[HOW TO] Solve the problem if Z-Wave devices cannot be included

Hello dear community,

I’m writing this basically for myself and others who have trouble including z-wave devices.

I had this issue about a year ago but couldn’t remember how I solved it until this evening.

Problem:
You are trying to include / add a new z-wave device, do everything the way the setup say and the process takes like an eternity but finally cancels.

Here’s the issue: It’s actually been discussed a couple of times but this happens quite frequently if you have a lot of z-wave devices AND some of your inclusion attempts failed. It seems like sometimes, Homey still includes the device like “half-way”. But in the normal app, you are unable to see this.
BUT: If you go to https://tools.developer.homey.app/ and click on zwave, you will see devices which are “abandoned”. They show up as “unknown node”.

FIX:

  1. In that list of devices on https://tools.developer.homey.app/, click on the three dots on the right.
  2. Click “test”. Wait until Homey responds with a red message in the lower left corner on your screen, something like “node not responding” (can’t remember exactly).
  3. Then, the “remove”-button lights up and you can remove the device. Click on that!
  4. Repeat the process with every “unknown node” until none of them are left*
  5. After that, you can add new devices again.

*removing “unknown nodes” did NOT delete any of my devices! It’s NOT like resetting the zwave network when every device is deleted.

I don’t know why Homey does such a crap and why there are “unknown nodes” anyways. It seems like it’s a rather ancient issue. By the way: The “remove unknown nodes”-button below the list didn’t work at all.

Hope this helps some users here :slight_smile:

Regards
Nils

4 Likes

Exactly! In my case a non-existing device with NodeID 24 pops up in the route of some devices in the list of Z-Wave nodes. Therefore those devices can’t be reached :-p Obviously!
After leaving my Homey powerless for at least 12 minutes it should build a new list without non-existing devices appearing in the routes of some devices. Unfortunately it does not work and that exact node keeps popping up! :frowning:
Does anyone have a proper solution?