Support of OTA firmware updates for Z-Wave / Z-Wave Plus devices

Is there a plan to support OTA firmware updates for Z-Wave / Z-Wave Plus devices wia the SmartThings hub? It appears that only Zigbee devices are supported today. I have Leviton devices (DZ15S and DZ6HD) that need a firmware update for a functionality bug fix and I have no way of updating them. This is also a future security issue if it is not addressed.

Hub V2 Firmware 18.22

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Bumping up this questionā€¦ I have the same devices, which need an update to get the physical reporting to work reliably.

Could someone from Smartthings answer this question ?

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The community forum is not an official support channel with SmartThings, although individual staff members do participate here from time to time. You will likely get better support via the official channelā€¦

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+1 ticket submitted

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I did submit a SmartThings ticket and received this response. Also, Leviton has stopped answering my emails.


Daniel (SmartThings)

Dec 5, 3:37 PM MST

Hello there,

Thank you for contacting SmartThings today! Iā€™m so sorry youā€™re having trouble with updating your devices. I really apologize for the inconvenience as we do not have any info to report on that at this time. Thank you for contacting SmartThings today, if you have any other questions or concerns, please donā€™t hesitate to reach back out to us!

Best regards,

Daniel
Support Engineer


This seems pretty unreasonable that, a way was not required in the z-wave specifications to do firmware updates to connected devices. This should not even be a matter of adding support for it. They should have thought to require support for it in the protocol specificationsā€¦

Most of these devices donā€™t even have usb ports that can be used to update the firmware with by connecting them to a computer. What other way is there to update the firmware, other than to be required to buy another controller (that you donā€™t want to use) just to update the firmware with?

It is completely ridiculous. The only real option is to just hope that you donā€™t need the firmware updates, or buy another controller to be used only to update the firmware in your existing devices.

I completely agree. SmartThings should support it, and should have from the start. I guess we can all submit tickets until we get their attention.

I was told today by a product vendor that Iā€™d have to buy another controller that supports updates ($30Ā± they said)

This is what we have to do in the UK for ZigBee aswell as there is still no support for that yet!

Couldnā€™t agree more. Does anyone know what other hubs out there support Z-Wave firmware updates? Wink? Iris? HomeAssistant?

I agree too, this is a feature that should have priority but it seems to me like ST being invested in ZigBee treats Z-Wave like the ugly child even though in my opinion itā€™s the better protocolā€¦

At least the comming hub firmware (21.x) will finally bring the Z-Wave radio firmware to a much more recent version that should considerably improve the Z-Wave communication and Iā€™m hoping will solve the status going out of sync problems with these Leviton switches / dimmers.

That said, even if they implemented this, is there even a firmware update for the Leviton devices available? Last I heard from their support manager on the remotes not reporting issue is that their engineers are looking into a solution for the problem and he had placed me in a list to get notifiedā€¦ I somehow imagine their engeeners comming to work every day and steering at a bunch of switches and dimmers while drinking coffeeā€¦ Come on, after all this time I donā€™t think there will be a solution everā€¦

The new connect app allows device firmware updates. Unclear if it will be for all devices or just St

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What do you mean by ā€œthe new connect appā€ and how do you get there?

Currently, we do not have a concrete plan in terms of timing to provide the functionality to OTA for Z-Wave plus devices. I understand you would like to and hopefully I can do a better job of escalating that to higher ups so we can get more resources to provide this functionality.

In terms of Z-Wave development, we are currently working on a newer stack that supports Z-Wave S2 security, it also provides some minor improvements such as clear picture of the network graph and statistics, ability to change path and maybe the later is available in post S2 releases, but trust me, we are trying to improve and keep up.

I personally would like more of your input about Z-Wave, so feel free to PM or post here. Itā€™s hard to show progress and our determination sometimes, so be patient as well. Hopefully, as we grow bigger, more resources can be added to help out

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Thanks for the update Kianoosh, the new Z-Wave firmware currently in Beta is a considerable improvement! I have not had switches/dimmers showing wrong status or hanging since I got it and things seem to be running smoother.

Some of the things you mention sound really cool but I do think firmware OTA updates should indeed have priority as such updates are usually much more than just cosmetical and fix device bugs that do considerably affect the user experienceā€¦

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Sounds good, what are some devices you would think an OTA would be a considerable user experience upgrade?

Sure, Iā€™ll give you what Iā€™ve encountered:

  • I have a couple of Aeotec Garage Door Openers, when triggered manually with the button they were not sending the notification to the controller so status was going out of sync. A firmware update was available and thankfully I had a friend with a Z-Wave stick so I finally managed to upgrade it but the whole process was a Huge PITA which included multiple exclusions and inclusions and having to resync the door sensors,etc. After all that status notifications are working fineā€¦ that said these are sitting in a box right now as I moved and have not had time to install them but the point standsā€¦

  • The Leviton Z-Wave Plus Switches and Dimmers have a problem where manual use from their matching remote on a 3-way setup does not trigger the main device to send the hail command they use for status notification, so in this specific case the status of the devices goes out of sync. Leviton support acknowledged the problem and said are working on it long long time ago but nothing so far, this will likely need a firmware update.

In the Leviton case, a firmware update is not actually available at the moment but I believe it already exists (the Z-Wave certification shows a version higher than the one my devices have) and the only reason they have customers waiting is that they do not have a way to distribute it. On all the research and reading I have done I have learned (might not be fully accurate) Z-Wave OTA firmware updates are not encrypted so device manufacturers are reluctant to give them directly to customers, the ones that do (aeotec, HomeSeer) have developed a software that has the firmware encrypted to protect their IP and you can only upgraded using that softwareā€¦ IF ST were to support this, Iā€™m sure with the help of NDAā€™s, etc. manufactures would be more willing to distribute their firmware updates through itā€¦

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Thank you for very detailed response. I really do appreciate it. I will try to see what I can do, I really want to give the users some of the features that I talked about few posts earlier, but I will try to do my best to prioritize this feature. Sorry if that sounds generic and not promising, but I will try my best

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No, thank you! :slight_smile:

And those features you have in mind do really sound cool and useful so regardless of order Iā€™m sure weā€™ll have funā€¦

All GE 127xx switches have some firmware updates however, the current stock DTH for all of GEā€™s type of Z-Wave dimmers (switches/plug in outlets etc) for later firmware version have an issue where sending a ā€˜set levelā€™ type of command will cause the dimmer to jump directly to that level instead of gradually fading to the requested level.

So for example if the light is off and I set the level to 100, it will instantly go from off to 100 whereas older versions will gradually increase from off through to 100 just fine. If the previous level was 100 and the light is turned off, then issued a ā€˜turn onā€™ command without a ā€˜set levelā€™ it will gradually go from off to 100 like you would expect it to.

I have both types of firmware versions:

ver:3.35 zwv:3.40 = works as expected
ver:3.37 zwv:3.67 = doesnā€™t work as expected (jumps to set level instead of fading)

There are some configuration parameters that supposedly control this:

http://www.ezzwave.com/advanced-operation/

There are loads of discussions around this issue on the ST community and a few other places around the Internet but here are a couple examples:

However, the most telling and finally a decent response seems to have come from Jasco on the quoted text in this post:

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,50391.msg332062.html#msg332062

Itā€™s not clear if this parameter 6 is also available to the 12724 dimmers that do suffer this issue but would require modification of the stock DTH to accompany the newer firmware version dimmers with the issue however, fixing this would benefit a vast number of SmartThings users as the GE Z-Wave dimmers (of all types and generations) are probably by far the most popular.

Another OTA firmware update that would be nice but would only benefit a smaller subset of people is for the AEON RGBW Bulb, the newer version can be found here:

There is a popular DTH written by @erocm1231 that takes advantage of all of the cool options available on this bulb, including the new features in the newer firmware, so it would be great if that OTA update were available too:

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