Red Series Dimmer Pairing Frustration!

Hello,

I must be missing something, i am a fairly techy person and I love to mess around with interesting home tech.

I read on Inovelli switches and i stupidly bought in 100% without buying a few testers. I purchased 10 switches and one fan switch. I paid an electrician to install them. I thoughtfully placed them in and around the house keeping them Very close just to avoid any possible mesh issues.

I cannot for the *****ing life of me to get these things to pair consistently to Hubitat hub. I have:

I have gotten up to 7 to pair, but i need to get 9!

I have done countless hub restarts/ hard power pulls.

I have hard reset my hub and looked through tons of Z wave pairing hints tips.

I am 3 days deep and i cannot get these light switches to ALL pair.

Either Inovelli Switches are complete crap or Z wave is a horrible protocol. Why is this so hard!

Any help would be appreciated to consistent pairing for devices that are very close!!

@sonikot - Try factory resetting each switch that is giving you problems. Hold the config button down for 20+ seconds and wait for the RED LED to appear. Then let go and let the switch settle for a few mins. Try inclusion after the above.

I’ve done that lots of times on lots of different switches. How long would you say you would take it should take on average for a switch to settle?

I had one that I left it on for about 10 mins before I tried including again. I also paired the switches that were closer (or in between hub and switches that gave me problems) to build the Z Wave network and allowed me to finish including all my switches.

I imagine you’re seeing the blue slow flash when it goes into inclusion? You can also try excluding the switch first (same config 3x), but with hub in exclusion mode.

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+1 on @harjms suggestion to do a general exclude. If the switch is tested at the factory and then not excluded, you’re not going to pair it until you do. Happens with many brands of Z-wave products, not just Inovelli. It’s a Z-wave thing . . .

Do you have the Hubitat C7 hub? If I recall correctly there is a pairing issue that requires updating the switch firmware to fully resolve.

OK. Which Hubitat hub are you running? How many total z-wave devices are on your mesh? (not just the 10 Inovelli’s)
If you are just running the 10 Inovelli’s, STOP rebooting your hub, it is doing more harm than good. Every time you reboot it has to rebuild the mesh. A z-wave repair is going to be of more help. After you run a z-wave repair, wait a least an hour before you fiddle with your mesh, or setup automations.

As you have probably read it is important to build your mesh close in to far out. Keep in mind, that a device in an upstairs or downstairs location may actually be closer then a device on the same floor. Battery operated devices do not repeat, do them last.

The Hubitat c7 has/had an known issue pairing with S2 authentication. I run a fully updated C7, and all my switches are on v1.47, v1.36(fan light), s2, and I have never experienced the problem. If it were me, I would do a factory reset on the problem devices, and leave them alone. Next do a z-wave repair, and wait 24hrs. This will let your mesh settle in. Now try to add your next 3 devices.

If you look at the communities of the diffrent manufacturers, you will notice that Hubitat seems to have the most complaints when to comes to z-wave performance, no matter who made the end device. I like Hubitat, and do not have Z-wave issues with it, but YMMV.

Good Luck

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Thanks for the help above.

I wiped everything, hard resets, moved the hub into a new location and after 2 days all finally paired.

I think there must be some type of bottle neck. I moved the hub closer to connect to 3 switches automatically and it allowed me to essentially make 3 different avenues to create a mesh, all overlapping.

This is a pain just to pair, hopefully i can enjoy the light switches now.

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Just run a Z Wave repair a few times over the next couple days or if move your hub again.