Primary and secondary Z-Wave controllers

[karwas]

Hello,

While troubleshooting problems with my Z-Wave network (subject of another post, yet to be written) I have encountered some very strange menu entry in my Z-Wave menu.

I believe that my ISY is a primary controller (please note that I can still Include/Exclude nodes), yet it does not offer:
"Shift Primary to another Controller", but instead offer an option to "Receive (Learn Mode)"

To add to the confusion, the icon representing an option which is offered ("Receive (Learn Mode)") is a "Right Arrow", normally used for "Shift Primary to another Controller"

I expected to see behavior of ISY to be somehow as described here:
https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY_Z-Wave_GenII_-_Instructions#ISY_as_the_Primary_Controller_and_the_Z-Wave_network_is_empty 
but it is apparently different.

Is my understanding wrong, or is this a bug?

Thanks for clarification.

Przemek

 

[Techman]

What is the firmware and UI version on your ISY994

What Zwave board do you have, the 300 or 500 series?

Do you currently have Zwave devices installed on the ISY, if so, are they all working?

Has the ISY always been your primary Zwave controller?

Edited September 11, 2023 by Techman

[karwas]

Hello Techman,

Zwave board I have installed in my ISY is unfortunately an old 300 series.

Hence I run old firmware and UI, both versions 4.9.0

The Zwave library is Static Controller version 4.55 Static with Bootloader version 1.03

Yes, I do have 4 Kwikset 910 door locks and 3 Aeotec repeaters. 
They are working 50% of time, and 50% not so much due to connectivity errors.
The overall physical network diameter is less than 100 feet.
The maximum physical distance between devices is less than 25 feet.
Any irregularities in network connectivity between devices could (and can) be mitigated
by physically repositioning devices to be in closer distance with each other, but how close I should go?
How many repeaters I need to install in the small network, where I just want to control 2 side yard gates,
and the main door to the house?

I was assuming that I do have a faulty antena or some source of radio interferences at my home,
so I decided to investigate further with Razberry device (Raspberry Pi with Z-wave shield)
I have included it to the network as Secondary Controller, but never demoted ISY from its role
of Primary Controller. What I had found is still confusing and inconclusive, as I do have very low
noise level (-90dBm/Ch#1; -100dBm/Ch#2 as indicated by Razberry radio tools), so no interference here,
relatively high RSSI level on all devices (between -58dBm and -80dBm), so probably no antena issues,
but very high ratio of corrupted frames with CRC errors (over 60% of frames with errors). Why???
 

All of those measurements are obviously taken from the perspective of Razberry Zwave shield,
which is located 3 feet away from ISY, but I have no idea how to collect such RF performance data from ISY itself.

Bottom Line:

With 60% CRC errors no Zwave network layer functions are performing reliably due to excessive timeouts
and retransmissions. So any analysis of "neighbors", "self healing" topology, etc. makes not much sense
to me, as it is very random.

 

 

 

[Techman]

There could be several issues.

The 4.9.0 firmware is outdated. For the ISY994 with the 300 series board the latest firmware is 5.0.16C

The ISY994 has been discontinued and is no longer supported. It's possible that the 5.0.16C firmware may correct your problem(s).  All your Zwave devices will be constrained by the 300 series controller which has a shorter range and slower performance than the 700 series

The current hardware is the EISY and the 700 series Zmatter board. 

5.0.16C (ISY994) - Last version to support Z-Wave 300 Series - Current Release Announcements - Universal Devices Forum (universal-devices.com)