I’ve had an Everspring for about a month and it worked fine to turn on/off Christmas tree lights. I took down the tree and wanted to move the switch to a new location to control a different light. Now, the unit no longer responds to zwave commands and I have some questions about next steps. The unit works find in it’s manual mode, turning on/off lights when the red lighted button is pushed. And, I have tried the following:
moved the unit close to the hub to ensure it’s not out of range
tried the unit in the exact same socket
and last, but not least, I have actually read the manufacturer’s directions to no avail.
Questions:
How can I tell whether the unit has gone defective OR whether there is a communications problem or other with the hub?
When I try to remove the switch from the network (so I can re-add it to see if that solves the problem) I get the following cryptic message from Smartthing hub:
“Please follow the manufacturer’s instruction to remove this zwave device from Smartthings” followed by (after pressing Force Delete) “If you force delete this zwave device it may not be able to join your hub again until it is excluded by a controller”. I don’t exactly understand the consequences of this action and don’t want to do it to further take me down a potential wrong road. Is this what I need to do to remove the unit from the network?
ZWave repair appears to have worked (thanks Brian for the pointer) and the unit is now working again in it’s original location. Now I’d like to move it to a new location and I have a whole bunch of questions:
Is there a description of the process to dependably and reliably drop the device from the network? Adding back in a new location I know how to do and is pretty clear in the documentation.
The process for removing right now suffers from some usability and perhaps functionality problems. Functionally, it seems like a straight forward enough request to remove a device and get positive affirmation that it has been removed. Going through a zwave repair to drop the device isn’t the most intuitive (to say the least). I probably lost an hour trying to figure out what was going on.
I’ve read in some instructions some warnings to not move device once configured as the mesh network is aware of device locations. Are all ZWave devices so location dependent? Is it a function of the device or the hub? Why doesn’t the mesh network detect movement and reconfigure?
Some devices I have moved with no problems. Why is it that some devices suffer from the problem and others do not?
The zwave repair won’t drop it from the network. You’ll have to go through the exclusion and inclusion process to fully drop it and bring it back on. What likely happened is it just lost its location. It was thinking it was Device A and it used the path of Device B and Device C to get back to the hub.
If you moved it closer to the hub than Device C, it would still try and go to Device B, then Device C and back to the hub when it could just go straight to the hub if a zwave repair was done.
It’s a function of the concept of a mesh network. Mesh networks rely on neighboring devices to use for hops to get the signal back to the hub and out to the devices. They learn the quickest routes for getting signals to and from the hub. Pulling a device out of the middle of that route can cause the network to respond more slowly or to lose track of devices all together (there’s also the possibility it puts them out of range of the next closest repeating device).
I found that things work as they should when the instructions are followed as provided when you purchase the switch. When installing the switch for the first time, turning it on and off and on will identify it to the hub. I ran into problems when I moved the switch from one location to another without deactivating the device first and then reactivating it. I thought I could just move it where ever I wanted. However, I have learned that the way the mesh network works, is that it remembers the routing and if you change it, without the hub knowing, it gets confused. Here is an explanation sent to me: "The zwave repair won’t drop it from the network. You’ll have to go through the exclusion and inclusion process to fully drop it and bring it back on. What likely happened is it just lost its location. It was thinking it was Device A and it used the path of Device B and Device C to get back to the hub.
If you moved it closer to the hub than Device C, it would still try and go to Device B, then Device C and back to the hub when it could just go straight to the hub if a zwave repair was done.
It’s a function of the concept of a mesh network. Mesh networks rely on neighboring devices to use for hops to get the signal back to the hub and out to the devices. They learn the quickest routes for getting signals to and from the hub. Pulling a device out of the middle of that route can cause the network to respond more slowly or to lose track of devices all together (there’s also the possibility it puts them out of range of the next closest repeating device)."