full devices reset

[powisquare]

@rafale77 said in Why Migrate to Z-way from vera and how?:

You can make the reactor device IDs the same by manipulating them the same way you would on a vera (it is an attribute). What will be different will be the device IDs of the zwave devices.... When moving to openLuup, the zwave devices will be come bridged and will have an added “prefix” of 10 sending them in the 10000+ range.

You could alternatively try to add z-way as a secondary controller first which would make the same zwave device show up twice on openLuup: one through the vera path and the other through the z-way path.

I have openLuup connected via VeraBridge to 3 x veras. The vera that has just gone to orange light hell has its devices in the 30000 range on openLuup. If I have any success copying vera on to uzb is it possible to keep those device numbers via Z-way Bridge in openLuup? My Reactors are all on openLuup already so would be mighty useful.

[akbooer]

Hmmm. Vera allocates device numbers sequentially, and VeraBridge simply adds an offset. The ZWay bridge, however, uses the ZWave node number, and offsets from that. So it’s going to be a bit difficult.

Ideas anyone?

[rafale77]

It's a tough nut to crack... There is no easy solution. This is what motivated @DesT to resolve devices by their names but moving to Zway still means you will have to name all the devices on Z-way... not too different from renumbering your devices on openLuup except maybe for it to be more intuitive yet at the same time more typo prone...

[akbooer]

@rafale77 said in Why Migrate to Z-way from vera and how?:

not too different from renumbering your devices on openLuup except maybe for it to be more intuitive

Couldn’t be easier to rename your devices in openLuup, using the console’s Device Table page. Simply type the new name into the boxes...

[rafale77]

Ahhh yes the console makes it much easier. The challenge though is to go back and rewrite all the scenes and index devices according to their names instead of device ids.

I just did something in the same idea and was really missing a search/replace for the lua code content of my scenes. I used luaview which was very helpful in reading the code but it is missing the search/replace. Would be a nice feature to add to luaview. @toggledbits.

[powisquare]

Not sure where to run Zway bridge from - the openLuup system doing all the logic (where the current verabridges are) or on the new rpi replacing vera? Both? Perhaps I won't need openLuup on the vera replacment if it doesn't do any logic?

[akbooer]

I've run ZWay perfectly happily on an RPi (actually, a Razberry) with the ZWay bridge running on a separate openLuup machine. Equally, I've run them on the same machine. In fact, you can do both simulatneously (ie. with openLuup and ZWay plugin on both machines) if you like!

[rafale77]

@powisquare

It is either or. Not both. You can decide depending on your hardware. I have done both as well.
My view on pros and cons.
Running zway on the same system as openLuup:
-The z-way bridge runs locally and since it is polling based, you can make it poll at a very high frequency without adding a lot of traffic to your network.
-downside is that you need to setup ser2net/socat which is a little more work. I tweaked my systemd z-way-server command to restart socat every time z-way-server restart to make it a little easier.

Running z-way on the remote device... all the above reversed. It also means that the remote device would be a little more powerful. It also means that you will have to maintain 2 systems more often. Not a big deal really but something to keep in mind.
I have opted for the first solution and my remote "Z-host" has not been rebooted in 9 months! No maintenance needed. It is powered by a POE injector and is a passively cooled celeron mini PC running debian consuming a constant 4W.

[akbooer]

@rafale77 said in Why Migrate to Z-way from vera and how?:

It is either or. Not both

To be clear, the UZB can only be on one machine, of course, and the https://z-wave.me/ software. However, you can run multiple versions of openLuup and the ZWay bridge on a number of different machines, including the one on which the ZWay server is running, all accessing the same server.

[powisquare]

Have a few zwave networks so would need to run zway on the remote device(s) and gradually replace the verabridges with zway bridges. Eventually three UZBs on different machines with their own zway server all controlled by a central openLuup. Perhaps similar to how my veras are operating currently.

Then I read zway can run multiple UZBs! Would the ser2net/socat route work for multiple UZBs with one controller - and make for easier maintenance?

[akbooer]

@powisquare said in Why Migrate to Z-way from vera and how?:

Then I read zway can run multiple UZBs! Would the ser2net/socat route work for multiple UZBs with one controller - and make for easier maintenance?

...I have NO idea!

[rafale77]

I just took a good look at it and no it doesn't seem like a z-way-server instance can support multiple zwave radios. You will need one instance of z-way-server per radio so your approach is correct... running the z-way-server on the remote unit with multiple z-way bridges is the way to go.

[powisquare]

Thanks guys - just one more thing ; ) If I install say a reactor on a remote device running zway server and openLuup - will my central openLuup see this as a device or does the zway bridge only talk to the zway server.

[rafale77]

Each instance of z-way bridge talks to one z-way server. You can have multiple instances of the bridge on openLuup. one openLuup can obviously connect also to another openluup using a verabridge instance.

[LibraSun]

This post is deleted!

[akbooer]

@librasun

Thanks for the heads up on that. Strangely, the forum software seems to have converted plain text to a URL link (to a non-existent domain, so I ended up with a web hosting service offering to sell that domain to me!)

Anyway, it's fixed now, and I edited your quote above to remove the link too.

Thanks again

[Pabla]

Hey guys, I am just tired of the Vera Z wave setup I have too many devices falling offline randomly and almost all my lock's states are incorrectly reported. Though my network is fairly fast I want to move to something a bit more reliable. I don't want to go the full route of OpenLuup + Z way yet, but I would like to go just the Z way route.

If my understanding is correct Z way is just a Z wave dongle that handles all the z wave tasks, and once configured properly the Vera will still be able to see all these Z wave devices but it just wont be directly controlling them .. instead going through the Z way?

[rafale77]

@pabla

Hmm not quite. I was hoping my github readme would be clear enough but apparently not.

Z-way in really meant to be a competing platform to the vera supporting zwave only. It can be made to run all automation etc... They just don't sell a hub. The hardware they sell is only a usb zwave stick (the zwave.me uzb) or a raspberry pi HAT (the razberry). It means that you need to supply your own hardware to run the software. I found it to be relatively easy to migrate my vera zwave network to their uzb stick and then found that the device configuration on the z-way-server software was much easier and transparent than what happens on a vera. This however does not migrate your scenes and plugins. It only migrates the z-wave mesh. The vera cannot control that mesh anymore but potentially you could look at the plugins on z-way to reproduce what you had on vera and redo all your automations on that platform, assuming that you only have zwave devices.

That's not what I and a number of others did. Instead, many of us had already offloaded our plugins and automation to openLuup, a different machine running a luup engine which then connects to the vera, treating the latter as a device hub only. All I did was replace the vera with z-way, switching from the verabridge to z-way bridge. My reason for doing it this way is also because I was heavily invested in vera plugins and scenes and didn't want to start from scratch.

I think the first step to improving reliability on your vera is indeed to get yourself another small machine (I recommend a cheap mini PC based on a celeron for example, I posted links to a few $30 ones on ebay), install a version of linux and openLuup on them and start migrating all your scenes and plugins on it. @akbooer built a number of tools to make it relatively easy to do. This will alleviate all the problems associated with luup reload causing scenes and plugins to go out of whack. It won't however fix zwave network specific issues. You can then run your vera that way for some time and see if it yields satisfactory reliability for you.

Alternatively, before I migrated all my controls to z-way, I started by using z-way as a diagnostic and correction tool on my zwave network. To do this, I included it as a secondary controller to the vera and I would go fix some device configurations in ways the vera would not allow me to.

[Pabla]

@rafale77 Ah okay that makes more sense. So basically I cannot use the USB stick itself as a the primary Z wave controller for my Vera.

The thing is I am only really have issues with my z wave network, surprisingly my Vera runs pretty well I only get a LUUP reload maybe every 6-7 days. I guess if I do move to OpenLuup it could help with my network since my Vera isn't handling any plugins anymore.

I think I had it backwards, so the possible configs are

Vera (Z wave device hub) - OpenLuup (plugins and automation hub)

or

OpenLuup (plugins and automation huub) - Z way (Z wave device hub)

[rafale77]

@pabla said in Why Migrate to Z-way from vera and how?:

@rafale77 Ah okay that makes more sense. So basically I cannot use the USB stick itself as a the primary Z wave controller for my Vera.

Actually you can! But that doesn't buy you anything. The problems with the vera is not the hardware. It's the firmware. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with the hardware. My research actually led me to discover than a german company is running the z-way library on a custom firmware on the same hardware as the vera plus quite successfully. I was curious as to why z-way had somehow a ramips (the hardware platform of the vera) release of their software. But I digress.

Yes you understand it correctly now. Migrating all your scenes to openLuup, if you don't have any plugins, would prevent your scenes from being interrupted by luup reloads and potentially extend the interval between luup reloads. openLuup just doesn't crash on its own. Doing it this way I had intervals of 16-20days between luup reloads. The next step is z-way which never crashes.