Critical thoughts on zwavejs2mqtt integration

[Hencor]

Hello,

I'm a little frustrated right now, because of the "new" zwave integration in domoticz.
For several years I'm running domoticz now and one big advantage was the easy protocol integration. Just select from a dropdown to integrate some new fancy hardware. I started my smart home with just zwave components. So there was just one system with an easy approach on zwave - domoticz.

BUT, with the new zwavejs2mqtt integration I'm very very unhappy. I just tried to make it run the last 3 days with no success and I would say I'm not inexperienced on setting up something on my raspberry pi. But the thing with docker and docker-compose and mosquito and zwavejs is just to heavy. There are to docker versions, v1.2 v2.2?? How to install a container? Why this is just copying files? And the wiki articles just are a kind of link collections. Maybe I'm too old (29 years) for this sh**...

Hopefully domoticz will bethink oneself to its old virtues of an easy approach integrating different smart home protocols...

[heggink]

Well, what's the alternative? Since OZW is pretty much abandoned, there is a need to find an alternative. Since this is all open source, the most widely used product is zwavejs2mqtt. Home assistant has also adopted if as it's main zwave interface which means that it currently has the best longevity.
The additional advantage of a more loosely coupled integration is that you can now update either component independently: is you need some new zwave function but want to start on a domoticz stable then that is fine (which wasn't the case before).

The downside is that you do indeed need 2 additional components: mosquitto and zwavejs2mqtt. I believe these are easiest installed using docker (which is what most of the wiki's) use but you can also install natively. But yes, these is a change. That change is inevitable as OZW, IMHO, is unsustainable. That's not a domoticz problem.

Happy to help getting things to work. Just shout.

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[Hencor]

Yes I know there is hardly any alternative. I just needed to express my disappointment of this approach and may to trigger a rethink of it.
Isn‘t there a way to integrate a mqtt broker and zwavejs2mqtt through the domoticz gui? „Just“ as a hardware integration? You see I see this totally from a endusers perspective.
Thanks for your offer for help. I will may come back to it if I can‘t eliminate my todays confusion by myself.

[heggink]

That would not be a bad idea. I guess domoticz is a bit more diy than HA is. I like it because I can build things that would take muuuch more time and hassle in HA but I recognize that I am happy to build things. That's why some people switch to HA as they are less of a hobbyist.

2 things make the idea somewhat of a challenge:
1) someone needs to do the work since this is open source
2) domoticz runs on many different platforms and spinning up mosquitto is totally different for eg Windows vs Raspbian vs ... This is where docker is a great answer but, even there, there is config decisions (where to run the broker, what ports, authentication or not, ..) so it takes some creative thinking.

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[Hencor]

I guess domoticz is a bit more diy than HA is. I like it because I can build things that would take muuuch more time and hassle in HA but I recognize that I am happy to build things. That's why some people switch to HA as they are less of a hobbyist.

That‘s interesting. I always thought domoticz is the most not-diy solution. But I have no experience in HA at all. And yes, I can much build around domoticz and integrate it. May my opinion is just outdated, I mean I started with domoticz 12 years ago. And may I just shifted from a hobbyist more to „normal user“ in that time…
But to switch to a whole new system needs also a big amount of time and I like the user interface of domoticz a lot. (And that’s very powerfull out of the box IMHO)

[heggink]

Same here. Been on domoticz from a pi2. I had big issues with OZW so co-developed the zwavejs plugin with moroen until gizmocuz decided to give autodiscovery a go.

Moving both zigbee and zwave to mqtt were a couple of bug changes for me which took quite some effort but was very much worth it in the end.

Again, let me know how I can help get your system to work with zwavejs. It should be relatively straightforward.

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[Bliepie]

Hi,
I understand what Hencor is saying, I also struggling to get everything installed correctly on windows 10.
You have to invest a lot of time in how to install dockers and MQTT and what settings you need to do in these software packages before you can install zwavejs2mqtt.

If you have no experience with these different pieces of software it is difficult to get Domoticz working with zwave.
It would be helpful for existing and new Domoticz users who do not have much software experience that there is a good tutorial describing each step of the process.

[lost]

That‘s interesting. I always thought domoticz is the most not-diy solution.

IMO, Domoticz was able to cope with a quite large user base. Just see the amount of scripting options with blockly/lua, for low/medium skilled users in computer science, a JSON API that was able to interface with almost any language. Now python/plugins.

I also really dislike the way zwave integration in domoticz go. I always dislike useless complexity & even with a few quirks, OZW always proved OK for me. And I'm almost 100% zwave.+ JS language was not designed for this kind of application (handling HW/protocol stack). Even sigma design released libraries were not given a chance, maybe they should have built a OZW compatibility wrapper layer to ease integration...

[heggink]

My intention was not to debate pros and cons of the different integration options and decisions but merely to indicate that, for many people including myselt, there was a strong requirement for a different approach.

Since this is open source, the best way is then to contribute which is when, with moroen, we built the python plugin. Rob then built native integration using autodiscovery.

OZW still exists and still functions as before. Nobody HAS to move. Also, If you feel that zwavejs, despite being the most widely used and best working zwave solution out there, is not for you, then feel free to build something else. Nobody forces you to do anything.

There are multiple reasons why this was done in the way it was but I don't think that's the aim of this thread and you don't need to adopt it to begin with.

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[lost]

OZW still exists and still functions as before. Nobody HAS to move. Also, If you feel that zwavejs, despite being the most widely used and best working zwave solution out there, is not for you, then feel free to build something else. Nobody forces you to do anything.

Not sure both options will be maintained for long, even if OZW usage figures are IMO (still) huge on DIY side, but I'm also quite confident changing an easy integration of z-wave for such labyrinthine system (+JS very strange choice) will not help for zwave future which was a nice standard for interoperability, but already a bit expensive on the downside.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's now almost never ending discounts from french sellers since several months: Price tag+refinery pipes looking integration (at least for DIY market) = Beginning of the end? Would like to have skills to take OZW out of it's tomb...

[JackD]

I still use OZW and would not like it if it would be removed from Domoticz.
zwavejs2mqtt is again a extra layer of "stuff" you have to get working outside Domoticz, not my cup of tea,......
I would prefer both in Domoticz.

[heggink]

There are no plans to remove OZW as far as I know. As said before, nobody is being forced to move.

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[user4563]

Hi,
I understand what Hencor is saying, I also struggling to get everything installed correctly on windows 10.
You have to invest a lot of time in how to install dockers and MQTT and what settings you need to do in these software packages before you can install zwavejs2mqtt.

If you have no experience with these different pieces of software it is difficult to get Domoticz working with zwave.
It would be helpful for existing and new Domoticz users who do not have much software experience that there is a good tutorial describing each step of the process.

Did you ever get MQTT/zwave-js working on Windows? I have Domoticz using OZW on Windows and it's rock solid stable. However, I know there will come a time when I'll need a device that will need zwave-js to be supported.

[Gravityz]

why would anybody want to move zigbee to MQTT.

if you have a philips HUE hub it is natively supported and all devices connected to this hub should show up in domoticz.

regarding Openzwave i might try it to see if anything gets recognized the right way.
i noticed that you can update firmware from zwave-js-ui does this work for Fibaro products(eg click update and it updates) because fibaro firmware is hard to find and even harder to flash without a homecenter controller

[skippy711]

Don't know if this is the right topic but since @heggink is offering help I'll give it a go:
Happy user for 5 years and I also started with z-wave devices before extending to P1, OTGW, Speedtest, NAS monitoring, etc. etc.

In the latest update I read about the depreciating OZW and thus the migration to ZWAVE2MQTT. After various trials on a test rig I managed to install ZWAVE JS UI both native and docker and also Domoticz MQTT AD. I use an additional Z-wave stick which I loaded with the configuration from the main controller (on the production machine). Switches and utilities are discovered, but after the discovery only 2 nodes (from a total of 21) are updated (every 30 minutes or so) the rest is not updated (power usage, kWh meters, luxmeter,...).

Question: could it be the fact that it is not the main controller, but a 'static PC controller'?

[mgugu]

Question: could it be the fact that it is not the main controller, but a 'static PC controller'?

I do not think so, if what you call 'static PC controller' is a pure clone of the production controller.
Maybe the 2 controllers do not like to share the same 'Home Id', so for test purpose, you would need before to temporarily desactivate the production controller.

[heggink]

why would anybody want to move zigbee to MQTT.

if you have a philips HUE hub it is natively supported and all devices connected to this hub should show up in domoticz.

How many reasons do you want? I can think of a bunch of them: interoperability with other systems, support for a wide array of brands and devices, open source, ... But that's all moot since there many choices and this is just one. Nobody is being forced down any particular path. Why is less relevant than the fact that you can and many want .

[heggink]

Don't know if this is the right topic but since @heggink is offering help I'll give it a go:
Happy user for 5 years and I also started with z-wave devices before extending to P1, OTGW, Speedtest, NAS monitoring, etc. etc.

In the latest update I read about the depreciating OZW and thus the migration to ZWAVE2MQTT. After various trials on a test rig I managed to install ZWAVE JS UI both native and docker and also Domoticz MQTT AD. I use an additional Z-wave stick which I loaded with the configuration from the main controller (on the production machine). Switches and utilities are discovered, but after the discovery only 2 nodes (from a total of 21) are updated (every 30 minutes or so) the rest is not updated (power usage, kWh meters, luxmeter,...).

Question: could it be the fact that it is not the main controller, but a 'static PC controller'?

That's weird indeed. When you say updated only evey 30m, is that in domoticz? Have you checked the zwave interface to see if things get updated there?
I did export the zwave config from one stick to another (new generation) using aeotecs tool and that worked fine in my case. Then again, I only run one of them at any point in time. Having 2 is asking for trouble.

[skippy711]

Updating is meant for both Domoticz and Zwave-JS-UI. So I guess the broker between Zwave-JS-UI and Domoticz works fine. Still wondering if the main controller (OZW) with connection to all nodes has priority (or is the sole connection) over the secondary controller in Zwave-JS-UI. I could (as mgugu also suggests) test by disabling the Zwave (OZW) controller on the production machine and see if the primary role is taken over by the secondary on the Zwave-JS-UI (test machine). Another test could obviously be to disable Zwave (OZW) controller on the production machine and place it in the Zwave-JS-UI (test machine). I planned to do that during X-mas holidays, but was curious about suggestions. Other insights are still much appreciated.

[mgugu]

How do you set up your controller clone/copy ? Personally I use 'Z-Stick Gen5 Backup Tool' for years without any issue.
The cloned controller is strickly identical to the original. I repeat that using 2 controllers with the same 'Home Id' exposes you to unnatended issues.
But you can use the controllers with different 'Home Id'. I am in this situation: I kept 1 controller running with OZW and the other one, in an other machine, running with z-wave-js-ui.