Fixing Z-Wave for once and for all!

[Plantje]

Ok, but it is hindering my Domoticz implementation. Because, I think my scripts are not running as they should because of all of these errors.

[heggink]

I had a major z-wave heart attack yesterday: over the past couple of weeks, I switched from my older Pi3/WD PiDrive to a new P4 with SSD. Largely build everything from scratch (having done 2 major rasbian release upgrades, that seemed appropriate) except domoticz where I copied my config across. Everything worked flawless (apart from the fact that many years of running domoticz leads to a LOT of work migrating that over).

As part of the 'upgrade' I also completely cleaned up the electrical cabinet: bought a 10" 9U cabinet to put all the equipment in there (modem, router, switch, Pi, power connectors, network cables, ..). Yesterday evening was the final task: cutting surplus power cable and replacing male Schuko with C14 connectors to connect straight to my UPS.

Shut down the Pi gracefully, powered everything off, did the cable work and powered everything back on to find that everything started up just fine EXCEPT z-wave: all devices were gone both from domoticz and from the OZW control panel (completely empty, not even the controller) . Not good . Checking cable leads, replugging the aeotec gen5 adapter (all USB devices have their own names through udev rules). No change. Reboot. No change. Minor panic kicking in since I have a TON of zwave devices many of which are inaccessible (behind stuff).

Lot's of googling, no real answers, more googling until, out of the blue, all of a sudden devices reappeared out of nowhere. Must have been 30 minutes or so .

Happy that everything is back to normal. Rather unhappy with the fact that I have absolutely NO idea what happened and the fact that it could therefore happen again. Everything is completely stable ever since but I lost quite some hair over this and what\s left turned grey instantly...

(sigh)

[Alcloud]

I have absolutely NO idea what happened and the fact that it could therefore happen again

I had the same problem yesterday (and maybe many people). It fixed with the last beta.
You can find some Info here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35767

[kiddigital]

I had a major z-wave heart attack yesterday: ...

Lot's of googling, no real answers, more googling until, out of the blue, all of a sudden devices reappeared out of nowhere. Must have been 30 minutes or so .

...

Good to hear that things are ok now.

I think it is good to understand that in these type of ‘connected devices networks’ like Z-Wave (but same could be said probably for ZigBee, LoRa, etc.) most devices are dormant most of the time to save (battery)power. So it can take some time before they have woken up and reported their status.

Therefor the controller only knows about everything in its surroundings after some time. Yes the controller can ‘request’ devices to report asap but again it depends on if/how devices have been build to listen/respond to these type of requests. Some devices have buttons/switches to wake them, but some do not (or are out of reach as they have been ‘integrated’ in something like behind a wall, etc.)

That means we as users have to have some patience sometimes before everything is ‘known’ again.

[heggink]

Understood but then at least the controller should show up. There was literally nothing. Nothing in the log and nothing in OZW. It didn't even recognise the controller which is a prerequisite for finding any device. The controller was connected through USB but it just didn't show in ozw...

Anyways, everything back to normal ever since but it freaked me out...

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[Plantje]

I've had this at times as well. Z-Wave definitely taught me to be patient!

Understood but then at least the controller should show up. There was literally nothing. Nothing in the log and nothing in OZW. It didn't even recognise the controller which is a prerequisite for finding any device. The controller was connected through USB but it just didn't show in ozw...

Now that you mention it, that is really strange! I would also expect the controller to be there.

Ok, currently I am on 13064 and I am seeing the same issue as with 13051 there is a sh*t load of messages like these coming along:
OpenZWave: Invalid counter value received

This is to a point where I think logging the errors starts hindering normal operation. I have some scripts that use values of a multi sensor, but the lights connected to the script just stay on. No matter what I change to the script.

I know this is related to "cheap Chinese nodes", but it is weird that all of a sudden it pops up and it may all of a sudden be gone again. Let's see if version 13034 doesn't throw those errors.

I have a lot of these messages:

Code: Select all

 Error: OpenZWave: Invalid counter value received!: (-21474770.000000) Node: 15 (0x0f), CommandClass: METER, Instance: 1, Index: 0, Id: 0xF4C8012

They are related to a neo coolcam z-wave powerswitch. I have multiple, but this one is a newer version, which randomly sends wrong data. It just the cheap ass Neo Coolcam that's doing this. Nothing wrong with the z-wave implementation in domoticz.

Yes, I have read this before. So, yesterday I did a refresh node info, but didn't fix the issue. After that I cut the power in my fuse box (this smart plug is connected to my washing machine that has its own group) and left it like that for almost a day. Then I switched on the group again today and the notifications immediately started coming in again.
HOWEVER....after running the washing machine and it was done, I switched off the washing machine and the errors disappeared in the same way as they appeared. They just stopped... Would be nice if the creator of Domoticz would somehow ignore these exact values and not show them in the error log as I think it is keeping my Domoticz from running properly.

Now back to the battery levels not being displayed correctly...
The past few days, I noticed some smoke detectors not displaying the temperature. The battery levels lookg ok-ish. After replacing the battery, the temperatures immediately started coming in again, but the battery level still was at the old value. I currently have two other of those things, so I will test it again.

Smoke detectors.jpg (82.39 KiB) Viewed 2912 times

Temperatures.jpg (140.44 KiB) Viewed 2912 times

Temperatures after replacing battery.jpg (9.65 KiB) Viewed 2912 times

[Plantje]

So, focus on the one in the garage here...

It was last seen 11-3-2021 at 14:09:46 and has no battery indication. Temperature was last sent a day ago. Makes sense as the detector did not respond at all, so the battery was completely dead.
Replaced the battery and IMMEDIATELY saw the temperature being updated! I took my cell phone along and this was instantly!

Node info.jpg (13.87 KiB) Viewed 2911 times

However, looking at the node info it DOES show it was last seen 21:35 today, but no battery info.

If you look at the first picture, the same goes for the one in "Zolder/washok". It was 20% yesterday and not displaying temperature data. I exchanged the battery and immediately it started showing temperature data. However, battery level is still at 20%!

I don't mind replacing batteries often. I know that is a burden of using rechargeable batteries. But then I need to be able to rely on correct level notification. This I cannot do right now. If I am being notified that it is at a low level, I can replace the battery in a timely manner. This does happen with my Danfoss radiator knobs.

And I am not talking about cheap Chinese made smoke detectors here! These are Fibaro smoke detectors!

[Plantje]

One more addition: just did a check and ALL of my smoke detectors had the parameters set to default again

[AntoonvdOetelaar]

I just red that Open z wave is kind of dead... in terms of development, it's a pitty.
Zwave JS could be the next step: https://zwave-js.github.io/node-zwave-js/#/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjcF2g4G-_U
Already used in Home Assistent.

[Plantje]

Hmmm.... that would suck...

[krizzz]

Wow, that would be a dead end for zwave in Domoticz.


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[madpatrick]

Does it mean Open Z-wave will EOL or is this a new parallel development for zwave device
I still see some development on hardware product, like Fibaro (still limited on other brands)

[kiddigital]

I don’t think Z-wave is dead. The protocol, the alliance and product vendors still produce products that use the Z-wave protocol for their products.

That is similar to for example ZigBee.

The fact that there is an Open Source implementation of this protocol has been an enabling factor for more adoption. Example Domoticz having native support for Zwave. Which is not possible for ZigBee for example.

Remember that the Open Zwave implementation has been the result of hard work and reverse engineering from volunteers and NOT from the commercial field. For example the Z-Wave alliance could take up this or at least sponsor some core developers.

Maybe and hopefully additional developers will start participating now one of the key maintainers decided to step down.

Any volunteers here?

[waaren]

I just red that Open z wave is kind of dead... in terms of development, it's a pitty.

What is the source of your information?
Last thing I red was that the lead developer more or less stepped down but there are still others working it.

Only in the last 30 days or so 40 commits were merged into the master branch of OpenZwave.

[AntoonvdOetelaar]

Sorry, I don't remember the exact location where it was stated, but the story in general was that the lead developer stepped down (I read this also from more replies in this thread) and not many did contribute beside him.
I really hope that others step in and get it better. To my opinion up to the 1.4 it went all quite well, 1.6 was a pain together with domoticz. Not sure where really the problem was related to, domoticz or Open Z wave. For a couple of points it was for sure domoticz.

I am still on 2020.2 stable, I know z wave improvements have been made in the beta's, but also problems arrised (it's a beta) however I see not much about the current beta. Could it be a good moment to update?

[waaren]

About the current beta. Could it be a good moment to update?

I would wait just a little bit longer. In (very) recent Beta's a performance issue came up related to Python Plugins in combination with (a large amount) of event scripts.
See issue 4727

[Plantje]

I just red that Open z wave is kind of dead... in terms of development, it's a pitty.
Zwave JS could be the next step: https://zwave-js.github.io/node-zwave-js/#/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjcF2g4G-_U
Already used in Home Assistent.

Wow, that would be a dead end for zwave in Domoticz.

I don’t think Z-wave is dead. The protocol, the alliance and product vendors still produce products that use the Z-wave protocol for their products.

The fact that there is an Open Source implementation of this protocol has been an enabling factor for more adoption. Example Domoticz having native support for Zwave. Which is not possible for ZigBee for example.

Remember that the Open Zwave implementation has been the result of hard work and reverse engineering from volunteers and NOT from the commercial field. For example the Z-Wave alliance could take up this or at least sponsor some core developers.

Maybe and hopefully additional developers will start participating now one of the key maintainers decided to step down.

Any volunteers here?

I just red that Open z wave is kind of dead... in terms of development, it's a pitty.

What is the source of your information?
Last thing I red was that the lead developer more or less stepped down but there are still others working it.

Only in the last 30 days or so 40 commits were merged into the master branch of OpenZwave.

Sorry, I don't remember the exact location where it was stated, but the story in general was that the lead developer stepped down (I read this also from more replies in this thread) and not many did contribute beside him.
I really hope that others step in and get it better. To my opinion up to the 1.4 it went all quite well, 1.6 was a pain together with domoticz. Not sure where really the problem was related to, domoticz or Open Z wave. For a couple of points it was for sure domoticz.

I am still on 2020.2 stable, I know z wave improvements have been made in the beta's, but also problems arrised (it's a beta) however I see not much about the current beta. Could it be a good moment to update?

Wait wait wait.... looks like this taking a wrong turn, right? AntoonvdOetelaar points out that for Home Assistant a switch from Open Z-Wave to Z-Wave Node Js is being made. In the video it is pointed out that the implementation of Open Z-Wave WITHIN Home Assistant is being deprecated. So, I don't think that Open Z-Wave in general will be deprecated. It is somewhat of a risk that it is being developed by one developer...
Worst case Domoticz can also switch to Z-Wave Node Js, right?

[waltervl]

Check here viewtopic.php?f=24&t=35082

[lost]

Worst case Domoticz can also switch to Z-Wave Node Js, right?

Would not be good news. Domoticz/OZW are coded in C/C++ and it's a good point vs others (like Jeedom: mostly PHP), especially for those running the system on a PI. JS (and PHP) were not designed to drive hardware...

This is IMO a real concern for zwave. As 700 generation that does not look to succeed for now (going from a 8051 based µC to an ARM one is a big change for whole ecosystem).

[Plantje]

Sigh.... More and more I get the feeling, that I would be better off switching to an Atom Homey.
I've spent years using my own TV tuners and software to record live TV. A while ago I switched to the box provided by the cable company and it has been a breeze!

I started this topic to get more insight in how to get and keep a stable Z-Wave network in Domoticz, but if development is halted on (parts of) my home automation.... I don't know


Edit: I read Fishwaldo's reasoning and I understand. It's a mad world