How - Vera a secondary controller

All:
The problem I’m trying to solve is enrolling Z-Wave devices without having to drag my Vera around.

As I understand Z-Wave, only the Master controller can perform enrollment. So my thought was to use my existing Leviton RZCPG controller as the Master and make the Vera a secondary.

I was able to transfer the network info to the RZCPG and the Vera Z-Wave settings area indeed indicates that it is no longer primary:
HouseID/Node: House: c9389f41 Node 1 Suc 0
Role: Slave SIS: NO PRI: NO

However, I can’t figure out how to update the Vera from the RZCPG. I’ve tried Get Network Update from SUC/SIS but get a No other SUC error message.

I’ve also tried Copy Z-Wave network from a primary Vera without success.

Any advice/help would be most appreciated.

-steve

There are better ways to do what you are trying to do and taking the primary role out of the vera is not a very good one.

First, if you are interested, you can consult this fairly good source:

and this other one about SUC/SIS

My recommendation to you would be to keep the vera as the true primary SUC and SIS and add he RZCPG as a secondary. The secondary controller can still have a primary role and many devices don’t associate well for reporting to anything but node one. If your vera is not node 1 then… it will not get the reports from these devices. Instead they will all report to your RZCPG which could no care less to know that your light three rooms away is on or off. In your case it appears to be ok.
you can still add devices with the secondary if it has a primary role… I know it is confusing… That secondary controller will report to the SUC all the network changes.

Thanks so much. I figured I was doing stupid, but - as you point out - the process and nomenclature are confusing.

Quick question - is there something I need to do to enable the secondary controller as a primary role?

Again, really appreciate the assist.

-steve

I unfortunately don’t know enough about the RZCPG. I had one and sold it. I started zwave with its GE equivalent and ended with a vera. I never had any problems and did not have to do anything to have multiple controllers on my setup and have successfully included devices with all of them but my peer controllers were all USB dongles which I connected to a laptop running home-assistant or z-way. I would still try it with the RZCPG and see where it leads you. I believe all you need to do is set your vera as the SUC/SIS.

Ok, I’m beginning to figure out what the questions are. Still don’t know how, but that’s the subject of this reply.

My problem remains the same - I need to be able to enroll z-wave devices without having to physical move the Vera controller around. Based on our conversation, it sounds like I need to add a controller to my existing Vera system and configure it as a secondary controller in a primary role. Right?

If so, do you have any recommendations on a good choices for the secondary controller? The RZCPG I have is ancient and I’m betting it doesn’t support the current mechanism.

Once I’ve got the device, how do I configure it and use it on my Vera system? Specifically:

  • My Vera is configuration is: Role: Master SIS: NO PRI: YES , with Port /dev/ttyS0. Is this correct or does it require modification?
  • How do enroll and configure the secondary? Is it a standard add device type thing or is there more to it?
  • How do I then use the secondary to enroll a device? I’m guessing the process will be something like grab laptop and bring up the Vera UI, go to location of device with mobile controller and ?.

Sorry to be so clueless. I’ve been googling for hours and can’t find anything relevant or current.

Bottom line, I’m looking for a how to.

Thanks,

-steve

Right

This depends on how ambitious you are planning to get: If you plan on remotely including devices with secure class, then you are restricted to only either use another vera which you will unplug and move around (suggest the vera edge) or use a laptop with openzwave. You will have to extract the security key from the master vera and put it into openzwave which is the only controller I have found this far capable of incorporating a secure class key. The zwave portion can be any zwave usb dongle (Homeseer, zooz, zway UZB, go control) And this is only for S0 security. If you need S2, you are out of luck anyway since S2 is a bit more secure and convoluted.
If you have no intention of including secure class devices remotely then any 500 controller should work (zwave plus). The aeotec Gen5 dongle works well in this regard because it has an embedded battery so you can carry the dongle around and push the button to start an inclusion but I have tried many others successfully using again… a laptop.

Master : no is what I am worried about… you already transferred the “true” primarily role to the RZCPG it seems so… the vera still is a primary controller, meaning it can include devices but is no longer the SIS and cannot be SUC as this role was transferred over.

Add the new controller to the vera as a generic zwave device. It will find that it is controller on its own. There is nothing to do to configure.

Including from the secondary controller is treating the secondary controller as if it was a primary. There is no difference. The device will show up on the vera on its own after a luup reload when the vera will find out its zwave dongle a new device it did not include itself and will want to configure.

Once again greatly appreciate the time and detail. I hope this conversation will be of use to others.

I’m planning to use an Z-Stick which leaves one final - I hope - question.

You state:

Master : no is what I am worried about… you already transferred the “true” primarily role to the RZCPG it seems so… the vera still is a primary controller, meaning it can include devices but is no longer the SIS and cannot be SUC as this role was transferred over.

So how do I get it into the correct configuration? Is it as “simple” as doing a factory reset followed by a restore from backup?

Vera support is being responsive, but I gather using anything other than a Vera controller is not supported, and so I’m not getting any answer other than it is guaranteed to work with a Vera controller.

Thanks again - I owe you a beer.

-steve

It maybe possible to do a controller shift back to the vera but typically it only works if the vera is added as a new controller to the master.
In your case, restoring from the backup is by far the best solution. Make sure you reset the RZCPG after you made sure the restore worked. The restore must have the restore zwave network checked. I would expect the vera to come back with “master: YES” and then you can try just adding your secondary controller again. You can add the RZCPG and then try to add devices from the RZCPG to see if it supports being a “master:no, primary: yes” state like the vera does. Also make sure the rzcpg has its firmware updated to the newest available. If it doesn’t you can exclude it and use another controller.

Huh. I’ve got this “Master SIS: NO PRI: YES” configuration as well, and I don’t know why, or what considers itself to be the master. Odd. Not sure how to move it back, then - sounds like a network reset, right?

This is the normal state of the vera. No worries. The master refers to the master SIS state which the vera does not currently support. Your vera is the primary.

Phew. Thanks. I was mentally preparing to completely re-do the network.

Something seems to be off with the network, though, I can’t seem to get vendor/model information on the secondary (HAB), even if the nodes themselves show up in a numbered way. OpenHAB can’t seem to detect node-specific information like that, which is weird. All but one of them are registered with Z-Wave Plus (it seems), so I’m not even sure the key would help.

One device seems to be buggy (Devolo PST02-1B Multisensor) and stops working after initially being correctly integrated with the Vera Plus. Hm. Maybe I should open a separate post?