Critical thoughts on zwavejs2mqtt integration

[skippy711]

In the screenshot there are a 'receive configuration...' and a 'send configuration... '. This is how I 'cloned'. When I plug in the 'cloned' stick it shows up as a 'Static PC controller' as you can see in the screenshot. So I guess that they have different ID's. My setup is similar to yours 1 controller with OZW and the other on another machine with Zwave-JS-UI and on that test machine only 2 (of 21) nodes get somewhat regularly updated and the rest is not updated. Don't know if your backup tool will work because I have 2 z-wave.me sticks.

[mgugu]

'send configuration and 'receive configuration 'in OZW CP are not suited for backup. These functions are used to switch the role between several controllers in a same network. As far as I know OZW does not support stick backup.
I would suggest:
1- come back to the original working configuration in OZW (single controller)
2- desactivate OZW in domoticz hardwares
3- remove the usb stick
4-optional make a copy on another stick (can be done on WIndows with the tool recommanded for your stick, but Z-Stick Gen5 Backup Tool should work)
5- plug the stick (original or clone) in the z-wave-js-ui machine

[skippy711]

Thx, I planned to do that over X-mas holidays (but without the copy to the other stick) and now even more because our son is using our windows laptop since his one crashed. I will try the copy route just out of curiosity: if that makes a difference with the way I now made a 'copy' from one stick to the other.

[skippy711]

Son brought back the Windows laptop and I could copy my 'live' Z-wave stick to the 'spare' Z-wave stick. That made all the difference! Thx @mgugu.

So for now I'm able to experiment on a spare system while the live system runs the smart house

Next up is running everything in Dockers (not because it needs to, but for the sake of experimenting)

[roblom]

At first I also didn't like the change but as already said OZW isn't maintained, the ZwaveJS2MQTT is probably the only alternative. If you don't want these changes you probably have to use the commercial software like the Fibaro homecenter, but the downside of these commercial software is that they only work on their own products, so a lot of other brands are not supported.
I have no programming skills but I also managed to get ZwaveJS2MQTT running and for me it is by far more stable than the OZW. Where in OZW some devices stopped receiving updates (mostly battery powered devices) and had several crashes when opening and closing the OZW settings menu. Now with ZwaveJS2MQTT this all didn't happen. I even was able to update the firmware of my Heltun thermostat without any problems (Fibaro devices can't be updated, not because of ZwaveJS2MQTT but because Fibaro doesn't give the firmware so there are no firmware files).
Yes you need to invest some time in it to get it running and know how it works but I was surprised by how well it already worked (I installed it months ago) especially in combination with the new autodiscovery function. So credits to all who worked on this!
So I would say buy a second (hand) zwave stick and setup a test system, then you can get ZwaveJS2MQTT up and running without conflicting the live system. Then when you are a bit familiar with it and gained some knowledge about it, you can switch your live system. That's what I've done and worked fine for me.