Z-wave optimization

Howdy folks - noobie to homey here!

Just wanted to know how the whole z-wave optimization thing works with Homey. I am having frequent issues with mostly around my zwave switches (used to operate lights). Sometimes they can take upwards to 10-15 seconds before they respond (through the Homey App, accessing locally). Looking under the hood from developer.athom site, i can see occasionally the routes are jumping 4-5 hops - but once i turn on/off the switch a couple of times its reduced to 2 hops.

I’ve read that the whole optimization/heal thing is automatic but my Homey has been running for a few days now and z-wave still has teething issues from time to time.

I see devices getting ‘TX Errors’ - is that a bad thing? Majority of TX errors are 0-1%, some devices Im getting 10-15%. Also occasionally i see ‘device is unreachable’ - not sure if this is a concern.

Is there anything, anywhere, i can look to help me narrow down what the potential issues might be?

Are your devices added as secure? In that case, you may see significant improvement by adding the devices insecure (don’t worry, it still is secure enough). You can add z-wave devices as insecure by choosing Walli from the Fibaro app in the inclusion process. It will add the device same as before, as what it actually is (so not as a Walli) and without extra security (which requires way more data and closer proximity when adding). The more data is sent, the bigger the chance it’s corrupted.

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Thanks Edwin, will give that a try but most of my devices are already non-secure except my door lock and siren. I’ll readd those as non secure and see if it makes a difference

And if the suggestion of @Edwin_D doesn’t work, the only thing left to do is the antenna mod. I did it and am really happy with it. Got it both, so have everything insecure and the mod. Works great for me.

Lots of errors could mean the devices are on the edge of the network. So definitely try the suggested options and I’d it still doesn’t work try and add more devices :wink:

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Thanks Martin, I’ve heard the antenna mod does wonders but I’ve only just got my unit last week and would feel guilty opening it up so early but it does sound very very tempting. Voiding warranty aside, i don’t think I have the skills to drill, solder stuff so it might not be an option

Living on the edge :joy:, I bought my first solder iron for that project … and I strongly believe, if I can do it, anyone can. But first try the insecure inclusion.

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If you check the developer page, you can see if the lock and siren are routing for other devices. If they are not, I’d probably keep them as they are since it shouldn’t make much of a difference unless these devices pose problems themselves as well.

You should not need an antenna mod if you have enough mains powered devices (routers), and if these devices are never taken off the mains. For me, envisioning how much concrete or other obstacles a device encounters to the next neighbor helps. For me it helped having some router devices near the hole in the floor for the staircase.They actually provide a bride between floors. However, sometimes it’s hard to guess what routes work best for some devices.

Trying to steer away from the Antenna Mod path, but I think I’m at a dead end with the Z-wave stabilisation issue. I was trawling through other posts and while i did find others who posted similar issues, there were no solutions or answers to those threads. My issue is, overnight, the default Zwave optimization algorithm goes pear shaped and i get some pretty lousy neighbours like below:

I’ve even got a Node 150 happening from time to time and it goes away (yes I’ve tried to exclude and include them again). Just by example, my node 51 is 3 meters from my Homey.

After i run a command to either turn on/off the device, or heal it, the path gets optimised (which is normally 2 hops, 3 hops after healing is done).

For those with Zwave implementations out there, please tell me I’m not the only one experiencing this? Do i potentially have a bad Homey unit? (its only 2 weeks old), or do i have bad Zwave nodes?

I just wish we could statically decide on the route table/neighbours but im not sure if that is a limitation of Homey, the zwave module, or something else.

At this rate, im very close to dropping Homey (despite how much i love everything about it), and revert to my previous working setup (outdated, but stable).

And do you actually have problems? Because it could just be the visual representation of homey? What I have automated is sending test signals every hour to prevent the devices from showing unreachable. Didn’t have any problems but just don’t like the nodes showing unreachable

Im starting to think it’s one or more bad nodes I have that’s causing the issue. Some zwave switches can take 10-30 seconds before responding so I think it’s Homey trying to reroute from a potential dead node (That’s what I’m theorising at the moment) but it’s all trial and error because I can’t tell which node along the way is causing grief. I just wished there was some diagnostic tool that would help determine problematic nodes, because now I need to individually exclude nodes that seem to be the issue (unless the raw logs have some meaningful data)

2 yrs ago, and there is still no option in homey to perform a full zwave net optimization.
Homey has a much better radio range than e.g. smartthings, but the mesh looks as chaotic like the way of a blind mouse after the cat was chasing her…
This might also be caused by the devices, e.g. MCO thermostats are very quick and reliable even in 10m distance, while Technisat roller shutters are extremely slow and often produce timeout, or are not accessible for minutes, or even deliver the wrong status.