Experiences using Z-wave or Z-way bindings for large network -

Add-ons Bindings
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Hi,

I am at ta bit of a spot with my system right now and need your advice.

I am almost exclusively using z-wave for my home automation and have accumulated over a couple of years now a network of around 60 mains powered devices, 9 FLIRS devices (Popp smoke detectors) and 25 battery powered things. I used the Fibaro HC2 controller to manage the network but I did not see any progress in their system and it lacked flexibility so I decided to move the network into a Razberry 2 + Raspberry pi 3 system and the Z-way software. Everything went well moving into the system, but I am seeing severe issues in the responsiveness of the system, and the “apps” that do all the work in Z-way in terms of automation really bog down the system to the point where I cannot access it anymore. Lots of traffic is generated for no apparent reason and issues like that.

My usage experience was actually improved quite a bit by disabling all the z-way apps and installing the openhab connector and running openhab in parallell on the same machine. BUT, there is an issue with some devices not being configurable properly and the connector currently sometimes drops the handle that manages the link between the two systems (Z-way and openHAB).

When I was researching an antenna change for the Razberry 2 board I came across this post
http://e-rook.org/2018/01/09/smarthome-server-change-openhab/
which concurs with what I was experiencing, and states that the z-wave binding may be a better option. Almost all of my devices were included securely, which means that I cant just stop the z-way process and start including the network into the Z-wave binding (I read somewhere that the security is done in software and not on the controller, so this does not work then).

What are your experiences with Z-way and the z-wave binding? Do you think that I will get a more stable z-wave network if I switch from z-way to the z-wave binding ? What are the downsides that you have experienced?

2

I’ve seen similar reports on the Z-Way binding. I suspect, but can’t prove, that there are some significant performance issue with Z-Way.

That is correct. You will need to include the device through the zwave binding for secure inclusion. You will also need to run the verison of the Zwave binding from here. Though this version of the binding is expected to be merged into the 2.4 SNAPSHOT in the coming weeks.

Personally I have a much smaller network but have read of others using the zwave binding with a similar or larger network quite happily on the Zwave binding. I’ve seen lots of reports of performance issues with Z-way on this forum so I’m not surprised by your experiences.

3

Thank you for your thoughts. So, for devices that really could be included not securely, then I could use the z-wave binding in stable right? And we think then that the stability would perhaps be improved…

4

Yes. This is how I run.

I believe so based on my own experience and those reported by others on this forum.