-Flash, updated, and then added back using Z-Wave replace failed node.. however none of the programs worked after (eg. my hail programs) until I went into each one and updated the lines with the referenced device... not sure if anything else would have issue.

I saw no benefit of operation of my Z-Wave devices after upgrading firmware so this was all a waste of time really other than I learn a bit upgrading Z-Wave firmware!

I do now have a Z-Wave USB compatible with POLISY if I ever am able to get my hands on one, and when they come out with z-wave support (but I don't have a USB PLM so would need one of those for my Insteon).

Stick is also compatible with HA, but that is another story LOL.

My advice is to stay away form Leviton and purchase only quality Z-Wave like GE Enbrighten... I have a few of these and are very nice and the depth is not much deeper than an Insteon switch and the inexpensive add-on switches work great for 3-ways. Don't worry about firmware if your device works properly.

[brians]

After using Z-Wave a bit more... I have I want to update some of my advice after working with Z-Wave and Polisy, IoP.

Do not use GE Enbrighten wall switches - they take 2-3 seconds to report their status back to the ISY/IoP. . A Leviton using Hail and query program is way faster than a GE. Exception is the GE wall motion switch updates fast less than a second. This is same issue using ISY994i and 500 series module, not specific to IoP.

I recommend ZooZ Zen71 switches. They send status almost instantly. Zooz tends to have firmware support and updates also.

If you have error updating OTW firmware on the S2 Zooz stick, it is defective and needs to be replaced. Updating firmware on the stick does not affect any of its included/associated devices from the IoP.

If replacing a S2 stick using in Polisy, use the Silicon Labs Z-Wave PC Controller software and do a NVM Backup to a zip file from the old stick first. Then on the new stick do a restore, otherwise you will have to exclude/include all of your z-wave devices into the new stick. If you want you can periodically backup the Z-Wave stick using a PC whenever doing significant Z-Wave changes - until UD makes a backup feature in IoP.

To perform OTA firmware update using the Silicon Labs software Z-Wave PC Controller software, uncheck the S2 etc. security option boxes when including the device to the controller... otherwise you will get an error when updating OTA.

All the z-wave info is stored on the S2 stick... you can take it out of Polisy and place in your PC and see all the associated devices/nodes in the software - even send on/off commands to devices you have added in IoP. Because of this, you should theoretically be able to update the firmware of any IoP Z-Wave device by shutting down polisy, removing stick and placing temporarily in PC, and then running OTA on the device. I have not tested it but it seems like it should work, otherwise have to do the exclude/include, update on a PC, then include back on IoP (or try replace failed node.. I had that work once). (I have two S2 sticks so I can easily do, if you only have one you will have to get creative). UD plans to do OTA so one day this will not be necessary.

Edited April 8, 2022 by brians

[GJ Software Products]

How did you add the Z-Wave PC Controller in Simplicity Studio as a second controller to your ISY?  I'm new to Z-Wave and while I performed an OTA update on a couple of Scene Controllers using Simplicity Studio is was on a different "Home" network and I was doing some digging but I couldn't figure out how I could make PC Controller a second controller on my existing network.

[brians]

On 5/30/2022 at 5:16 PM, GJ Software Products said:

How did you add the Z-Wave PC Controller in Simplicity Studio as a second controller to your ISY?  I'm new to Z-Wave and while I performed an OTA update on a couple of Scene Controllers using Simplicity Studio is was on a different "Home" network and I was doing some digging but I couldn't figure out how I could make PC Controller a second controller on my existing network.

See this thread I explain...

Also, I have not been able to do OTA firmware using this method as a secondary controller - I have to use a separate stick eg. exclude from IoP, using separate stick on PC include and uncheck the S2 options while including.

I can however use to setup basic scene associations - see further up a bit in that thread. This will all be obsolete with new z-wave/matter board coming soon.