Hey everyone, I wanted to share my experience and ask for advice on preparing for potential Z-Wave network failures. I’ve been using a Zooz Z-Wave dongle with Home Assistant Green and Z-Wave JS UI for about six months now, and it’s become an integral part of my smart home setup. While everything is working smoothly right now, I’ve been thinking about disaster preparedness—specifically, what would happen if my Z-Wave controller were to fail? This is a bit of a scary thought, given how reliant I’ve become on this network.
My network currently has around 50 devices, and the idea of having to manually re-include each one in the event of a controller failure is daunting. Many of these devices are in hard-to-reach locations, like wall switches with QR codes hidden behind faceplates or temperature sensors in crawl spaces. To make matters worse, the initial inclusion process was quite unreliable, with some devices requiring multiple attempts or physical relocation to get a stable connection. I’m also concerned about how this might affect my automations, especially if I can’t perfectly match device names during re-inclusion.
So, I’m reaching out to the community for advice. Here are some specific questions I have:
- Is manual re-inclusion of all devices the only option if my controller fails, or is there a way to migrate the network to a new controller intact?
- For devices that can be included via QR code, is there a way to export and re-import a list of devices or codes to streamline the process?
- How would replacing the controller affect my existing automations and device references?
- What steps do I need to take in the Z-Wave JS UI to switch to a new controller?
Any insights or best practices would be greatly appreciated! I’m hoping to hear from others who’ve gone through this process or have strategies for minimizing downtime and hassle in the event of a controller failure.
Thanks in advance for your help!
-Mike