Hi, I am running OpenHAB v3 on a Debian Linux. I own an Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5, which is correctly recognised by my machine and by OpenHAB.
I have installed the “Z-Wave Serial Controller” to my Things and that seems to be also correctly recognised. It communicates on /dev/ttyACM0.
The question is now, given that I am a total beginner, how do I make it work? I would presume I would need to add my DCH-G020 hub somehow to OpenHAB but what are the steps?
After the DCH-G020 will be finally recognised, I would also suppose I’d need to add each device one by one to it. How do I do this?
Please someone let me know - I really cannot get this figured out!!!
Matze0211 is right, the Aeotec stick together with OpenHAB acts as a Z-Wave hub. You need to “include” your Z-Wave devices to the stick (which acts as a “controller” in the Z-Wave network). Every included device can then be made into a “thing” in OpenHAB.
Z-Wave can manage two controllers in a network, where one is a primary controller and the other one is a secondary controller. In theory that could be a way to include Z-Wave hubs into the OpenHAB universe. However, I did not stumble over any documentation where someone implemented/used that feature.
In addition to that, Z-Wave devices always belong to exactly one Z-Wave network (in the situation mentioned above it would be the network of the primary controller) and thus cannot be made available in another Z-Wave network.
Including a Z-Wave hub in parallel to a Z-Wave controller in OpenHAB is therefore most likely to be done via WiFi or network cable, if needed at all.
Dear @Matze0211 and @stefan.oh,
I really appreciate your comments on this. I am at a wit’s end.
I do not understand much of the process involved and these are the observations:
There is no driver (“Binding”) for the DCH-G020, which would leave me to use the Z-Wave thumb drive from Aeotec as the hub. Is this correct?
If I use the Z-Wave thumb drive as the hub, I can see no devices when I scan for them and not even when I trigger them during the scan. I was thinking of unpairing the devices form the G020, however I am afraid I won’t be able to go back to the original situation if I do that. I’d rather avoid it. Which leads me to ask: Is there a workaround to have the Z-Wave devices also reachable via the Aeotec thumb drive even if they are currently paired with the G020?
You can use either your D-Link hub or the Aeotec stick, not both.
If you want to use OH to control your devices you have to exclude devices from your current hub and include on the Aeotec stick.
Afaik most devices need a factory reset to change controller.
If there is a binding for your D-Link hub (have a look on the bindings) you could use it as a kind of bridge but I do not really know if it is possible to access devices via a bridge.
as to your question to make devices available in the DCH-G020 AND the Aeotec “thumb drive”, this is NOT possible:
Christian agrees to that:
Before a device is listed when scanning for it, it needs to be “un-paired” (=excluded) from a previous controller. There is no way around that.
would be the fallback if excluding the device from the controller is not possible.
Edit:
I was looking for some more information and came across these infos:
The device is end-of-life since November 2020. There will be no security patches for DCH-G020 anymore.
DCH-G020 has a limit of 15 devices it can handle. The usual USB Z-Wave controllers can handle app. 230 devices.
From what I have seen in the users manual it is unlikely that a binding exists to use this device with OH. There is a built-in webserver, which basically only allows a firmware upgrade.
Hi all - thanks for your inputs. Looks like I will have to do some experimenting. Will report back as soon as I come up with a solution. Thanks again for your help!
