Moving z-wave hardware to a new house

Posted on
Mon Dec 18, 2017 2:02 pm
edrabbit offline
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Moving z-wave hardware to a new house

We moved to a new house and I brought all my home automation hardware with me, with is a mix of Insteon and Z-Wave. This included a Z-Wave ZStick Ver2, a bunch of Fibaro Motion Sensors, some Aeotec Smart Switches, and Aeon Labs appliance switches. I created a new database in Indigo for a nice clean start and all the Insteon stuff is no problem since the logs report the ID of the device. But with the ZWave stuff, all I've got is a list of a bunch of generic named devices. I was able to guess a few of them since I didn't have many, but with 30+ of them this looks like a lot of trial and error to figure out which ones are which. I'm wondering if other people have run into this situation, and would love advice, pitfalls, problems, etc that you've run into.

I figure I have 4 options:
    1. Trial and error with the current ZStick v2 to avoid having to disassociate and re-associate each device.
    2. Spending time to dis-associate and re-associate each device as I install it with current zstick.
    3. Factory reset ZStick and just re-do the couple of Z-wave devices I already associated.
    4. Throw away the ZStick V2 and upgrade to a new Z-Stick Gen5 and add all the devices to that.

I'm leaning towards #4, with the assumption that the Gen5 is worth the $45 and that all my old devices will work with it. I'm also assuming that it won't matter if the device is associated with an old network when I try to put it on the new one. Any opinions?

Posted on
Tue Dec 19, 2017 7:05 am
johnpolasek offline
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Location: Aggieland, Texas

Re: Moving z-wave hardware to a new house

edrabbit wrote:
I'm also assuming that it won't matter if the device is associated with an old network when I try to put it on the new one. Any opinions?


A lot of the old standard Z-wave devices will have to be excluded or factory reset before they can be included on a different controller... but most of them can be excluded without having the original controller present (a necessity or they'd become paperweights if the Z-stick they were associated with went belly up). And old or new stick, exclude/include is a good way to figure out who's who, since you are probably going to be using them for different purposes anyway.

Posted on
Wed Dec 20, 2017 1:38 am
howartp offline
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Re: Moving z-wave hardware to a new house

If you open up your old database, it will list node IDs against Device names.

Screenshot/print this then go back to your new database and use it to name your devices.

Then use Zwave debug and the log; turn on or wake each device one by one and watch the log to see which one wakes up - then put a sticker on it.

Advice for future? Label them before you remove them! :-)


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Posted on
Wed Dec 20, 2017 8:14 am
kw123 offline
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Re: Moving z-wave hardware to a new house

I switched to gen5 and have no issues with zwave anymore. It takes a bit of time but from my perspective it was worth it.

Make a plan to include the devices, then you can get it done in 30 minutes.
First exclude everything.
Then go around and include one after the other and write down # and device.
Connect the zstick to the indigo server
add zwave devices — Start with the closest and work your way to the furthest.
Then do an optimize

That work fine for me.

Karl.


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Last edited by kw123 on Wed Dec 20, 2017 8:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Posted on
Wed Dec 20, 2017 8:29 am
Colorado4Wheeler offline
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Re: Moving z-wave hardware to a new house

kw123 wrote:
I switched to gen5 and have no issues with zwave anymore. It takes a bit of time but from my perspective it was worth it.


I agree, my Gen 5 has been working perfectly - but the switchover is no walk in the park, particularly if you have a lot of motion sensors, as I do, and each one has to be repositioned precisely again after being taken down to unpair/repair.

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Posted on
Wed Dec 20, 2017 8:30 am
johnpolasek offline
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Re: Moving z-wave hardware to a new house

One other thing; any encrypted devices need to be skipped in the initial add, because the Z-Stick must be on the Server when you include those... and if they are any significant distance from the server, it helps to have the non encrypted devices acting as relays when you do the inclusion.

Posted on
Thu Jan 04, 2018 10:03 pm
edrabbit offline
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Re: Moving z-wave hardware to a new house

I ended up going with the Gen5 Z-stick. It hasn't been bad. Also leaving the stick plugged in and triggering inclusion mode from a laptop as I walked around has been awesome. Especially since the new place is 3 stories!

Posted on
Fri Jan 05, 2018 6:10 am
durosity offline
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Re: Moving z-wave hardware to a new house

edrabbit wrote:
I ended up going with the Gen5 Z-stick. It hasn't been bad. Also leaving the stick plugged in and triggering inclusion mode from a laptop as I walked around has been awesome. Especially since the new place is 3 stories!


That’s what I did when I switched.. set up action groups for exclude and include on indigo touch and went around excluding everything first then re-including one at a time. The reinclusion was the difficult part as you can’t resync devices in indigo touch (something I’d love to see in future versions) so had to use that and TeamViewer to do that side of things correctly!

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