FAQ: Is there a way to see the Zwave mesh network map?

Wiki FAQ
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Hi
Does anyone know what devices 2,3,4,5 are?
At first, I thought it was ghost devices
And I tried for a long time to remove them
Then I saw the same thing in someone else in the group

zwave
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They are specific to your mesh. Look in the rest of the output of the tool to see. E.g., this post shows the same display, with the node table on the left: FAQ: Is there a way to see the Zwave mesh network map?

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2023 update.
ZWAVE PC controller is now part of Silicon Labs , Simplicity Studio,
Aeotec sent me this instructions:

Improvements:

  1. Topology Map can be zoomed !!
  2. There is option to Setup Route, but this didn’t worked for me. When setting a route, the Topology map didn’t changed
  3. ZWAVE PC controller Can work in Win10
  4. Z-Stick Gen5 Can be paired to Smartthings Hub in Edge environment.
  5. Since CLI or ST app. is no longer (for now) showing the route of Zwave devices, this is the only way to see it.

Anyone that wants to try is welcome to Remote Desktop to my PC. Please PM me,
Here is a recent picture of my Map:

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And here is the new interface , I squared the option to Setup Route

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First rule of home automation applies: “the model number matters.”

Set up route has a lot of restrictions.

  1. the source can be any end device (so not a controller). Most typically this is used for battery powered binary sensors.

  2. the destination must be a non-sleepy device, so typically mains powered.

  3. like most configuration changes, if the source is battery powered, the route change may get cued up for several hours until the next configuration update. So you don’t usually see instantaneous updates.

From the user guide:

PC-based SC supports assigning a route between, e.g., a Binary Sensor, and any other node. Assigning a route specifies how the binary sensor can communicate with the node. To assign a route,
silabs.com | Building a more connected world.
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INS13114-24 Z-Wave PC based Controller v5 User Guide 2022-12-07
select first a source and a destination node. The source node can be any node based on the routing end device library while destination node can be any node that is always in listening mode. Activate ‘Assign’ button to generate a route between the two nodes. For a binary battery sensor, the route assignment will be executed next time it wakes up. Until then, the request is queued in the PC-based Controller.

  1. the source device will only store the route if it is already associated with the destination device. Among other things, this means the source device has to support association. But if you didn’t already associate the two, the route update configuration will be ignored.

  2. I wouldn’t expect set up route to change what you see in the topology map. It’s not creating a hop where one didn’t exist before. It’s really setting the priority for the LWR so that the message will take the route you prefer. If there’s no route possible between the two devices, then setup route won’t work. The topology map shows you what communication is possible. The priority route is the preferred selection of hops between the source and the destination. So they aren’t exactly the same thing: the route uses the hops shown in the topology map.

Here’s an example from your topology map.

Node 22 can’t communicate directly with node 23. Nothing to do with set up route is going to change that.

Node 22 can communicate directly with node 33, and node 33 can communicate directly with node 23. The same is true for node 44. Again, set up route isn’t going to change what the topology map shows.

What you could do with set up route is select the priority Route to tell note 22 to always try node 44 first when it’s on its way with a message for node 23. That might be useful to you, but it won’t change the topology map. :thinking:

———-

Dr Zwave has an excellent article on the set up route option. Note that there’s almost no reason for a regular user to attempt this. Most common reason is when you want to test a bunch of possible routes because you’re a hub developer. Or when you want to force a direct route for a particular device, but that has potential problems.

It’s almost always best to just let the network handle its own routing.

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A post was split to a new topic: Use Simplicity Studio to Reset Route?