Neighbour node setting

rafale77

To answer @sdtoddl who emailed me asking how to manually force neighbor node setting on the vera, I don’t think it is possible with the UI.
The solution is actually to trigger a neighbor node update on the given device and all the devices located between that said device and the controller.
The vera deals with this by running multiple repeated (nightly) network heals which is not very efficient and causes it to frequently have unexpected network breakdowns and surprises good (some devices with problems get fixed) and bad (some devices which used to work stop working). It also takes down the entire network when it does it. One can however manually trigger neighbor node updates on the vera through the device’s advanced menu.

To go to the next level, this data, the network node list is actually not recorded in the host controller firmware but in the non volatile memory of the zwave chip both on the controller and on the devices. It is therefore independent of the platform you use and can’t be set by the host. One can only ask the zwave chip on the device to run a survey and then inform the controller’s zwave chip of what it has found.

sdtoddl

Thank you for responding. It is frustrating that Vera either gives you an error when you select something on the UI that is no longer supported and/or they even allow you to do it when it isn’t supported.

On the device that is currently unreachable, the error on the UI is, “Can’t Detect Device.” Am I suppose to trigger the node update on the device I can’t reach on that specific device or under Settings -> Zwave settings -> Advanced -> Update Neighbor Nodes?

On all the devices, under Advanced -> Neighbors, there is an edit button on the UI. What does this do if anything if I edit the Neighbors on the device I can’t reach or on a device really close to the device the controller can reach? My plan was to manually tell a device that the controller can’t reach who isn’t neighbors were or a device the controller can reach put in the device that is currently unreachable.

rafale77

@sdtoddl said in Neighbour node setting:

On the device that is currently unreachable, the error on the UI is, “Can’t Detect Device.” Am I suppose to trigger the node update on the device I can’t reach on that specific device or under Settings -> Zwave settings -> Advanced -> Update Neighbor Nodes?

Yes in short but do it from the controller towards your thermostat, one device at a time, leaving a good 10 minutes between devices.

On all the devices, under Advanced -> Neighbors, there is an edit button on the UI. What does this do if anything if I edit the Neighbors on the device I can’t reach or on a device really close to the device the controller can reach? My plan was to manually tell a device that the controller can’t reach who isn’t neighbors were or a device the controller can reach put in the device that is currently unreachable.

This does nothing. The vera UI is a host controller, it can only ask the zwave chips on the network to update nodes, it cannot impose a neighbor on a node as far as I know.

sdtoddl

This what bothers me about Vera. There is no clear directions or even an FAQ on how to fix things. They shouldn’t allow you to edit neighbors if it does nothing. How hard would it be for them to remove the edit function on that one line of the UI! It could be such a great product if they would simply make a few changes.

sdtoddl

The device I am adding is a CT100 battery operated thermostat. I moved my controller close to it when I paired it. I wonder if I should have did the update network neighbors on the close switched before I moved my controller back to its normal place in the house. As soon as I moved the controller, the thermostat was no longer reachable.

sdtoddl

Does update neighbors even work anymore with the individual devices? I select the individual device (light switch). The Device Options -> Update Neighbors. It says that it is updating them but I am not seeing anything on top of the UI.
In Settings -> Logs -> I have Show Polling and Show Individual Jobs checked.

rafale77

Well honestly, it is such a simple zwave level command that I would be surprised if the update neighbor node does not work. It should be the same command being used for network heals.
The command takes time, that’s why I said you need to wait a good 10min before moving to the next step. The process is also handled by the zwave chip and not by the vera firmware. It is possible that the vera gets bogged down and reloads in the meantime, potentially interrupting the process but it normally shouldn’t. Just be patient with it. Since it is a battery powered device, do you know by any chance if it is a FLiRS type? I assume that it should be since it should be always ready to receive a command from the controller.
If it isn’t then you will need to wakeup the device while the neighbor node update is underway... but I doubt it is the case.

Now the real brute force solution to all of these problems is to get rid of the vera and migrate to a less obscur and buggy platform... In the meantime, I can’t recommend at least moving all your scenes and plugins to openluup.

sdtoddl

I am not sure. It is the Radio Thermostat CT100. It isn’t Zwave Plus.

https://2gig.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/CT100-Operation-Guide.pdf

Like you said, since it is always ready to accept commands to change the temperature, I suspect it is.

I liked the user interface and that is why I chose it. Plus, this location doesn’t have a C wire so I had to do battery. It definitely works better if you have a C wire and can then pair it without batteries.

I tried doing what you said and it didn’t work. What bugs me is I even did the update neighbors on the device that is unreachable gave me a “success.” Clearly, it wasn’t a success because the device is not even reachable so it couldn’t even try.

Any other suggestions? Should I try doing a update network neighbors in the Zwave settings on the controller for the whole system?
I spoke to a tech support person on Friday and told me there is no way to update the network neighbors and the system does it automatically at 1 or 2 am.
I question if that was really accurate. Again, if it was, the they should remove update network neighbor options from the UI on all the devices and in the Zwave setting for the controller.
So frustrating because these things are difficult to change. They need to rename the product Almost.

rafale77

The tech support is talking about the idiotic nightly heal happening at 2am if you don’t stop it and almost never finished on my network because it was so large. It is a great function for a 10 node network with no battery operated device but will start stuttering for anything more, requiring multiple retries and therefore many days to complete, crashing the system a few times on the way.
The update neighbor node on the vera zwave menu should trigger exactly the same action. You can try that. If they broke the individual device neighbor node update, then I don’t know. Things like that is why I moved to z-way... I can update neighbor nodes on any node I want at any time I want... and watch the progress and outcome while it is doing it.

sdtoddl

Thank you again for all your help.
This shouldn’t be rocket science. This system only has approximately 11 devices. Although, more than half of them are batteries. 2 locks, 3 smoke detectors, 2 thermostats, 4 light switches. I made sure the light switches were evenly spaced so I would get a good mesh network of devices that always had power. I just did the system wide network neighbor update. Keeping my fingers crossed. I guess if this doesn’t work, I am going to swap out this thermostat. I didn’t like that this thermostat didn’t show its neighbor even when I paired it. The other thermostat shows it. None of the smoke detectors (Zwave Plus) show the network neighbors. I noticed the locks that are also Zwave plus don’t show neighbors. - I am not sure if that is a Vera issue or a Zwave issue. Clearly some battery devices show the neighbors so you would think they all would. I wish Zwave was more strict on making manufacturers implement al the zwave features. It has gotten better since Zwave plus but still not perfect. Friends that have Lutron products love it. They say it works 100% of the time.

rafale77

I can tell you that anything zwave besides vera and SmartThings (due to cloud) work 100% of the time too. You are right, this is not rocket science and as I have expressed in other posts here and elsewhere, I finally graduated from this phase and replacing the vera was the key. I am now able to focus on growing and developing new things as opposed to constantly troubleshooting my network or the luup engine...

The display of the neighbor nodes is just that... a display. My experience with it is that it is fairly inaccurate on the UI so I would not even bother looking at it unlike any other controller.

sdtoddl

I did the whole network neighbor update and it didn’t work. I am going to try replacing that thermostat tomorrow. It could just be defective I didn’t like that it didn’t show the neighbors when I first paired it. I would have expected it to that since the other thermostats shows its neighbors. . What I don’t know if it it the other thermostat showed them right away. One of the big problems with Vera is they just aren’t very transparent on what the controller is doing and/or what works and doesn't work. I wish they had a system were you could see all the reported bugs so you don’t waste hours trying to debug something that will never work. I wasted a lot of time with my new Schlage Zwave Plus lock. Vera had to give me a beta release to fix it. - I am going to look at your reviews of the different hubs. I want to look at Hubitat and open source Home Assistant. - Vera is especially bad with older non-Zwave + devices. Are these other hubs OK with that? I don’t want to have to replace all my switches and I have an expensive water cutoff. The Vera gives strange errors for the water cutoff. Plus, they have the notifications wrong. When I turn the water off, it tells me I turns it on. Thanks again.

rafale77

Short answer: No other controllers have these problems. It's not to say that they won't have any problems but none as unreliable and as poorly implemented as the vera. openZwave used to have issues with some specific device types because the other was reverse engineering the protocol without documentation but even that library, which is used by domoticz, openhab, home-assistant amongst others is now more complete and reliable than the vera. The other three major zwave libraries are the SmartThing/Hubitat, Homeseer and the zwave.me one. They all use the same zwave serial API and zwave chips, with various level of implementation (the zwave chip may have more or less embedded memory, have a usb to serial interface, etc...). The zwave commands should all be the same.
I too have very ancient devices. Half of my network is on legacy zwave... I actually don't think your issues are a device support issue so much as a zwave network handling from vera.

sdtoddl

OK. Thanks. I am going to look at the other hubs. Hubitat, I doesn’t appear to support Schlage locks. I remember when I looked at Homeseer about 10 years ago, it was a windows based product. This may have changed. The HomeSeer products sure look nice now. It is probably between that and the Zwaveme. The Zwaveme doesn’t look as polished of a web page but...
I like that Homeseer has been around for so long and they say their product works with dozens of zwave devices.

The devices I am most concerned about are:

Evolve - LFM-20 (not Zwave Plus)
Fortrezz WV-01 water cutoff (Not Zwave plus)
Schlage locks Zwave plus and older versions
First alert Zwave smoke detectors.

and to a lesser extent but it would be nice
Aeotec SmartEnergy Switch (their first generation one that is big. I believe it was Aeon labs DSC06106-ZWUS)

I assume they will all work with the GE light switches.
Plus, I want it to have an OS X app

rafale77

@sdtoddl said in Neighbour node setting:

OK. Thanks. I am going to look at the other hubs. Hubitat, I doesn’t appear to support Schlage locks.

I don't think that this is possible. One of my neighbors runs Schlage locks with Hubitat but more importantly, there is no such a thing as a device not supported by Hubitat. This is a vera thing. On hubitat, you can load your own driver for every zwave and zigbee device and I am fairly sure someone from their community has developed one. The whole device support concept is vera/EZLO nonsense which openzwave has also suffered from because of the way it came to be. No other platform that I know of has these problems... They support everything which talks zwave albeit potentially with some work required to configure. To be honest, even on the vera, I found non officially supported devices to often work much better than the official ones, in part because I manually configured them and disabled the auto-configuration feature. So they either support zwave or they don't. That is it. Device support issues is a foreign concept to hubitat/ST, zwave.me and to some extent homeseer. Homeseer is pushing to Homeseer4 which from what I read is a bit of a mess so I would not recommend it. It remains a windows/VB based platform.

sender

Have a look at:

OpenZWave/qt-openzwave

QT5 Wrapper for OpenZWave. Contribute to OpenZWave/qt-openzwave development by creating an account on GitHub.

For me so far so good. Openzwave in home assitant (or mqtt). This is my current aim as a succesor for vera...

sdtoddl

Thanks for that advice on the Hubitat. I had just looked at their list of supported devices and thought it was interesting that they didn’t have Schlage on there. They are sold out right now so it doesn’t look like I am going to buy one of those.