Suddenly 2 of my 3 Yale zwave locks are no longer communicating with Eisy.

Several wall plugs cannot be controlled by the AC, but will reflect the status if manually changed.

WTH?

Why is everything so unstable??

Am not an expert in Zwave.. what is the best approach to start to solve this? I have done a Heal network. I tried to do an interview with the two locks, now only one even shows all its nodes, the other is just blank.

PIA...

Could something generating electrical noise be jamming the signals? Anything new added to the household?

I added a zooz zwave relay, about a week ago. not sure when the locks stopped working. Nothing else. Locks have worked for 10 years now w/o problem.

Currently two locks, zoos controller and 3 plugs are all unresponsive in the AC however if I manually change the plugs, they update. the locks do not.

I rebooted the EISY, Now the plugs are working as expected.

The zoo is unresponsive and I have messed up my two locks.. I really never got to understand zwave well, but I guess the next step would be to "unenroll" these devices and then re-enroll them and see what happens?

I assume that the programs they are in will be affected?

Any advice? thanks!

17 hours ago, dbwarner5 said:

Suddenly 2 of my 3 Yale zwave locks are no longer communicating with Eisy.

Several wall plugs cannot be controlled by the AC, but will reflect the status if manually changed.

WTH?

Why is everything so unstable??

Am not an expert in Zwave.. what is the best approach to start to solve this? I have done a Heal network. I tried to do an interview with the two locks, now only one even shows all its nodes, the other is just blank.

PIA...

You probably have a chatty device. It's been a while since Ive used UD but you should be able to check the event viewer ( set to level 3) and see what it picks up

I had a period of time when a handful of zwave devices would not respond and others would respond inconsistently. It turns out that I had a single device that had become non-responsive and this device was part of the communication path to several others (a neighbor?). Replacing the faulty z-wave device solved all the problems with my other devices. I did not expect failure of a single device to cascade into general comm problems for the remaining z-wave devices, but, there it was. Perhaps you are having a similar problem.

Another thing that I failed to recognize at the time is that there is a specific "capture log" for z-wave. Start the capture log and trigger some of your troublesome devices. The log can reveal those devices that are not communicating and this may help you isolate your problem to a specific device.

As @lilyoyo1 indicated, some Z-wave devices have features that (if set incorrectly) can overwhelm the system with excessive communication. I purchased 4 Zooz ZEN04 power monitoring plugs for monitoring/shutting down various TV and appliances. They worked well in most locations after setting the parameters for monitoring power.

My Sony TV did NOT play well with the device regardless of the parameter settings. The communication would hit levels that would cause the system to become sluggish. Disabling monitoring instantly returned the system to normal.

I communicated the problem to Zooz and they rolled out a firmware update with additional tuning options. The result is shown in the second plot. System performance is night and day different. I am still running this system today.

As both @oberkc and @lilyoyo1 have indicated, consult your logs to determine if you have a device that is constantly communicating and using up all the bandwidth in your system.

TheZooz was in a far part of the garage and when the Garage door lock acted up , I suspect it disconnected it per @oberkc .

When I moved the zooz indoors near other zwave devices it works fine.

Replaced the batteries in the lock, excluded it and then re-included it. Did the same with the rear garage door lock. Cost me 2 hours of updating tons of programs that use my locks, but all is back to working again.

Thanks for the inputs!

34 minutes ago, dbwarner5 said:

TheZooz was in a far part of the garage and when the Garage door lock acted up , I suspect it disconnected it per

I must admit that I was quite disappointed to learn that the "failure" of a single z-wave device can cause such broad consequences to the other z-wave devices.

17 hours ago, oberkc said:

I must admit that I was quite disappointed to learn that the "failure" of a single z-wave device can cause such broad consequences to the other z-wave devices.

Agree. I see in another posts someone looking to move away from Insteon to Zwave.. I would never.

42 minutes ago, dbwarner5 said:

Agree. I see in another posts someone looking to move away from Insteon to Zwave.. I would never.

I agree. Zwave has a place, it's just not for lighting.

Hey,

Not sure what brand/model Zwave locks you have, but for secure S2 pairing they need to be right next to the main controller when pairing the locks the 1st time. Then move the locks to their final location and repair network.

I had to do this with 3 locks a few years ago when I changed Zwave control from ISY to Hubitat. It was just easier to buy a cheap 75ft ethernet cable off Amazon and temporarily move Hubitat to the locks during S2 pairing then taking 3 locks off the doors.

Waiting for decent matter locks to materialize so I can be done with Zwave once and for all.

Edited Saturday at 07:59 PM2 days by Diesel

19 hours ago, Diesel said:

Hey,

Not sure what brand/model Zwave locks you have, but for secure S2 pairing they need to be right next to the main controller when pairing the locks the 1st time. Then move the locks to their final location and repair network.

I had to do this with 3 locks a few years ago when I changed Zwave control from ISY to Hubitat. It was just easier to buy a cheap 75ft ethernet cable off Amazon and temporarily move Hubitat to the locks during S2 pairing then taking 3 locks off the doors.

Waiting for decent matter locks to materialize so I can be done with Zwave once and for all.

Agree I did that many years ago..... this time I did not. Is there a way to tell how they are connected now? Seems like the zwave signals are stronger than they used to be as well, as if I remember correctly, I needed the 75' cable and close proximity to the i994 to even get it to join. This time, w/o the proximity it joined immediately.

Adding comment in case others users are trying to isolate issues with some z-wave devices, specifically this happens frequently with some brands of z-wave locks.

See https://wiki.universal-devices.com/UD_Mobile#Schlage_Locks

Trying to determine if my locks are using the proper security, I ran Xray DH Command Class on one of hte locks and then on a wall wart plug and a zooz relay switch.

Not really knowing what I am looking at, I do see a difference between the lock and hte others. Specifically in the fourth line which has the word SECURITY. in it.

For the lock it says True, for the others it says False.

So @Diesel I wonder if the security is correct and with the EISY zooz stick, it no longer needs the 75' cable / proximity to associate correctly?

@dbwarner5

The SECURITY=True flag in Xray only means the lock is encrypted. It doesn’t distinguish between S0 and S2.

To confirm S2, you'd need to see COMMAND_CLASS_SECURITY_2 (0x9F) or S2 Access Control listed.

Eisy + Zooz 800 stick improves inclusion reliability, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for close proximity during first-time S2 pairing. Including locks next to the main controller is still the most reliable way to ensure a clean S2 handshake.

Do I have to do anything special to get it to do S2? And how would I know if my 10yr old Yale lock is even capable of it?

Thanks.

@dbwarner5

If memory serves, S2 was introduced in 2017. Most Yale locks were S0 before 2018. If your lock is really 10 years old it won't support S2. You can always look up the model spec.

S0 is slow & chatty. S2 is quieter, faster, better battery management, and more reliable. To pair an S2 supported lock it needs to be paired close to the main controller using either a QR code or manual DSK entry.

Sorry, I don't have a Z-wave radio on my Eisy since I moved all my Zwave & Zigbee devices to Hubitat a long while back. But maybe check Z-Wave-Tools-Z-Wave Diagnostics-Node Information and look for COMMAND_CLASS_SECURITY. If it's 0x98 then it's S0, if 0x9F then it's S2.

But hey, if the locks are working like they should sometimes ignorance really is bliss!

@Diesel

So I guess its S0... but working.. battery life isnt great.. about 9 months.

But it's working and I a ton of programs that relay on the current "node" as well as resources etc.

SO LEAVE IT BE is the answer!

thanks!