Z-wave network issues

Devices & Integrations
1

Over the last week or so, i have added 2 switches (1 zwave, 1 zwave plus) 4 zwave motion sensors and something like 7 zwave contact sensors. Before these additions, my zwave network was absolutely rock solid for about 2 years. For some reason, after adding these devices, im having my first ever zwave network problems.

i have 61 total zwave devices. Before i chatted with tech support yesterday, i ran several zwave network repairs, from the app and the IDE. There were a couple of errors each time, but it was from devices i had taken out of service but not removed from Smartthings, so the errors were not surprising. Tech support said that once you close in on 40 zwave devices, a repair can cause issues.

They had me put the hub in pairing mode and, starting with the switches closest to the hub, just toggle them. That should communicate with the hub and since the hub is looking for devices, itll see the switches reaching out and reestablish their connection and communication. I did that, but it didnt help. My zwave switches are very inconsistent. Occasionally they respond immediately, like they used to, sometimes they are really slow (10-15 second delay) and every once in a while they seem to time out and just stop responding. Ill probably reach out to support again, but their chat system isnt available until 11am my time.

i have a few zwave motion and contact sensors that have also stopped reporting their status to ST. this is killing the majority of my automations, because i use motion and contact sensors for most of them.

The kicker is, i replaced a dozen or so zigbee devices because i was tired of fighting with 2.4Ghz interference knocking THOSE offline, and now im having similar issues with zwave.

So what else can i do? I went from an incredibly happy ST user that would defend it almost to the death, even despite the recent outages and issues, to someone thats quickly getting fed up and considering saving up to replace it with HomeSeer when i can afford it, and keep ST only for zigbee devices and linking the systems via IFTTT. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

2

Not true. I have more and repair works without a hitch.
I ha your issues and most of them were solved when I got my hub updated to 4.54 z-wave protocol
Send a PM request to @brad_st with your hub ID
See this Zwave Crashing and Rebooting - #35 by jasonrwise77

1 Like
3

I thought that number seemed really low since zwave can handle something like 232 devices on the network. Ill reach out to brad, thank you for the help.

also, ive seen people saying they used the Aeon a-stick as a secondary controller to see some more zwave utilities and for troubleshooting. is that worth the cash and setup? seems to be mixed feelings about how well it works with ST

4

Not useful for ST, which has limited functionality for secondary controllers. Plus you need additional software for it. I have it and all I used it for is to upgrade firmware on some devices.

1 Like
5

I saw it needed some software but i figured i would just run it on my server with a few other apps. Can you see network maps and other diagnostics with the software when its a secondary controller to ST?

6

No

Very little

Free software (IMA tools) if you can find it is at 2013 level. Paid is an arm and a leg

7
8

ive seen really mixed reviews. so with that hardware and the Zensys tools i could see a network map and even change routes? that seems really cool if it works like that. have you used it with ST?

9

You can’t change routes. Zwave is a self routing protocol. You can trick it by taking some devices offpower at the time that you add others to your account, but basically the network will choose its own routing. That’s sort of the point of mesh. :sunglasses:

For any other questions, ask in the FAQ thread. But read that thread first, most of the questions Have probably already been answered. :wink: