Z-Wave Binding with multiple controllers

You just described my setup. I have my secure devices (locks) on the vera, everything else on OH. Works great! (Eventually once the security branch settles I’ll migrate the locks over to OH as well, but for now if it ain’t broke…)

Yes and no, respectively. In my OH network I have two controllers (a zs5 and a zs2, with zs5 being the master and SUC). While technically the zs5 pings the zs2 and sets up neighbors and routes for it, since the zs2 isn’t a switch or a sensor there’s really not much for them to say to each other. I suppose I could screw around with forcing a message from the zs2 to the zs5 with ozw or zensys, haven’t gotten around to it.

Hi, ist there any progress. I would be interested to have 2 controllers - allows a second one, e.g. to mix European & US components (req different controller).

I’m using two controllers with the current development version (https://community.openhab.org/t/z-wave-refactoring-and-testing-and-security/21653/332) of the zwave binding without any problems regarding the usage of two controllers. The xml files for the the nodes are now structured based on the homeid:

One of my controllers is attached directly via USB, the second is attached “remotely” via LAN.

Regards,

André

What about using the Z-Way binding? Would you then be able to use your main primary controller and then control the second controller with the Z-Way binding and a Zwave.me controller?

I haven’t used the Z-way binding but I think its possibly able to access and control a remote Zwave controller?

I think a Wink binding is getting closer as well…Perhaps stick one of those in your Shed?

How far away is the shed from the main home and controller? Would a zwave repeater help in boosting the signal to the Shed?

ok, but the experimental zwave binding is not compatible to the release runtime, isn’t it? This would require to reinstall all zwave things and items

The OH2 binding should support 2 controllers and I think people are doing this.

There’s one issue though - if the two controllers have the same nodes, then they will overwrite the XML files which will slow down a restart (this is really the only change in the development version that would impact multiple controller use).

Hi Chris,

I extend the second controller via usbip, which is installed on both servers. Now I want to configure a second controller on OH2, which can get the second usb-device. But, where can I configure it? In config-Files? On the first configuration?

Thx 4 Your Help

You should be able to add a second controller in exactly the same way as the first controller (ie either through the UI, or config files). So you need to add a new ‘serial controller’ thing, and from there you can add devices to this new controller.

The only word of caution is that the system currently saves all node xml files into a single folder, so if there is the same node in both controllers, this might cause some issues. This has been changed in the development version, but that’s not currently in the master release.

I can confirm that it works. I also have one locally connected USB-Stick and one remote USB-Stick via LAN-USB.

As I am using the dev version (201705281057) I can confirm that xml files are written separately with the Home-ID as prefix.
However I would like to propose that the logging should also be enhanced. So far only the node number can be found in the logs. It would be good to also have the Home-ID in the logs to distinguish nodes with the same number.

This is not very easy unfortunately as the information is not all in one place - I’ll have a think about what can be done to add some sort of tag though.

But how are you able then to connect the status updates to the correct items? I thought that the the thing id that you can set at the moment of controller inclusion should be available? This would also help (does not have to be the Home ID of the Z-Wave Network).

This is a completely different part of the binding. I’m not saying that all the information isn’t contained somewhere in the binding - clearly it is. However, the lower level processing of frames does not know anything about things - this is at a different level, and this is where the logging that you are talking about is done.

There is a clear separation in the binding between the protocol layers and the “OH/ESH” layers - it’s definitely not possible to get a reference to things within the frame processing.

Ok, thanks for the clarificaton. But I thought the Home Id of the controller is part of the Frame Data?

It is part of the data that is sent over the air, but it is not part of the data that is sent from the controller to the binding on the serial API so the binding doesn’t have access to this information.

Thank you again for the clarification, now I understand.
However, if you should have an idea how to provide some kind of tag in the logs I would highly appreciate it :wink:

@chris: I noticed one more thing today when using multiple controllers. If I want to include new devices via Habmin how can I control which of the controllers should go into inlcusion mode? At the moment are they all starting inlcusion at the same time and the quickest one wins?
I have 2 controllers with 2 different Home-Ids for ground floor and first floor at the moment. So I would like to only put the ground floor controller into inclusion mode when I want to include a new device on ground floor. Otherwise I might risk to have the device included in the wrong network. Is there any possibility to control this at the moment?

Unfortunately this is a problem with ESH and the changes would need to be made there. I agree that this is an issue though - I have the same problem with other bindings at the moment.

Hi Chris

was the last issue about inclusion address as far as your aware? as there been any issues or updates to enhance using dual controllers in your later zwave bindings?

I have issues i think only two controllers will resolve

thanks

It should be no problem to use multiple controllers within the binding and I believe others are doing this.

Thanks Chris. Has there been any development on dual controllers?