Generally not happy. Z-wave is on it's way out of my home!

[jangermann 15]

I am a technical engineer that make process (automatic) solution for the industry. After one Vera lite controller and one HCL, and 4 years, I can conclude that Z-wave is NOT the future. It is totally unreliable. 

 

*Lights do only turn off some times, even when all conditions is ok.

*Heating panels don't work.

*It is not possible to make a proper backup of the system. If your controller dies, you start all over. (that should be enough reason to forget all about it!)

*The Fibaro relay switch hangs

*Garage door keypad only work some times

ect ect.......

 

I have stopped buying more z-wave devices. I have enough trouble with the ones i have now.

 

But, you should for sure go in to the z-wave business, if you are bored and want to make simple things complicated.

 

Can anyone here honestly tell, that they have a z-wave system and don't have problem and everything works perfect every time?

 

Good luck, I am out.

[Thomaslars1 0]

Hi.

I have used Vera lite, Fibaro and HomeSeer3(at a server)

- HomeSeer is more reliable and scenes/events do run perfectly. You can take as much backup as you want, manually or auto. Things just work, but HS3 don't have templates for devices.

- Fibaro are sexy, have user friendly templates that fits many devices. Fibaro HC2 are missing z-wave plus, scenes are not to be trusted, icons don't update(e.g. lights) and as you say: you have no backup if the HC2 fails.

 

I have just switched back to HC2 now, after some months with HomeSeer. I was very happy with HS3, but was drawn back to HC2, just of curiosity regarding to software update 4.056 (I'm a geek)

 

Give HS3 a try

 

Have a nice day

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[cag014 731]

I am a technical engineer that make process (automatic) solution for the industry. After one Vera lite controller and one HCL, and 4 years, I can conclude that Z-wave is NOT the future. It is totally unreliable. 

 

*Lights do only turn off some times, even when all conditions is ok.

*Heating panels don't work.

*It is not possible to make a proper backup of the system. If your controller dies, you start all over. (that should be enough reason to forget all about it!)

*The Fibaro relay switch hangs

*Garage door keypad only work some times

ect ect.......

 

I have stopped buying more z-wave devices. I have enough trouble with the ones i have now.

 

But, you should for sure go in to the z-wave business, if you are bored and want to make simple things complicated.

 

Can anyone here honestly tell, that they have a z-wave system and don't have problem and everything works perfect every time?

 

Good luck, I am out.

I would like to respond on what you said....

The Z-wave is a perfect solution for already built homes (not need to run wires in walls). Of course there are several other technologies, but believe me the Z-wave is the better one.

In my case the Z-wave is stable (let's say 95% of the time) and I have 53 "physical" devices (which are about 150 virtual devices).

The main disadvantage of all Z-wave systems is lack of proper documentation,  which cause to users to do some "stupid" things.

 

But let me ask you what works 100% "perfect" all the time? There is always some issue with any device (computer, cellphone, printer, air conditioners, the list is too long)

BTW - during writing to you my Bluetooth mouse stuck !!! restarted and it works again "perfectly ?"

[fergalmccarthy 5]

I am a technical engineer that make process (automatic) solution for the industry. After one Vera lite controller and one HCL, and 4 years, I can conclude that Z-wave is NOT the future. It is totally unreliable. 

 

*Lights do only turn off some times, even when all conditions is ok.

*Heating panels don't work.

*It is not possible to make a proper backup of the system. If your controller dies, you start all over. (that should be enough reason to forget all about it!)

*The Fibaro relay switch hangs

*Garage door keypad only work some times

ect ect.......

 

I have stopped buying more z-wave devices. I have enough trouble with the ones i have now.

 

But, you should for sure go in to the z-wave business, if you are bored and want to make simple things complicated.

 

Can anyone here honestly tell, that they have a z-wave system and don't have problem and everything works perfect every time?

 

Good luck, I am out.

 

 

The problem isn't Z-Wave, the problem is the HC2, i'm sure you are frustrated with it, but there are better Z-Wave controllers out there, don't give up on Z-Wave

[jangermann 15]

I am a technical engineer that make process (automatic) solution for the industry. After one Vera lite controller and one HCL, and 4 years, I can conclude that Z-wave is NOT the future. It is totally unreliable. 

 

*Lights do only turn off some times, even when all conditions is ok.

*Heating panels don't work.

*It is not possible to make a proper backup of the system. If your controller dies, you start all over. (that should be enough reason to forget all about it!)

*The Fibaro relay switch hangs

*Garage door keypad only work some times

ect ect.......

 

I have stopped buying more z-wave devices. I have enough trouble with the ones i have now.

 

But, you should for sure go in to the z-wave business, if you are bored and want to make simple things complicated.

 

Can anyone here honestly tell, that they have a z-wave system and don't have problem and everything works perfect every time?

 

Good luck, I am out.

 

 

Thanks for your responses.

Well I have to admit that I might have been a bit frustrated while writing my opinion. I just got a feeling that nothing was working.

 

1. I found out that the default timesync on my Fibaro did not work. I added another timer server and that did help and now the lights also turn off.

 

2. Actually it seems like the heating panels work after update to 3.6

 

3. The fibaro 2X1.5KW relays was hanging after turning on 6 led spots. I have solved this by letting the Fibaro relay drive a bigger relay.

 

4. The garage door opener is not supported by fibaro (on 3.6) and did never work stable on my Vera lite. It has been trashed and I now use a wired solution.

 

5. The missing backup function is still one of my biggest problems, I really think this is fatal.

[segordon 0]

I'm coming to the conclusion that there is a fundamental limitation in Z-Wave due to the way that the protocol and most implementations work.

 

Z-Wave Controllers have unique Home IDs which are set at the factory - the Home ID is a 32-bit identifier which uniquely identifies an individual Z-Wave network.

Devices on a Z-Wave network can only talk to Controllers and other devices which share the same Home ID - During the process of inclusion the Home ID of the Controller is copied to the included device; this device can now talk to the controller and other devices on the same Z-Wave network.

 

The problem is that if your Z-Wave controller fails (or is lost/stolen/destroyed), even if you have a back-up of the previous configuration it will be useless because your replacement controller will have a different Home ID and so will not be able to access the previously configured Z-Wave devices since they will only talk to a controller with the original Home ID.

 

This means that unless your controller supports the ability to manually set its Home ID (and to restore the network topology/routing tables etc.) then when replacing a controller the only option is to manually re-include all your existing devices.

 

Previous replies I've seen on this forum, from Fibaro employees stating that "a back-up from one Fibaro controller cannot be restored to another Fibaro controller" would seem to agree with this. 

 

This limitation also applies to most Z-Wave sticks, as the ability to back-up and restore the Z-Wave chip configuration requires an extension to the normal Z-Wave API.

 

I'd love to be proved wrong about this, but the information I've found so far seems to agree with this.

[HomeSystem.sk 69]

Just ceck before how other systems do it. It may be the same.

Honestly i dont think this is big issue, fibaro does not have many faulty devices. It may happen, of corse, once in 3-4 years, but lets be honnest, you will not find better solution in this price range...

[segordon 0]

Looking at the Vera and Z-Wave.me implementations, both offer the ability to restore the network configuration to a different device, so it is possible; although it definitely depends on the hardware/chipset implementing the Z-Wave protocol.

 

I think this is a gap in the Fibaro products since they can support large home automation installations which would be very difficult to rebuild using a brand new controller in the event of a hardware failure.

 

I do like Fibaro, and the combination of hardware and software is definitely the best on the market, so I'd love to see them fix this limitation - But looking back, if I had known about this limitation when I started building my home automation system I wouldn't have used Fibaro controllers as I'd rather trade-off functionality against the ability to recover in the event of a failure.

[Gunter 0]

I think you should test other HA protocols first before you give up on Z-Wave. Even much more expensive HA systems/protocols have problems and defective products, so certainly in the same price range you can't find anything better and yes you have a point about the back-up and it is sometimes frustrating that a feature of module X is not working fine with controller Y, but in my opinion this isn't always the fault of Fibaro or other controller manufactureres. The Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers should perhaps send their stuff to Fibaro and others to test and include their templates in the controllers before they throw it on the market. This is called communication. That would prevent a lot of frustration. I have been using X10 in the past and Insteon before Z-Wave and believe me : Z-Wave is heaven compared to these and I have friends with HA installtions of over 25000 Euro's and they have much more problems then I have ever had. Even with X10 and that can count as a reference!

[Sankotronic 2,370]

No system is perfect but at the moment I am very happy with Fibaro. Actually I am not happy only with the user guide and lack of information. But even with lack of important information I managed to build my home automation with Fibaro in only two weeks and this includes reliable communication and control of 27 Philips HUE lamps, 9 fibaro smart plugs, 6 blind controllers, 15 window/door sensors, 3 motion sensors, 3 flood sensors, 2 smoke sensors, 2 light dimmers and around 20 scenes all programmed in LUA. Of course, I am electrical engineer so installing all this by myself was not a big challenge. For people not educated in  technical matters this can be quite difficult task to do and better instructions "how to" and quicker support from Fibaro would be much appreciated.