Domoticz on Raspi or something else

[Koensk]

Hi all,
I'm using Domoticz for a few years at home now.
At my work (a restaurant) I used Fibaro HC Lite to control my z-wave, switches etc. As I thought this was a better idea since the HC Lite is a commercial product and I was in the understanding this should work a bit safer and better than Domoticz.
It turned out I was very wrong. Firbaro Home Center didn't work as expected, stalls freezes is unreachable etc. In a restaurant with staff working not a very convenient way.
So I thought why wouldn't I just put my raspberry pi and just include all of my sensors and start using this.
At first everything went perfect, but now when I start adding more and more z-wave switches Domoticz starts to have some issues.
Not always a switch works and I need to reboot the raspberry Pi. I find this pretty strange as normally the z-wave network should grow stronger everytime a new sensor is added.
What's the best deal for me? Maybe should I not use a Raspberry Pi for the job but a more stronger piece of hardware?

Some info
Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Rev 1.1
Version: 4.9700
Build Hash: a3a45906
Compile Date: 2018-06-23 16:24:51
dzVents Version: 2.4.6
Python Version: None

[PetervandePol]

Maybe the Raspberry is not able to process all the data? I can imagine that there will be multiple people using the system. The weak side of the raspberry is the slow SD card which is also vulnarable. I therefore changed it for a very cheap fanless mini pc which works like a charm and much much faster than the raspberry.

Hope this helps..

[Koensk]

Hi thanks for the idea.
Which pc did you buy?

[Siewert308SW]

How many devices are we talking?
As for your staff, are they all using the system or is it just twice a day to switch on/off light?
As for me (household) a RPI3 with 40 z-wave several 433mhz devices several Lua scripts and running it's root on a unpowered hdd is rock stable.
Since running on external hdd in 2016 the system failed twice due to one time my error and one time due to wrong beta update.
Lua events responds quick and don't see any delay in z-wave devices switching status.
CPU usage is low so i think want you want is possible.
My main concern (as you mentioned) unstable z-wave network is that your mesh network is bad.
Could be a range problem

[Koensk]

Hi Siewert thx for your reply.

It's only a twice a day thing here. Nothing exiting
Maybe buying a new Rasp will be a good idea. You have an unpowered hdd? So instead of a usb stick or sdd? So is that faster.
I have an unstable z-wave network as some of the switches are in a nearby supply-unit. Some of the switches have a good connection like a fibaro motion detector and some door switches, but there is one fibaro 2x1500 realais which is causing some trouble now and then.
But does this affect the whole z-wave network? I wouldn't think so. Switches that are within reach should normally always work right?

I only have +/- 20 zwave switches and 4 433mhz devices

[emme]

seems to me you have a zwave mesh issue rather than a pi/HC one...

example:
my PI uses:
Domoticz: zWave with 30 devices (switces and valves), RF433
NodeRed holing::
Alexa
BLE presence
KNX synch
Fritz Presence via TR69
Kodi/Volumio Network commands (4 devices in total)
EspEasy Newtork value transmitting
InfluxDB
Grafana

and I'm not experiencing any issue with the hardware

first try is to heil the network (will take about 3 hours so maybe do it at close time) and see the result
then check via SSH using top or htop if there are application that are draining CPU
issue a df -h and see if you have free memory/space

since you're using it in a work environment I suggest to NOT use the SD Card but a SSD Disk
ciao
M

[febalci]

I can almost guarantee you that it is not a PC or rpi problem but zwave. I have been using an Intel i7 NUC, but i also have Zwave issues like dropped or dead nodes, showing open blinds altough it is closed etc. I have been struggling ZWave for over 2 yrs and it has never been stable. I increased the number of nodes, tried almost everything. Now i blame it to openzwave; last thing i am going to try is to compile openzwave 1.5 instead of 1.4 and domoticz from source...

[Koensk]

first try is to heil the network (will take about 3 hours so maybe do it at close time) and see the result

This actually did the trick for me. Everything stable again.