GE\Jasco switch stopped responding to commands

Devices & Integrations
#1

I have about 40 GE\Jasco zwave switches in my house for a long time without issue until this week with one of the switches.

I cannot get the switch to respond to on\off commands or routines. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them. Below is what I have tried so far:
-zwave repair - no change in behavior
-Replace device option - says the device hasn’t failed
-Force deleted the device -> exclusion mode -> hit the button on the switch and smartthings says it was excluded -> added switch back to smartthings
-Confirmed the device handler is not custom (zwave switch)
-Pulled the air gap switch for about 10 minutes
-Turned off the breaker for 10 minutes
-Tried changing parameters (light never lit, when on, when off). The light would never change so I dont think it received the commanded

Here is the info for the device from IDE: zw:L type:1001 mfr:0063 prod:5257 model:3533 ver:3.25 zwv:3.40 lib:06

Z-Wave receptacles dropping offline
#2
1 Like
#3

Replace didn’t seem to do the trick but it is working now!

I figured why not excluded it from smart things and try seeing if it works with wink. I’ll worked there and I’ve since removed and put it back in smart things where it continues to work.

When I was having the problem the view in the app would always show the on/off state immediately after I would got the physical switch, just be response to on/off command in the app not parameter changes.

#4

Your not alone, I have about 9 of the GE/Jasco original series Z-Wave switchs. About two months ago they started to stop responding and sending updates on status. It was one or two at first and now it is all of them.

Contact support so they can see this is a problem for more people.

#5

I definitely will because now I have another with the same behavior which I know for sure was working just prior to fixing the other. Right now I have 27 installed.

#6

About two days ago, anything GE/JASCO all went unavailable. My light switches-be it paddle or toggle, dimmer or switch, my indoor/outdoor 40 amp direct wire 220v switch, outdoor plug in modules, all of it: unavailable. I’ve tried rebooting the SmartThings hub, pulled power to the hub for 20 minutes, zwave repair, turn power off at the circuit breaker, removed device and reinstalled, tried to “replace” device. Nothing appears to work.
I’m using the SmartThings classic, no custom DTHs, at least not for the GE devices. Nothing new has been added lately.
I’ve opened a ticket with SmartThings, but have not had a response, other than someone will contact me. Anyone else having issues with their GE/JASCO devices? And how long does it typically take for someone from SmartThings to “get back to you?”

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#7

Pls see my post above. You can reset the switches by turning of the breaker for toggles or pulling the air gap for paddle switches.

#8

I’ve tried that already, both air gap and circuit breaker, to no avail.

#9

If they all went bad at once, it’s either your cloud account or the Z wave radio in your hub.

Support has been taking up to three days to get back to people since Black Friday. I believe you should’ve gotten an automated form letter that your request was received, though.

First, the easy stuff. (I understand you already did this step, I’m just putting it here for other people reading the thread) Just unplug the hub (and take out the batteries if there are any) and leave it off-line for about 15 minutes. Then when you plug it back in it will re-sync with your cloud account and that can sometimes solve the issue.

If that doesn’t fix it, check your account in the IDE, look under your devices, then at the hub and see if the Z wave radio says that it is operational.

If that says that it is operational, there are a couple of other things you can try, but they are more complicated and you might want to just wait for support since to tell the truth it’s probably a cloud issue. :scream:

#10

Do you have other zwave devices which are working?

#11

If I got a response in 3 days I would be elated. My issue is going on 3 weeks with only one response asking if I’m still seeing the problem… :slight_smile:

His issue almost sounds as if the Z-Wave radio has somehow shifted into a secondary controller. Before I moved to v3 I was playing around with controller shift and managed to disconnect all of my GE Z-Wave devices. (I knew I was going to break something, but was planning to migrate anyhow)

What I did find worked was to put the hub into inclusion and go around and press every paddle switch a couple times. This re-associated the device with the ST hub and all of the switches reconnected and came back to life.

#12

You say unavailable…Have you tried turning device health off?

#13

Yes, i had tried that. the GE devices still did not work by turning device health off. Thanks for the suggestion though. I appreciate the help!

#14

I already tried the inclusion mode suggestion, but it didn’t work.I agree that it appears their is something wrong with the zwave radio, as I have no problem with the zigbee devices, or even an arduino Wi-Fi sprinkler controller.

#15

Yes, non GE light switches (Zooz, Inovelli) and outlets. Only appears to be affecting my GE stuff.

#16

OK, If a bunch of GE switches all failed at once, you have other zwave devices which are working, and you’ve already tried unplugging the hub to force a re-sync with the cloud account, then the likely candidates are:

  1. A bad repeater somewhere which all of those devices happened to be using for routing. I know you said you ran a zwave repair: what error messages did you get?

  2. A cloud change in the DTH that is being used. Just as an example, twice the DTH used by GE devices was switched so that you had to press the top of the switch to turn it off and the bottom of the switch to turn it on. Each time this was fixed after a week or two, and each time there was no announcement of either the problem or the fix.

So go into the IDE and see what DTH they are using and if it is eligible to run locally or not. Compare that with the DTH which is being used by the Z wave devices which do work.

Try changing the DTH for one of the GE switches ( preferably the one which is physically closest to the hub) to the Z wave tweaker and see if the tweaker can communicate with the switch. You won’t be able to turn it on or off, but to see if you can get a report on the configuration. If you can, change that individual switch back to the previous DTH and see if it works then.

If the tweaker can’t communicate with the switch either, then you may just have to wait for support.

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#17

update: I changed the DTH to the light switch closest to the hub as you suggested, to the z-wave tweaker. A lot of information there, some of which i have no idea what it was saying, other than, it was indeed communicating with the switch!

I tried the next switch that I thought would be the route the mesh would take, then the third and finally the fourth. All four appeared to be fine.

For a while this last SAT/SUN, everything came up! I thought maybe Samsung took pity on me and somehow fixed my problem without my knowledge. But alas, after the “secret” update on Monday, I was back to GE/JASCO (15 total) devices not working again.

I decided to try the z-wave tweaker again, this time reading more about how to use it. A wonderful piece of software! I replaced the DTH, one at a time, for each GE/JASCO device. Ran it as suggested, saw that each device appeared to be working, then replaced the DTH again with the proper DTH. Each device came back, but I did have to do that to each and every GE/JASCO device I had. It took a while, but I am now 100% working. A z-wave repair even showed no errors. Thank you JDRoberts for suggesting z-wave tweaker, and David Lomas (codersaur) for creating such a wonderful tool!

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