Everywhere I can read that z-wave nodes doesn’t have to have “direct” contact with the controller.
A node can “jump” through another node (preferably powered by cord to always be awake) to the controller.
Do these jumps need to be configured or do they occur automatically?
If it needs to be configured does it imply that I can only include a node with direct connection to the controller and I need to configure which nodes to use for reaching the controller?
Thanks in advance
zwave leverages a mesh network. It will self-heal and auto calculate routes. When you join a node, it must have direct communication to the controller at first. Once it is paired, you can move the node or controller away from each other. As long as the node can talk to at least one other zwave node that has a path to the controller, you will be all set.
A full network is a happy zwave network though. Lots of nodes make lots of paths and a strong network.
Oh and for the most part, all utility powered nodes will repeat. Battery powered nodes usually will not repeat as their batteries would rapidly drain from all of the communication.
Thanks for the reply, so pretty much automated…
Although do the association groups have anything to do with finding the routes?
Yes it is automated. You CAN define routes manually but this is generally a bad idea. Unless you are very advanced and have very specific use cases, let it auto route.
I assume you mean the .items groups? No, they don’t have anything to do with routing.
Zwave is separate from OH. Your controller will talk to OH through an addon. I use a vera lite as my zwave controller and talk to it through the mios addon. It works great. I know a lot of people use a usb zwave stick or similar and habmin I think to set it up but I don’t know anything about that route.
I join zwave devices to my mios unit and then create an item referencing the device in OH. Vera does a fantastic job with zwave devices, not so much with automation. The vera can also backup and restore your zwave network and talk to encrypted devices. The zwave addon cannot do either of those yet.