Either hub will work. I like the idea of powered so the radio signal is not degraded if the pi starts to get busy.
Bob
Is the USB version of the hub relevant?
It should be usb 2.0.
Bob
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I can confirm that the Gen5 works with a USB2 hub (it has an issue related with RPI internal resistor setup which is kind of fixed when using the hub) as already mentioned. I eventually changed to the newer GEN5+ which works on the RPI4 directly without the hub.
For some users the hub solution works, for others - like myself - this did not solve it.
I ended up selling the stick, replacing it by a Z-Wave HAT for 10 Euro and now having a rock solid Z-Wave controller plus the Z-Ways software that helps managing the network, where the binding has its limitations.
Never figured out what was the root cause why the stick went offline from time to time.
Maybe the stick pulls a lot of power from the USB, maybe other hard- or software issues. 
So it may be a valid scenario to simply replace the stick before the network grows and it becomes hard to do so.
It works for me after (in karaf):
feature:install openhab-transport-serial
and
bundle:start org.openhab.binding.zwave
This is the real solution. You might get it to work somewhat with an external USB hub, or other workarounds, but the real cause of the problem is quite simple:
There are 3 versions of the Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 in addition to Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5+, so there are 4 versions of this stick in total. The two earliest versions doesnāt follow the USB specification during āhandshakeā. The last ānon-pluss versionā and the āpluss versionā have been redesign to address the problem.
It turns out that most equipment donāt care if the stick isnāt behaving as it should, so it was never ārevealedā. This includes all RPis prior to version 4. RPi 4 however, has a new USB controller that isnāt as forgiving, so it will reject the stick most of the time. You can get lucky at times, but it wonāt be stable. But, since the least iterations of the stick is fixed, and you canāt tell them apart by looking at them, some will work on the RPi while others wonāt.
I had the same problem and read through lots of threads on the subject before I found the thread with the real fix at the HA forum. I have done the āmodā, and itās absolutely day and night. The stick is detected instantly, and itās there without disappearing during reboots etc.
If you have a solder station with a small (electronics) tip, some magnification equipment and a steady hand: go for it. Itās not complicated at all, itās just very small. The resistor you have to ārerouteā is extremely tiny, and I managed to lose mine when I tried to pick it up with some tweezers. I never found it again, itās virtually impossible to recover if you lose sight of it.
So, I would recommend anybody that are to do this to have a āregularā 1.5kĪ© resistor available in case you lose or break the tiny one. I didnāt, so I had to get creative and use what I could find at home, so I ended up with 3x 390Ī© and 1x 330Ī© resistors soldered in series. Itās not pretty, but it works perfectly. I could even get the cover back on despite the 4 āhugeā resistors, so you canāt tell that itās been modified.
Here is another link to the thread with the solution:
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In Centos 7, the group has to be changed to ālockā, of which openhab is made a member of during installation. So:
d /run/lock 0775 root lock -
The thread is solved for a long time and I use CentOS8. And you are replying to a post which is 8 month old ???
Yes
I am using a Aeotec Z-stick Gen5 with OH3.4 on a Windows 10 machine. I was having issues with the Z-stick Thing going OFFLINE after machine reboots or a restart of the OH service, and not coming back online until the stick was physically unplugged and replugged.
I did the soldering fix above and so far my Z-stick has come back online after a reboot and a service restart. So seems to have worked successfully so far.
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Quick follow up -
This soldering fix has substantially improved the reliability of my Z-wave network, as well as my confidence in it.
If only Aeotec had made a quality product to begin with!
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