Backing up the Z-Wave network on Domoticz

[BakSeeDaa]

I couldn't find any information about how to backup the Z-Wave network. I've spent a huge amount of time excluding all devices from my old HA-system and included them one by one into Domoticz. In case of that my Z-wave stick device ceases to work or gets stolen or whatever.

I've noticed there is a button in the OpenZWave Control Panel. It says "Backup Controller Changes need saving... " but nothing seems to happen if I push it.

[BakSeeDaa]

It might be a noob-ish question but I still haven't figured out how to do it.

[segordon]

I'm coming to the conclusion that there is a fundamental limitation in Z-Wave due to the way that the protocol and most implementations work.

Z-Wave Controllers have unique Home IDs which are set at the factory - the Home ID is a 32-bit identifier which uniquely identifies an individual Z-Wave network.
Devices on a Z-Wave network can only talk to Controllers and other devices which share the same Home ID - During the process of inclusion the Home ID of the Controller is copied to the included device; this device can now talk to the controller and other devices on the same Z-Wave network.

The problem is that if your Z-Wave controller fails (or is lost/stolen/destroyed), even if you have a back-up of the previous configuration it will be useless because your replacement controller will have a different Home ID and so will not be able to access the previously configured Z-Wave devices since they will only talk to a controller with the original Home ID.

This means that unless your controller supports the ability to manually set its Home ID (and to restore the network topology/routing tables etc.) then when replacing a controller the only option is to manually re-include all your existing devices.

This limitation also applies to most Z-Wave sticks, as the ability to back-up and restore the Z-Wave chip configuration requires an extension to the normal Z-Wave API.
As far as I know the Aeon Labs Sticks do not support this feature, but the Z-Wave.me sticks claim to have an extended API which allows "back-up and restore of network topology" - although it is unclear if this includes the Home ID.

I'd love to be proved wrong about this, but the information I've found so far seems to agree with this.

[BakSeeDaa]

Thank You @segordon for your detailed answer.

What You say make sense. However I migrated to Domoticz from a Vera Controller. It had the ability to backup the Z-wave network and it can be restored on a different unit. I remember I did that once when i had to replace my controller. I don't know how Vera does it but it works.

[segordon]

@BakSeeDaa you are correct, Vera does support this capability, as does the Z-Wave.me UZB stick and RaZberry PI Z-Wave board.
Both the UZB stick and RaZberry PI board support back-up and restore through the Z-Way app (look at the top of page 12 in this doc: http://www.vesternet.com/downloads/dl/f ... manual.pdf).

So in theory if you used a UZB stick, or RaZberry PI board for your Domoticz controller you could back up the chip using Z-Way - however the Domoticz wiki states that there is no support for running Z-Way at the same time as Domoticz so it may be necessary to shutdown Domoticz to perform the backup/restore operation using Z-Way. (https://www.domoticz.com/wiki/Raspberry ... ghter_Card)

I've just ordered a UZB stick to test out this feature and I'll post an update when I have had a chance to try out the backup/restore feature in conjunction with Domoticz.

In theory, since UZB & RaZberry PI both support an extended API it should be possible for Domoticz to recognise this and offer the additional features in the UI - although this would mean that the underlying OpenZWave stack would also need to support the extended API, which I'm not sure it does...

[segordon]

So I've done a bit of testing with he RaZberry PI Board on a PI 2 and the UZB stick on a Linux box.

Using the Z-Way software both of these options allow the backup of the network + controller info, but when I try to restore the backup it kills the Z-Way server process and deletes a bunch of config files so the only option is to run the z-way installer process again to get it working.

I've also tried the UZB device with Domoticz and it works fine, however in the OpenZWave Control Panel I still the "Backup Controller Changes need saving... " message, and clicking the backup button does nothing - so Domoticz/open-zwave do not appear to detect that the UZB stick can back-up the controller data (or maybe this option is not yet implemented in the OpenZWave control panel....?)

So my current plan is to stick with the Aeon Labs Gen 5 Z-Wave stick as at least I can use its battery feature to go around and re-include z-wave devices in the event of a controller failure....

[BakSeeDaa]

So I've done a bit of testing with he RaZberry PI Board on a PI 2 and the UZB stick on a Linux box.

Using the Z-Way software both of these options allow the backup of the network + controller info, but when I try to restore the backup it kills the Z-Way server process and deletes a bunch of config files so the only option is to run the z-way installer process again to get it working.

I've also tried the UZB device with Domoticz and it works fine, however in the OpenZWave Control Panel I still the "Backup Controller Changes need saving... " message, and clicking the backup button does nothing - so Domoticz/open-zwave do not appear to detect that the UZB stick can back-up the controller data (or maybe this option is not yet implemented in the OpenZWave control panel....?)

So my current plan is to stick with the Aeon Labs Gen 5 Z-Wave stick as at least I can use its battery feature to go around and re-include z-wave devices in the event of a controller failure....

Thanks for doing all the testing. Let's hope that backing up Z-wave network will be properly implemented in the future.

[boom88]

So I've done a bit of testing with he RaZberry PI Board on a PI 2 and the UZB stick on a Linux box.

Using the Z-Way software both of these options allow the backup of the network + controller info, but when I try to restore the backup it kills the Z-Way server process and deletes a bunch of config files so the only option is to run the z-way installer process again to get it working.

I've also tried the UZB device with Domoticz and it works fine, however in the OpenZWave Control Panel I still the "Backup Controller Changes need saving... " message, and clicking the backup button does nothing - so Domoticz/open-zwave do not appear to detect that the UZB stick can back-up the controller data (or maybe this option is not yet implemented in the OpenZWave control panel....?)

So my current plan is to stick with the Aeon Labs Gen 5 Z-Wave stick as at least I can use its battery feature to go around and re-include z-wave devices in the event of a controller failure....

Thanks for doing all the testing. Let's hope that backing up Z-wave network will be properly implemented in the future.

Hello. I've been in contact with Aeon labs and they assured me the new controller will support backup/restore feature. The controller should be release somewhere between December 15th and mid January.