Starting from scratch

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1

I finally decided I couldn’t take the mess of delays, not working, and troubles with my ST installation, plus my wife is pretty frustrated with all of this, so I decided to purge all of the Z-wave devices from my system and start over.

So my journey started with z-wave exclude, and I went around to ALL of my switches, bulbs, smoke detectors, sensors, etc. and removed them. Was over 30 devices (yay?)! When I was done, there were 2 devices that were still present and COULD not be deleted, one was Switch - Master Bedroom which was dropping out frequently, and was literally my first switch ever installed, and the second was Switch - Dining Room which I had also had many connection failures and some REALLY long delays when trying to do that switch. I tried deleting in the app, in the IDE, and nothing was working. I finally rebooted my hub and was able to delete them from the IDE. I did a z-wave repair after all of this and it took 1 second (nothing on that network anymore).

So after all of that, I hard reset (hold config for 20s until red) every red dimmer I had, and they all performed the reset just fine.

Last step, I deleted the Inovelli device handlers in the IDE, deleted smartapps, paused all webcore/ecobee suite assistants, etc.

Started adding back switches one by one. First switch I added through the app using the WWST functionality, and it installed the “Z-Wave Metering Dimmer” device handler, and rendered it basically useless (no settings whatsoever), so I quickly re-installed the Inovelli Red Dimmer device handler (from github via IDE) and changed the device type.

Added in 2 more bulbs again with WWST integration, got the security error and they came in as networkSecurityLevel: ZWAVE_S0_LEGACY.

So as I start my journey again, here are a few things I will be changing:

  1. Naming convention - I’ll be naming them with more intuitive names. Instead of “Switch - Master Bedroom” I’ll be using Master Bedroom Switch. With search function that makes it much easier and more intuitive to the less initiated in my home.

  2. Device testing - I’ll add 2-3 devices per day, repair z-wave, and test them. Device handlers has been something of a mixed bag recently, and I hope I can help Inovelli troubleshoot their DTH’s in specific status’.

  3. Only used always-on sockets for bulbs- Some of my lights were being used as nodes when I would repair the network against my wishes since the lights could be turned off in 3-way mode (function of wiring, nothing that Inovelli could do). The other ones won’t be a part of my ST network until I can get aux switches.

If this doesn’t work out how I want it to, I’ll likely be moving to Hubitat. My wife is so frustrated with the ST experience, and frankly I don’t blame her. I’ve been through repairing my network with Jody from ST, and it really helped for about 12 hours then everything started freezing up and delaying again. I think I had skeletons in the closet for sure, and I hope that this repairs that!

Here we go! @Eric_Inovelli @EricM_Inovelli @jody I hope by restarting that we can collab a bit more and do some testing to help out the DTH development to ensure speed for all!

2

First item goes to @Eric_Inovelli. In the instructions, it links to graph.api.smartthings.com:

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I was having permissions issues and Jody said to use account.smartthings.com. Just a recommendation.

First question goes to @EricM_Inovelli! How best should the Switch Child Device and Switch Level Child Device be used/added/published? I can’t find any references to this in the instructions (only the main device handler) located here: Instructions but I think that this is needed for the notifications (child, unsure about child level?).

3

I found what might be a huge deal:

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Looks like I was using an old/retired version of the DTH for the LZW42 bulbs?

Anyway, I’ll be updating the bulbs to this DTH and see if performance improves.

4

Welp, association isn’t working with S2_Failed security and S0 for the bulbs. So back to square one on adding the switches trying to get them to S0.

5

I heard the magic to do that was not to use the UUID sticker to add to network, or just use the Classic App.

6

So I definitely got the picture box and did NOT take the pic (it’s behind a plate anyway, and I confirmed that it was less secure, blah, blah blah. So I think the new app does not revert to S0 but rather S2_Failed. Back to the classic app I guess… that’s a concern for sure because if the old app goes away we are out of luck. It’s days are numbered per ST.

7

Hopefully Hubitat back stock comes in soon. :slight_smile:

8

That’s the next step FOR SURE. Well that or HA, but Hubitat seems more user friendly. I do have an enterprise server on 24/7 that runs unraid and I can run HA in a docker pretty easily.

9

@kreene1987 - I thought about doing that, but after seeing the configurations required to get things to work, I opted for HE. Plus my server rack (45RU) is in the basement and if I need to move the hub closer for something, I can move the HE a lot easier than a server…

10

Noted – I’ll make the change!

The trick here is to use the, “Scan Nearby” function vs the, “Scan QR Code” or the search function. If you use the, “Scan Nearby” function, I believe it reverts to S0. The other option is to use the SmartThings Classic app.

11

Ok I do think I did the manufacturer search and used the Red Series Inovelli type. Will report back.

12

You don’t need any child device handlers unless you enable the child devices for “Default level Z-wave” or “Default level Local”. In that case you need the Inovelli Switch Level child device handler:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/InovelliUSA/SmartThingsInovelli/master/devicetypes/inovelliusa/switch-level-child-device.src/switch-level-child-device.groovy
Doesn’t matter if you publish it or not I believe.

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