Aeon Z-stick Gen5

[matt (support)]

Hi Jann,

Great – thanks for the feedback and I'm glad the G5 Z-Stick and the Strips are working so well!

I liked the suggestion to use a powered USB hub with a vertical orientation of the Z-stick for best line of sight to devices. I purchased an Anker 7-port hub with charging port. When I plug in the Gen5, I get one choice, a usbserial-xxxx, which does not work with Indigo. If I plug the Gen5 directly into my iMac, I get two choices, usbserial and usbmodem. The usbmodem choice works fine with Indigo. Any suggestions on how to get the usbmodem choice to appear?

[jay (support)]

usbmodem is how the Gen5 will appear (usbserial is likely your PowerLinc or RFXrec433 if you have one of those). This means that (as we often see) having the Gen5 plugged in the USB hub doesn't work. USB hubs are somewhat hit or miss in terms of whether they work with serial-like devices. I have a Dynex hub (like this one though the model # is slightly different) that seems to work well with the Series 2 Z-Stick but I don't have a Gen5 to test with.

One thing that does seem to make a difference is USB 2 vs 3 - USB 3 hubs seem to not play well with the Z-Sticks.

Is there any advantage to upgrade my gen2 stick to gen5? I purchased it 5 yrs ago. Seems to work but I only have 7 Zwave devices on my system

Is there any advantage to upgrade my gen2 stick to gen5? I purchased it 5 yrs ago. Seems to work but I only have 7 Zwave devices on my system

With the Gen5 stick, you can backup your network using an Aeotec utility, which will allow for an easier restore if things go sideways and allows writing the data to a new stick if your current stick fails. The utility is Windows only, though. Beyond that, I have found my Gen5 stick to be faster and more stable over Gen2 (but that's just an impression).

I can't speak to encrypted communication or network-wide inclusion as I don't use those.