Z-Wave Mess

Devices & Integrations
1

Hello, I set up my ST v1 hub a while back with about 10 devices attached, 5 of which were z wave.

After about a week or two, the z-wave devices started acting up, and eventually stopped working altogether. I’ve reset the hub (hard reset by deleting the location), unpaired all devices, tried pairing all one at a time. The Z-wave protocol seems to be messed up.

  • The hub will recognize and include new z-wave devices
  • Once they have been included, they do not work - cannot be controlled and will not read into the app
  • Z-wave repair in the ST app returns mesh errors and some routing errors
  • When I try to exclude any z-wave, the ST app says “Incorrect device excluded”. So clearly once the device is included, the hub more or less stops recognizing it.
  • I will typically force exclude the device, then try and do a general exclusion. But it is not clear to me that the devices recognize they have been excluded.

I am at my wit’s end. I’ve spent a dozen or more hours troubleshooting this hub. I bought new zigbee motion sensors, but for some devices, the only good versions are z-wave.

Is this a hub issue, some other issue . . . does anybody know what might be going on, other steps I can take, or if I should just give up and sell the entire thing on Craigslist?

Thanks

Jeff

2

I suggest contacting support.

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3

Yeah, I just did. Was wondering if this was something anyone else has run into as well.

4

If you stay, this will be your new reality. It will get better. Then it will get worse. Then they will promise to make it better. Then it will get a little better. Then it will be too late. Good luck.

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5

Similar but seems like you covered quite a lot. Support is generally pretty good stepping you through this.

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6

By any chance do you have any Sonos devices connected to your ST account? For reasons which make no engineering sense, but still seem to be true, smart things will lose the ability to talk to Zwave devices when more than one Sonos device is attached. It appears to be some kind of flooding issue, not direct interference. Just removing the Sonos devices from SmartThings account will magically make the Z wave devices start working again. That may not have anything to do with what you’re seeing, but just in case:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Bug:_Sonos_integration_causes_network_failure

7

Thanks. So would it be your opinion, then, that SmartThings is unreliable as a security system? I’m intending to use it as partial security, partial automation. If the automation devices cut out, it’s fine. But if the security system works only sporadically, maybe I’m better off getting a different system.

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8

I would not use smart home monitor right now as a security system.
You can look at smart alarm and use it with modes.
It still is not 100% reliable… If you want that look elsewhere, but if you want say 95% reliable that is what I am getting.
I get like one failure a month at two different locations when the mode changes but it fails to disarm…

but even with this I get notified of an intrusion… I have not had that fail at least.

9

That is actually totally reasonable. If I could get 95%, I would be happy.

10

I’ve been using my hub v2 as a security system for the past month and its been reliable 99% of the time using SHM. It failed to disarm once. I use a mix of zigbee and z-wave door and motion sensors. YMMV

11

Many of us would be trilled with 95% reliability. Many of us get much lower than that.

If you want a security system, buy a security system. If you want a HA hobby product, ST is okay.

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