Why are my zwave+ devices giving me such grief?

For a long time, since I added my first zwave+ device really, it’s been nothing but grief. Initially it was one or two specific devices - namely the motion activated switches. I blamed it on the fact that they were on 3-ways and probably shouldn’t be, I don’t think they can accommodate the add-on correctly.

Lately, though, it’s every zwave+ device in the house - water heater module, a regular switch, two color bulbs, all gone haywire and irregularly responding to timed events. The wife and I are getting tired of not having hot water in the morning.

I’ve tried a zwave heal numerous times - nothing. I restarted my hub this morning, too.

Is it time to fire up the pi and try to get HASS running?

Any errors during the z-wave repair? What has support said?

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The only reason HASS may be better, is that you start over building your mesh. I would run repairs and watch the logs for ghost devices, then contact support to remove them for you. It might be an easier fix than starting over with a new controller. Also, if motion sensors are not responding and no errors pop up in the repair logs, I would add a few more mains powered devices to strengthen the mesh.

I’ve always had z-wave reliability, even with a large mesh, although lately it’s been really good. Zigbee has been rock solid. In fact, I’m eliminating more and more z-wave devices with zigbee where I can.

Doing a z-wave repair doesn’t really help much for fixing a device, but what it does is finding the poorly behaving device. When you find one, or suspect you have one, is to try the Replace function for the device. If it times out, or the IDE event log says “Err 115: Device not considered failed”, then try another close by zwave device. Something in your zwave mesh is causing you grief, and once you find it and fix it things will get better.

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Oh, oh, and one more thing… Z-Wave bulbs, you say? Hmmm I would just get rid of those… But that’s just based on my personal experience :wink:

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I completely agree with that statement, which is also supported by my experience.

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The only Z-Wave devices that ever give me grief are my Z-Wave Plus devices. I often have badly delayed status updates in the app and have them go ‘unavailable.’ It’s not limited to the same type of device/manufacturer either. Simply doesn’t happen with my Z-Wave Classic devices.

I’m probably 90-95% Z-Wave Classic.

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So just to follow up on this nearly a month later. It seems there was a failure that went through all of my zwave+ devices, which are more or less in one area of my home. Two motion sensing switches, a water heater switch, and two rgb lights, all zwave+. Other classic zwave switches in the general area - no problems.

I think this started with a frequently occurring failure with one of the motion sensor switches, which fail I think because they’re set up on a three-way and I’m not sure they’re capable of that set up. Anyway, like links on a chain - that switch failed, the water heater switch failed, the two rgb lights failed. I had to go through quite a bit of troubleshooting to exclude each of them individually, but I think I have it figured out now.

BTW, I have 4 zwave bulbs in other areas of the house, all working perfectly, never given me trouble. Love 'em. They’re linked to virtual three-way switches so I can manually dim, turn on, etc. My favorite devices.