As a former owner of a Vera 2 and now owner of the competitor’s equipment (Homeseer) I have discovered explanations and fixes for problems that seemed unsolvable on the Vera. In fairess to MCV these problems are almost exclusively Z-Wave generic “quirks”, but my new equipment provides tools to deal with them and the forum posts acknowledge and are explicit about how to deal with them.
Z Wave devices must be near (2 feet is advised but within 10 ft) the main controller for Discovery and most Configurations. MCV has a good solution with the battery dongle to Include and Exclude installed devices, but if that device is “in situ” at a distance that gives anything less than an excellent signal to the main controller - future Configuration changes are not reliable. Especially devices that rely on mesh relaying.
My new unit requires several (5 or 6 recommended) passes to “optimise” the mesh, with each pass improving the network topology. There are many tools for re-scanning devices, optimising, configuring, etc which are all well documented and if done in the correct order, and the results observed, a stable and reliable mesh network can be built and changes can be dealt with. I don’t believe that result will ever be achieved by a “heal” with little documentation or understanding as to the options.
There are more things I have learned and I highly recommend reading the competitor’s forums - I believe many of their solutions and explanations can be adapted to the Vera to make it a much more stable machine than what I had experienced personally.
Z-Wave mesh network technology is a complex and relitively new technology, and requires good tools and understanding to set up individual situations to work reliably. I believe that is the simple answer to all of the problems I personally struggled with on my Vera, and most of the posts I see here.
There’s an interesting thread on HS about a guy who kept having z-wave network problems at a certain time of day everyday, losing communication with nodes. After much study, mapping, diagnosis, it turned out to be a neighbor’s baby monitor (900mhz also). Rich (HS founder) chimed in and said that baby monitors are the number one z-wave killer they encounter.
So, yes, I agree that perusing the HS, cocoon, and other forums is a great idea. z-wave is z-wave, and many of the issues are common among all controllers.
4 good optimizations is all you need to do no matter what firmware you are utilizing going back as long as I can remember 6 to 7 years anyway 8)
Luckily this thread is called Z-Wave myths ;)
Optimization/heal network does not accomplish anything when using 2.78 (5.02) due to all devices talking directly with Vera and there not being any hops to optimize. The Sigma bug that brought about 3.20 (4.52)
But I was always under the impression that 3 optimizations/heals were all that were needed due to the 4 hop rule.
[quote=“Intrepid, post:2, topic:168839”]There’s an interesting thread on HS about a guy who kept having z-wave network problems at a certain time of day everyday, losing communication with nodes. After much study, mapping, diagnosis, it turned out to be a neighbor’s baby monitor (900mhz also). Rich (HS founder) chimed in and said that baby monitors are the number one z-wave killer they encounter.
So, yes, I agree that perusing the HS, cocoon, and other forums is a great idea. z-wave is z-wave, and many of the issues are common among all controllers.[/quote]
Darn baby monitors, they have also been blamed for keeping Somfy battery motors in an ‘awake’ state, and running the batteries down prematurely. In reality, this could just be a convenient scapegoat for companies and their radio products, because how can you or a homeowner argue with that. You can’t go to all of your neighbors’ homes, figure out which one has the baby monitor, and then demand it be shut off. So it ends up being a great way to put an end to troubleshooting and the customers’ dissatisfaction.
FYI - I heard that the Z-Wave protocol is working on a inclusion process that does not require controllers to be within a few feet of the device being added. It will be included automatically without controllers.
Good read, but left me a bit confused about in wall controllers. I have about 10 of the leviton Zone controllers. If I read this correctly…
"People almost always forget to update their handheld or in-wall static controllers (scene/zone controllers) when they add or remove a node to/from the network. These types of controllers do not update their routing information through optimization, and the only way they learn of new nodes is by replication - the process of having the primary controller send the network information to them. Whenever you add or remove a node from the network, update your handheld controllers by doing a replicate send to them, so they can now control the new nodes, and update your static controllers by repeating the "add to network" procedure for them - since they are already a part of the network, they will skip the add procedure and will go directly to the update replication so that they can learn about the nodes recently added or removed from the network."
Do I need to do something with each of them if I move a plug-in module or add a new light switch? I get the impression from this that I need to do something manually.
If you have the Zone Controllers set up to trigger scenes in Vera thorough events or event triggers, then I don’t think you’d have to update anything in the Zone controllers. In this configuration Vera listens for the button press on the ZC and executes the command(s) you have associated with that scene. So it uses Vera’s routing table. IF you have them associated directly to control devices, then this rule probably applies to you and any handheld SC too. I don’t own Zone Controllers so maybe someone who does can tell you more. Do you have any issues? (if it ain’t broke…)
[quote=“MartinHanks, post:15, topic:168839”]Thanks Bob for the great information.
FYI - I heard that the Z-Wave protocol is working on a inclusion process that does not require controllers to be within a few feet of the device being added. It will be included automatically without controllers.[/quote]
I believe that is called “full power inclusion” or something like that. and it’s available with some devices already. At one point vera had it someplace in the UI- but not sure it’s in there anymore. (I think it was an option on UI2? )
Great find! I feel Zmarter already.