Z-Wave AEON Labs known device not detected in OH3

Add-ons Bindings
1

Hi there

I picked up one of these old multi-sensors, used:

I’ve got an Aotec Z-Wave USB stick (Gen 5, so using a USB hub to bypass the known USB 3 issue) working well with 4 or 5 other devices. I was able to disconnect and connect this one - but it will not populate any channels. It’s been next to the receiver for a couple of weeks and I wake it up once a day or so.

UID: zwave:device:23481c2e91:node9
label: Z-Wave Multisensor 2b
thingTypeUID: zwave:device
configuration:
  action_heal: false
  node_id: 9
bridgeUID: zwave:serial_zstick:23481c2e91

Anyone know how to convince OH3 to find it? OpenHabian 3.1.0.M3 on a Pi 4.

Thanks!

2

I have two random thoughts

  1. as used device, maybe it was not cleared of the old network. Factory reset?
  2. If text based thing (can’t tell) it might need the id

aeon_dsb05_00_000

Not an expert, just throwing it out there.

Bob

3

There is no need to guess. If the device has been fully discovered OH will write an xml file in the zwave folder of serdata that contains information directly from your device firmware. Posting it here could help. It is quite common for a given model of device to have different identifiers in the various world regions.If that is the case we just need to add it to the existing database entry.

4

Thanks both for your help!

I had factory reset it by successfully removing previous network info. Unplugged USB Gen 5 stick, place in remove mode, press button on device, light flashes the expected way and the stick confirms with the expected number of flashes too. Before that, it wouldn’t find the device at all but as soon as I’d done this, it did.

There is no xml file in openHAB-userdata\zwave for this node, which is node 9. There are xml files for all the other devices.

UI list:

1

XML files:

2

More info from the UI:

3
3652×901 35.5 KB

So I guess this means, although the device shows in the UI list, it hasn’t actually been fully discovered?

Thanks!

5

Correct. Battery powered devices can be a real challenge.

6

Great, thanks very much Bruce. All the others worked immediately, even the battery ones, but this is an OLD device, with 4 or even 5 AA batteries and only cost me a couple of dollars. No loss if it never connects.

I’ll keep on waking it up for a bit. Are there any tips and tricks to this? Is it better to wake it up every hour when I’m nearby than to wake it up when I walk past once a day or so? Its PIR sensor wakes up when I go to push the button - does that do the same thing and if so can I just put it somewhere there’s a lot of motion instead?

It has a USB power option. I’m assuming the device won’t be smart enough to know the power comes from that rather than the batteries, and therefore be easier to connect but I could give that a try.

I’m interested in this battery powered Z-Wave connection challenge. Do you know what the technical process is that causes the issue? I assumed once the connection was made, the device wakes up at the specified period (or when a sensor is activated) to send minimum required data. Does the bridge then return some flag if it needs more comms (maybe it has updated configs for the device or wants more info)?

cheers

7

@chris or @sihui Any ideas on discovering an old battery operated Z-Wave (non-plus) device?

8

It’s the same as any battery device. It will need to be woken up so that the binding can discover the information. There will almost certainly be a button to press or something like that.

Looking at the manual in the link provided above, it simply states “hold button”.

image
image1192×84 3 KB

9

That is how it should work, but how do you know “the connection was made”? To me, it looks like the device has not completed discovery - to complete discovery you will need to manually wake up the device. During this discovery phase, the binding will configure the device to wake up periodically, but it likely won’t do it if it’s not configured.

10

Thanks

By “the connection was made” I mean that a new node shows up in the OH UI. If I power the device off, it shows as offline and shows back online when powered on.

I suppose the bridge knows something is there and assigned a node (I didn’t set node 9 manually) but nothing about it.

cheers

Simon

11

There are multiple phases to discovery - the controller first discovers the device, and gives it a node ID, but then the binding needs to configure it. For battery devices, this normally requires the device to be woken up a number of times to complete the discovery and configuration.

This has clearly not been completed as there is no type/id for the device, and this is one of the very first things the binding downloads.

1 Like
12

Much appreciate everyone’s input! I’ll carry on waking it up and will update here.

Thank you again.

1 Like
13

Working!

I simply had to wake it up more often. I woke it up with a button press every minute or so and after 3 or 4 presses everything populated.

Thanks very much - great to have more detail!