Brand new to OpenHAB (and to Z-wave) but I’ve got a background in industrial automation so the concepts are familiar.
I tried to make it as easy as possible on myself; I’ve bought a RPi3, and a Z-stick. I’ve got the basic openhabian image loaded, the Z-stick comms setup, and I can add Fibaro dimmers and relays, and their items, and toggle them, no worries.
I also have 3x Remotec ZXT-120s, which is just cannot get to discover/include. I go through the same process as the fibaros, but no luck. I read the manual, and checked the mode wasn’t in FLIRS (4x flashes of the LED). During the Z-wave search, I press the button on the device, but it never shows up in the inbox.
Does anyone have any advice on how to get this working as is? Has anyone had to add it manually through a things file? Any advice would be appreciated!
I would try to include the device using the Z-stick first, then use OH2 to configure the thing.
Shutdown OH2, take out the Z-Wave controller from the rPi3, bring it close to the device, follow the inclusion procedure from the manual of the stick and the device, plug it back in and try to discover the node from OH2 (it will essentially read the already included nodes from the stick configuration)
In addition to Dim’s suggestion, maybe first run exclusion of the device(s). I don’t remember having any problem adding my ZXT-120. But having said that, it is quite normal that you have to tripple press a lot of times on some devices, not always will they include as described in the manual, so I might have tried this without remembering this…
I tried that originally, and I tried again last night… no luck unfortunately. given that I’ve got 3x Remotecs and they’re all behaving the same, I’m very confused as to why they won’t pair, when the Fibaros are so easy. I’m a bit uncertain as to HOW the Z-stick/OH2 config works… does the Z-stick itself remain the controller of the network, or does the OH2 assume that role and simply use the Z-stick as a modem/adapter?
I also swapped the power supply from laptop-USB to socket-USB, and tried the 3xAAA batteries as well. No difference at all. Very confused, but I’m clearly doing SOMETHING wrong :S. Is there a difference between using PaperUI, HABMIN, etc?
Any advice for how I might attempt to do it offline using the things file? How would it identify a unique device, from all the other same brand devices?
I am not 100% sure, but I think that the answer is: the Z-stick remains the primary controller.
Usually, the Z-sticks have their own local config storage (Eeprom) that you can also backup using some tools (e.g. Link)
HABmin was created by the author of the Z-Wave binding (@chris) and I use this UI to manage my Z-Wave stuff
For more info on the UIs, see here: http://docs.openhab.org/addons/uis.html
I don’t think that you can solve the issue that you have by defining a *.things file in OH2…
You need to make sure that your Z-Wave devices have been included in the Z-Wave controller (the Z-stick) first.
Afterwards, OH2 should discover them using the binding and you will see something like the following in your openhab.log:
13:52:57.609 [INFO ] [ing.zwave.handler.ZWaveSerialHandler] - Connecting to serial port '/dev/ttyACM0'
13:52:57.751 [INFO ] [ing.zwave.handler.ZWaveSerialHandler] - Serial port is initialized
13:52:57.786 [INFO ] [ve.internal.protocol.ZWaveController] - Starting ZWave controller
13:52:57.786 [INFO ] [ve.internal.protocol.ZWaveController] - ZWave timeout is set to 5000ms. Soft reset is false.
13:53:00.957 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - NODE 1: Node found
13:53:00.957 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - NODE 2: Node found
13:53:00.957 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - NODE 3: Node found
13:53:00.957 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - NODE 4: Node found
13:53:00.957 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - NODE 6: Node found
13:53:00.957 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - NODE 8: Node found
13:53:00.957 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - ZWave Controller using Controller API
13:53:00.958 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - ZWave Controller is Primary Controller
13:53:00.958 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - ------------Number of Nodes Found Registered to ZWave Controller------------
13:53:00.958 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - # Nodes = 6
13:53:00.958 [INFO ] [age.SerialApiGetInitDataMessageClass] - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next step will be for OH2 to identify them properly. For battery powered devices, this may take a couple of wake-ups.
If the devices are not registered in the Z-stick… you won’t be able to use them (either by using manual or auto/PaperUI definition)
Thanks for info on Habmin vs Paper for Z-wave. I was using paper, but I’ll swap over.
I’m curious as to the comments about HAVING to include the devices using the Z-stick and putting it into inclusion mode, which doesn’t gel with my observations so far… I didn’t need to remove the stick at all to include the Fibaro relays or dimmers using Paper UI. Starting discovery seems to actually put the stick into include mode I believe(?).
That being said, I’ll try again using the other approach. It’s clearly achievable, based on so many people using the ZXT-120s.
Correct. You don’t have to remove the Z-stick from the host running OH2. When you start the discovery from PaperUI (or HABmin), this actually puts the controller in inclusion mode (for 30 secs by default if I remember well… it’s like pressing the inclusion button on the controller itself)
I wrote about removing it as a troubleshooting step to bring it closer to the endpoint that you wanted to include to avoid issues with network reach. Normally, you don’t have to do this (remove the Z-stick).
I normally always include/exclude using the stick, since it (at least my Aeon G5) has indicator leds that indicates what’s happening. I used to include my zwave devices from software in my Vera days, and that was a lot of running back and forth. I’m older now, so maybe this is why I prefer to take the stick with me, and just observe how the inclusion/exclusion goes without running
I finally got this to work. Thanks for all your advice! What I needed to do (and learn):
When in doubt, factory resets are reassuring
OH2 inbox doesn’t update just by pulling out the Z-stick and plugging it in again. I had to reboot the RPi (I’m sure there’s probably a way to refresh the service, but it didn’t happen automatically which I expected it should do).
Devices can be faulty: 1/3 of my remotecs turns out to have a problem, so I’m returning it.
Z-stick native include/exclude is more informative/intuitive with its LED statuses than OH2 is.
battery devices need multiple button presses to include/sync completely.
