Z-Station support

Hardware DIY
1

There is a new device from z-wave.me called z-station. Info can eb found at Z-Station.

Is this supported out-of-the box using the z-wave plugin?

2

They claim it works with openHAB. :smiley: My understanding is that Zwave defines a standard for the serial protocol between the computer and a USB dongle. And it comes with Zway for which OH does have a Zway add-on and they claim it works with zwave2mqtt and zigbee2mqtt which a lot of OH users are using too.

I’ve not kept up with the state of the Zwave binding. My understanding is it now supports Zwave controller based on SI Labs SDK 7 controllers partially but not Zwave 8 controllers yet. This appears to be a 7 controller so it should work with some limitations (see the add-on docs for details).

For Zigbee, support for the controller depends on the chipset of the controller. Other Silicon Labs chips are supported but EFR32MG21P is not in the list of supported coordinators. So it might be that zigbee2mqtt is the only way to get the Zigbee to work, but it also might just work with an “Ember” chipset configuration.

Over all, I think it would be relatively low risk to get this device and integrate it with OH. The Zwave will mostly work out of the box minus some extended Zwave 7 level stuff. The Zigbee will either work or you have a third party option.

It looks like a nice device. I hope someone comes back and reports their experiences.

3

I just bought one and I’ll share my experiences.

3 Likes
4

I successfully migrated from Aeotec zWave Gen5+ to Z-Station, but I’m only using the zWave part. The docker image from this site does not work on my Openhab server (CentOS Stream release 8)

Therefore I use this image:

podman pull youdownwithjpd/docker-zway
podman container create -it --device=/dev/ttyUSB0 -p 8083:8083 docker-zway
-> started container

Browsed to http://ip_server:8083

  • added Z-Station Controller to network
  • stopped the container (as there are issues when controller is active in OpenHAB)

In Openhab:

  • created new zWave thing for Controller
  • added all new zWave nodes as things (are the same as the old ones with a different deviceId)
  • changed the deviceId of all my zWave items (I have file based item definitions)
  • disabled Z-Station thing

Then I did a reset of the Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5+

  • start container again
  • browsed to http://ip_server:8083
  • removed the failed node which has represented the Aeotec Z-Stick
  • stopped the container again

In Openhab:

  • enable Z-Station thing again

Finally I had to wake-up the only battery powered device.

1 Like
5

Yes, you cannot have more than one service accessing a physical device at the same time. If Zway is using the controller, OH cannot, and vice versa.

If you don’t need the Aeotec controller still active when you add the Z-Station, you can delete the Aeotec Thing and when you create the Z-Station Thing give it the same UID and all your links will work unchanged as your Things will all have the same UID as they had before.

It’s not clear to me but I think it only needs to be active for the first step where you add Z-Station to the networking using ZWay, correct?

6

Correct. This way the new device gets the full network map from the old device.