Why remove and re-add node before and after firmware updates?

[BuilderTroy]

I am going through and starting the upgrade process on my Inovelli devices. Reading through the instructions, it has steps to remove (exclude) the device from the network and then re-add it to the network. Why are these steps necessary?

I have done three upgrades to LZW42’s without removing and re-adding because I didn’t want to start with a new nodeId. Did I mess something up?

Thanks!

[stu1811]

I assume you are doing the secondary controller upgrade method. You don’t need to unpair/pair with that procedure.

SmartThings Device Firmware Update - Secondary Controller Method

I’ve written a tutorial on how to use a USB Z-Wave device as a secondary controller in your SmartThings network to update the firmware of a device. This makes it so you can update the firmware without excluding the device from your network first. One thing to note when doing an update in place like this is that if new configuration parameters are introduced in the firmware, they may have an unexpected value after the update is complete. It is a good idea to go into the device preferences and se…

[BuilderTroy]

I don’t think so. I have my zwave stick normally plugged into the Home Assistant server. I shut down the server, plugged the stick into a Windows machine, and followed the upgrade instructions minus the exclude/include parts.

I am still not clear on why exclude/include is required. The OTA firmware targets a specific nodeId on the network (I think) so it’s not like it’s blasting it out to all devices on the zwave network. And excluding it just to add it back to the same network shouldn’t do much besides changing the nodeId to a new number.

Thanks for your help, but I am still confused on this one.

[djordan2112]

In your case it works because you are using the z-stick from your controller. The stick has the encryption key stored on it. The updating software acts as a controller as well. Being the stick has the keys it can talk to the devices. If you were using another stick with the pc, the updating software would not be able to talk to the devices included on your controller because of encryption.

[BuilderTroy]

Ah - I gotcha. That makes sense. @EricM_Inovelli, maybe this is something that may be beneficial to clarify in the firmware updating document. I.e. You can take the control stick (if available) from your automation device and skip the exclude/include steps.

Or maybe it’s in the docs already and I missed it.

Anyway, thanks for the help!

[djordan2112]

Not all z-sticks do this. I believe only the 500 and above chips do this. Also after you boot your controller back up, you should verify that it does infact see the changes to to upgraded devices (check firmware version), and that all of the parameters are set correctly.

[EricM_Inovelli]

I’ll update the article to specify that the method is for using a separate USB controller than the one in your “hub” (if your “hub” has one).