Hi everyone! I have a couple of noob questions after more than doubling the number of Z-wave switches in my house:
How long does it take for a Z-wave repair to take effect? It’s been over 24 hours since I ran it, and my Z-wave routes are still a mess (see screenshots). I consistently get an error from the (old) Zooz switch at my front door when I run the Z-wave repair. Is that why the mesh will not update? What do you suggest doing about this?
Why is the Samsung WiFi mesh network not helping my Z-wave network? I’m using the Samsung SmartThings 3 Pack ET-WV525KWEGUS, but all the Z-wave communication seems to go back to the first of these 3 routers. Can I just bring it to the area with the highest concentration of switches to shorten my routes?
Is Z-wave tweaker still the best way for setting up direct association between switches? I’m using GE and Zooz switches and dimmer switches.
What specific error are you getting for that device? And, yes, it might be significant if it’s a repeater which is used by a number of your other devices. See the FAQ.
Note in particular that “failed to update mesh information” won’t cause a problem for the network if that particular device was a battery powered device because they don’t act as repeaters. But if that device is a repeater, it can’t be used in routing until the error message goes away, so you can lose access to a lot of other devices down the line.
As to how long it takes, it varies, but 24 hours should be long enough.
The Wi-Fi subhubs are just like any other Z wave repeater on your network, like another light switch or another plug-in pocketsocket. They don’t have any special powers. In general they will be ignored by your other Z wave devices unless they are needed as a repeater, but they are not going to be the destination for a message: that will always be the primary hub, if that’s what you were asking.
The primary hub should be located centrally in your home, both horizontally and vertically, and that will shorten the route most of the time, although not always: it depends on signal strength and message traffic. if it’s convenient to you to move it into the zone where most of your Z wave devices are, that’s fine, as long as devices in the other part of the house still have routes back to it.
As far as direct association, if you are using a custom DTH which allows you to set the associations, that’s a good way to do it. Otherwise, yes, the tweaker is the easiest. note however that associations can only be set between devices of equal or higher security levels. So if you have any devices which are using S2 security, they can only be associated to other devices also using S2 security.
The error from the front porch switch is “failed to update mesh information”. It’s a wall switch that is not a repeater for anything, so it really should not matter.
The switches I’m trying to associate are all relatively new and (so far) totally stock. It’s just taking way too long (15 seconds) for all of them to switch off after I send the scene command.
Do you see the same delay when you just tap the switch tile in the smartthings app?
If not, if you put just two switches in the scene, do you see the same delay?
And how many devices do you have in the scene? They do tend to bog down if you have a lot of them. That’s a smartthings issue, not a zwave issue, so the repair can’t help.
OK, in that case it’s not a zwave issue, so the repair won’t help, although eventually you want to figure out what’s going on with that one switch with the error message.
The issue is Smartthings having trouble with that many devices in either one scene or one automation.
If you’re OK with a slight “popcorn effect“ where some of the lights go off a few seconds before others, maybe the downstairs goes off before the upstairs or vice versa, you can break them up into multiple scenes where each scene includes a virtual switch which becomes a trigger for the next scene. That way you were only activating one scene at a time.
I’m not feeling very well this morning so I need to go into the details of that method if you don’t already know how to do it. Or someone else may have a better way of getting around the issue.
I’m sure you can do it and get the end result you want, it’s just going to take some annoying set up work.
note however that associations can only be set between devices of equal or higher security levels. So if you have any devices which are using S2 security, they can only be associated to other devices also using S2 security.