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The expertUI of Z-way has a very interesting menu called analytics which I have not seen on any other controller.
My engineering curiosity and OCD tendency to want to optimize everything lead me to dig into it to see if I could get things working even better... even though nothing seem to be broken since my move from the UI firmware to z-way. So the background noise menu was of particular interest.So here it is: This was my first shot of the starting block on the left side of this graph and you can see that at around 21:00 I did something to reduce the noise. My zwave.me uzb is connected to the vera through a usb extension cable and a usb hub but initially the vera and usb hub were sitting only a 6-7 inches (20cm) away from the uzb. Keep in mind the scale on both channels. What I did was to move the vera away from the uzb stick, to about 80cm but the big step was for me to use some metal leftover amazon gift card boxes I had from christmas and covered the usb hub with them. The step back up was me moving these macgyver shields around.
Next step is still goofing around with the shields to see if I could optimize further and while I initially made it worse, you can see that it got a little better later on. That USB hub is quite noisy.
After sometime, I just thought that the whole thing is just too sensitive any movement around that area could potentially cause problems. So I decided to remove the hub connected to the vera which really was just allowing to extroot the vera. Since I am no longer using the vera as a vera but only as a remote serial bridge, which doesn't write anything on its drive, I took it out. Again look closely at the scales. It did take the noise down another notch.
Now the stick is still sitting 14inch away from a UPS with a bunch of wall warts connected to it, powering a variety of devices like a hue 2 hub. I had the idea of replacing just the wall wart (AC-DC power supply) for the vera with a POE splitter. Since channel 2 is already hovering around the detection limit, I am only showing channel 1 here
This last step alone enable me to flip this other statistics menu:
It not only significantly decreased the CRC error rate but also made the foreign network impact greater that the CRC error bar negating the success on reception for the first time. When I took a zniffer to look into what these CRC error frames were, I discovered that they were all from my neighbor's network which is distant and have obviously poor signal strength. (Yes I can see his HomeId from the zniffer). The fact that I see less error means that my controller's range is greater. It is now able to recognize frames which are from my neighbor's instead of saying they are corrupted... Also The back off frames number decreased indicating less wasted/repeated frames on the network.
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I will be posting some more test results, not just for zwave but more generically about these wall warts, their quality and how to replace them. I am waiting on more samples.
Focus will be on:
Hi frequency RF emissions of the DC output cable. (which likely corresponds to noise in the power output)
Low frequency RF emissions of the DC output cable. (which would correspond to ripple in the power output)
I have also some disturbing results from my microwave oven... It is so poorly shielded that it shutdown wifi, zigbee, BT and another of my security system running 2.4GHz when it runs by completely saturating the 2.4GHz band. I bought a shielding fabric to cover it top see if makes a difference. -
Now that i'm up and running with proper firmware I started looking at this too:
I probably have some AC/DC devices making noise, but that big difference on channel 2 at around 9 o clock was turning the polling off on the Vera! it has no z-wave devices, but its still rambling at the network?
Could it be disabled completely? Still use the zigbee on it..
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The zigbee chip won't interfere but I did turn off the zwave chip on my nuked vera... zwave polling from another controller will make this kind of mess. This is done through a zwave serial command putting the zwave chip into listening only mode. I forgot if I posted it here somewhere as I got rid of my vera a couple of months ago.
Edit: here
zwaveserial -l -
Just thought i'd show you a direct result of upgrading to Z-Way 3.2.1:
My interference levels have been stable at the same levels (some noise, but its working well), but now they suddenly dropped to a new low. There is some updates in the communication handling, but can this be right?
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Interesting! I have moved and have taken down my entire system. It will be a few months before I get a new one up and running but it does indeed look like the noise level is quite a bit lower. Not sure if it is due to reporting differences or if it true noise decrease.
Hey guys ... I've started creating a Docker container for Z-Way.
I was previously using the Razberry2 but found it a bit slow on my Raspberry Pi 3. I could upgrade to a Raspberry Pi 4 but since I already run a dedicated Linux server and many Docker containers I thought it might make more sense to run Z-Way on there.
GitHub: https://github.com/sofakng/docker-zway
DockerHub: https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/sofakng/zway
This container is based on other containers that are no longer updated: (ruimarinho/docker-z-way) and (EugenMayer/docker-image-zway)
I'd love to hear feedback and any improvements that might be needed.
One thing I want to add immediately is to separate the configuration files from the Docker volume but it looks like Z-Way has several user configuration files/directories?
$ZWAY_DIR/config/Configuration.xml
$ZWAY_DIR/config/Rules.xml
$ZWAY_DIR/config/maps
$ZWAY_DIR/config/zddx
$ZWAY_DIR/automation/user_syscommands
$ZWAY_DIR/automation/storage
$ZWAY_DIR/automation/userModules
$ZWAY_DIR/htdocs/smarthome/user
$ZWAY_DIR/config.xml
Not 100% sure this is the best place, but this seems to be the sticking point.
Background: My NotVera system has been working perfectly now for some years. USB Z wave stick in an old Intel NUC.
The NUC has a bare metal install of Debian buster, and on that we have:
Z-wave Smart Home
OpenLuup
AltUI
MSR
Mosquito server
Home Automation Bridge.
I also have a bare metal Raspian install of Home Assistant running on a Pi
Due to my Buffalo Linkstation doing some odd stuff (like suddenly disconnecting, while maintaining everything was fine) I bit the bullet and bought a Synology DS224+
Now, given the age of my NUC I'm thinking that I should probably start thinking about how to replace / safeguard it. Pretty happy that I can make an image of the existing disk and drop it onto a virtual machine in the Synology, or re-install / restore or do some other things (not decided what yet) but I get stuck on the USB dongle.
Can I connect that to a VM on the NAS, or do I need another solution?
TIA
C
I have a Razberry v2 with firmware v5.04, and Bootloader v8aaa with CRC 35498 (I did manage to upgrade to this version using the "ZMESerialUpdater" tool ). I want to upgrade the firmware to v5.27, which Z-Wave.me Support say is the newest version that my hardware can handle without bricking it. Firmware v5.27 introduces the Analytics tab, according to Poltos, which is what I want.
I have been studying the firmware map (https://service.z-wave.me/expertui/uzb-stats/versions-graph.html?with_hidden) which I sort-of understand. I have also got the "ZMESerialUpdater" tool to do the update, and could use it if I knew which binaries to use.
My question is, what firmware update route do I use to get from v5.04 to v5.27? What exactly are the URLs of the binaries (as in "UPD_FIRMWARE_Razberry500_from_05_04_to_05_07.bin")?
Somewhat confused!
ScotsDon
Lagging a little here but I just upgraded my z-way-server version and couldn't find much information on their website or even forum.
https://storage.z-wave.me/z-way-server/
What is interesting for the ubuntu/debian version is that it is now released as a .deb package making upgrades much easier. I just downloaded the package and ran:
dpkg -i z-way-*.deb
and nothing else. The previous versions required some manual work since it was just a bunch of files for us to overwrite our installations.
From the release note, there could be interesting things for some folks here. It is a pretty long list compared to the previous incremental release.
For all systems backup is a vital part of the long-term usability.
I thought that I describe my set up with Z-way so far. Hopefully others can fill in with their backup thoughts as well. I am sure that there are much more streamlined ways of doing this and hope to learn from you all.
I run Z-way on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ with a daughter RaZberry card. In order to reduce the risk of getting corrupt SD cards I have it running off an SSD. So far this works very well. Setting it up was really easy just reading a standard Raspbian image onto the SSD. The only minor obstacle was that I had to test a few old 2.5" enclosures to find one that the Pi liked.
The Pi is then also powered via an UPS, hopefully this will avoid problems in the event of power outages.
In order to backup Z-way I have so far done manual backups from the regular Smarthome backup & restore function creating .zab files and from the Expert UI creating .zbk files. As far as I have understood the .zab files which are bigger contain more information than the .zbk files. The strategy so far has been to make backup files after each inclusion/exclusion. Also before updating Z-way. I have yet to test restoring from these files.
From Smarthome it is also possible to set up cloud backup. I have not yet set up this as I need to decide that it is safe enough to do so. On the other hand I had this set up on my two Veras.
It would have been nice to be able to schedule a local backup of Z-way instead of having to put them in the cloud, perhaps from OpenLuup via the Z-way bridge?
In addition to the built in backup function I try to do complete image copies of the SD cards on my Pi's with Win32DiskImager. When I moved to an SSD the image file grew to the size of the SSD since it is a raw copy including all the empty space. Image files of 160GB are not practical to handle so I found a good instruction on how to shrink the .img file with Gparted in Linux: https://steemit.com/raspberrypi/@wizzle/shrink-raspberry-pi-images-using-windows-virtualbox-running-raspberry-pi-desktop
By shrinking the .img file with Gparted it is now a more reasonable 4GB. These file are stored on my NAS for safekeeping. The strategy here so far is to make a new image file before updating Z-way and to use these in combination with more frequent Z-way backups.
I have tested restoring a Gparted shrinked .img file to the SSD when my Z-way for some strange reason became unreachable through the regular UI but remained reachable through the Expert UI. Always good to test the restore function and to see that it works.
The downside of the .img strategy is that I need to power-off the Pi for a while when making the backup. However if the Z-way backup files work then the complete .img backup need not be done so very often.
//ArcherS
Have a number of TKB plug switches (TZ68) that are not reporting to the controller. Believe they should be associated to Z-Way in Group 1 but am not able to get the devices to report groups in the interview/call for NIF process and so there are no associations possible. Thermosat is telling them to come on/off (hurrah!) but they don't report their on/off status in the gui.
In Associations tab: Can not configure associations: groups were not reported by the device. Do interview.
(Solved - presume pijuice hat was upset battery wasn't connected. Took out the plastic protector and UZB now showing. Next - upgrade UZB firmware)
Have I missed something? UZB not showing up in Zway ...
Downloaded Raspberry Pi Imager and used to set up os (Buster) on an 8gb SD
https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/
Then installed Zway from Terminal
wget -q -O - https://storage.z-wave.me/RaspbianInstall | sudo bash
https://z-wave.me/z-way/download-z-way/
Plugged in UZB
Changed port to /dev/ttyACM0 in menu/apps/ZWave network access in basic UI
Probably @rafale77 will jump on this question first
I'm using the new model of GE/Jasco switch (they replaced the dead one I got) and the new model is having also S2 security and send instant status update BUT,
And probably @rafale77 will say yes, is it possible that interference can do that I'm missing some instant update status ?
Often, I'm having the wrong status in the zwave.me web interface...and even clicking the icon, the status didn't changed to right one.
I also try to do some "On/Off" using the web interface, and the device itself physically, toggle without a problem, but the web interface is still no correct.
I'm trying to monitor the indicator command class of a 5 button scene controller in Z-Way so openluup can properly create and track it.
seems like Z-Way COMMAND_CLASS_INDICATOR (0x87 or 135) are not being monitored by the ZWave module as I couldn't find anything for this command class in (/z-way-server-path/automation/modules/ZWave/index.js)
When a Get or Set Indicator command class request is sent to the controller. ZSniffer picks up the request and response just fine although this packets are not being monitored by the zwave module
Example:
ZWayIP:8083/ZWaveAPI/Run/SendData(NodeID,[ Command_Class, Instance, Value ])
ZWayIP:8083/ZWaveAPI/Run/SendData(2,[ 0x87, 0x01, 0x01 ]) (Hexa)
ZWayIP:8083/ZWaveAPI/Run/SendData(2,[ 135, 1, 1 ]) (Decimal)
the answer looks like:
[2020-04-24 19:59:36.261] [I] [zway] Waiting for job reply: Indicator Get
[2020-04-24 19:59:36.281] [D] [zway] RECEIVED: ( 01 0B 00 04 00 02 03 87 03 01 B6 00 C2 )
[2020-04-24 19:59:36.281] [D] [zway] SENT ACK
I’d like to store the Indicator response “RECEIVED” correctly. I believe by modifying the index.js of the zwave module could do the trick and once the module start tracking the indicator command class values as a metric then openluup's z-way plugin would properly track any changes as well.
I'm wondering if anyone around here could share any thoughts or comments that could make it easier...
Posting here, as the z-wave.me forum seems desolated..
I have two multisensor 6 sensors, and one of them is not sending motion sensor updates?
Looking at the configuration, they are both registered as battery sensors for som reason, even if they are USB powered. They respond quickly to parameter changes, except for parameter 100 and 110, that will not update.
Any clues? How do i convince the controller that they are USB powered?
