#Z-Wave Zooz ZSE70 Consistency

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

winged hawk
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Hey guys, I'm trying to understand what's going on with my sensor. I got it over a week ago and installed it in my shed that's roughly 20-30 feet away.

My ZST39 800 series LR capable adapter is one room away from my exterior, so the total distance is between 40-50 feet I'd say. When I received it, I paired it and placed it in my shed and everything was going fine for several days. I tuned the lux change interval and that's it. It was checking for 1 degree temp changes every 30 seconds, 20 lux every 10 seconds.

A couple of days ago without any updates being performed, any movement of the adapter, any changes in the room it's in, or any drastic temperatures to affect the sensor in my shed, it's simply not reporting reliably. I've now tried adjusting the adapter to have an even better signal, background RSSI readings from the logs are showing close to or at -100, and I've even tried moving the sensor even closer towards my house from where it was in the shed. None of that seems to have gotten it back to previous behavior. I might get an update every couple of hours after several degrees worth of changes. What in the world is going on with this thing?

First screenshot shows how accurate and frequent the temperature reporting was. Second screenshot shows it going unresponsive for 2 whole days and continued consistency issues after trying to adjust things.

Screenshot_20260222-121005.png Screenshot_20260222-121114.png
terse zinc
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Did you join it with long range or Mesh? Is it battery powered?

winged hawk
terse zinc
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Ok first thought: the battery is going bad.
Second thought: maybe you're having noise issues near the end device

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Can you make a Z-Wave debug log for a few hours (capture a few reports at least) and share that?

winged hawk
terse zinc
winged hawk
terse zinc
winged hawk
winged hawk
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Just tried shining my flashlight into it for over 30 seconds (the check interval is 10 seconds like I mentioned) and no update. Maybe I should factory reset it?

terse zinc
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This may be a dumb question, but ☝️

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You're in EU, right?

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Some observations:
Channel 3 (Long Range) has slightly elevated noise levels:

 channel 3: -93 dBm

Not sure if you can do something about that, I think my values are often a bit higher than the other channels too.

The one transmit report your log contains shows an ACK RSSI of -100 dBm, meaning the signal is 7 dBm BELOW the background noise.

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Meanwhile the end device "hears" the controller well (7 dBm ABOVE background noise):

measured RSSI of ACK from destination: -97 dBm
measured noise floor by destination:   -104 dBm
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both are using the maximum of 14 dBm (assuming you're in EU), so essentially your controller has trouble picking up the signals from the device

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What are you using as a controller?

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How is it connected to your host? USB cable? directly?

winged hawk
winged hawk
winged hawk
# terse zinc What are you using as a controller?

As mentioned in the post, ZST39 800 series. Yes it's connected to my Pi with an extension cable into a USB 2.0 to minimize noise. Like I mentioned, nothing had changed before it started behaving like this and the position I have the controller in now should frankly be better than before

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I can't understand how it was so reliable and didn't appear to ever miss a single message and is now barely getting them

winged hawk
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I think I'm going to factory reset the sensor. It's updated the temperature accurately the past couple of hours without issue and at one point sent the lux level from when my flashlight was on it, but the lux hasn't gone back down since.

winged hawk
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I'll also see if I can't adjust my controller further at the same time

winged hawk
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Decided to move the controller again, this time roughly back to where it was before I started messing with it. Even though I didn't believe it would be "better," I'm now seeing -106, -108, -108, and -101 background RSSI which seems significantly better than before. The temps have pretty much settled for the night so I'm going to try with a motion trigger and flashlight again to see if both updates make it.

terse zinc
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That does look better. Happy to look at another log to see how good the connection is now.

-101 is just barely below the numbers from before, but maybe the RSSI from the device is now higher.

terse zinc
# winged hawk No

Ok, I assumed because of the 14 dBm limit, but I think the ZST39 only does 14.

winged hawk
winged hawk