IQ Panel 4 not connecting to Smartthings hub as a secondary Z-wave controller

Sorry this comment turned a little longer than I intended… I spent the better part of the weekend finally getting the IQ Panel 4 setup as a secondary controller in HA. It was not an easy process, and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you know what you are doing. But thought I’d share a few of my findings:

The current size/state of the network may impact if and how the IQ Panel will pair as a secondary. I tested successfully pairing on a clean/reset controller, reset again before rebuilding network and added ~50 devices, and then no matter what I did, the IQ Panel refused to join. The primary is never prompted for the DSK, only a few initial messages are exchanged according to the logs, and the IQ Panel Z-Wave radio seems to freeze up. It took rebooting or turning off/on the radio to do anything else (usually would get a “busy” error message until then). Nothing I did would allow it to pair, either using Z-Wave PC Controller or zwavejs in HA. Not sure if it just didn’t like the size of the network, the node IDs it was provisioned, or something else. When I then reset the primary controller, the IQ panel had zero problems joining.

Next I tried pairing it to the controller when there were ~20 devices on the network… this time it joined, but did not join as an inclusion controller. The include/clear buttons were locked out (stating that this must be done from the primary). Problem here is there is not a reliable way to update the IQ Panel as additional devices are added to the network, or if it didn’t learn everything initially. Some controllers will periodically query for new nodes if they are configured as a secondary, but it is not apparent that the IQ Panel implements this. You could clear and re-include the IQ Panel to the primary, but then you have to beware of encountering the first scenario above, as well as the fact that successfully learning ALL devices during that pair is unlikely.

When joining to a fresh network, or one with just a few devices, I never had any problem joining as a secondary inclusion controller.

When joined as an inclusion controller, beware of S2 issues with the primary controller. S2 makes using secondary controllers a bit more complex. You should check if your primary controller is compliant with the spec on implementing the SIS side of the Inclusion Controller Command Class and S2 bootstrapping. Zwavejs in HA is not compliant (well, yet… they are waiting on some hardware testing according to a PR on their git).

When pairing with S2, the SIS (ideally your primary controller) is responsible for S2 bootstrapping. So if you want the device to show on both the primary controller and the IQ Panel, you would include it to the IQ Panel, and then you should be prompted for the DSK on the primary. Or you could pair directly to the primary first, and then you could later include on the IQ Panel.

This was my ultimate process to getting things working… I used a Zooz 700 USB stick with the Z-Wave PC Controller tool, and have an IQ Panel 4 running the latest firmware.

  1. Reset the stick in PC controller. And reset (Remove all Devices option) on the IQ Panel. You should see the “Add/Remove Controller” option appear. Start a remove in PC Controller, and a learn (Add/Remove Controller) on the IQ Panel to clear it. It should only take a few seconds and report successful on both. And then reset them both again for good measure.

  2. At the top right in PC controller where the “shield” icon is, copy all the security keys. To ultimately use in HA for example, you need to statically set the keys in the add-on.

  3. In PC Controller, set the primary device to be the SIS. If you join the IQ Panel without doing this, it will assume the SIS role, which we don’t want. In the controller info, you should see the role change to “SUC, RealPrimary, SIS, NodeIdServerPresent”.

  4. Start an add in PC controller, and a learn on the IQ Panel. PC Controller should learn the IQ panel, and ask for the first 5 keys of the DSK shown on the IQ Panel for inclusion. You should end up learning 5 additional virtual devices as well and it should report successful on both devices. To be sure that bootstrapping all the way to S2 Access was a success, make sure the “Security Scheme” for the IQ Panel node in PC controller is set to Access, and that you can run a Get Node Info without issue. Also on the IQ Panel, the buttons for smart start and provisioning list should have disappeared.

  5. To include a device that you want on both the IQ Panel and Primary, start inclusion on the IQ Panel like normal, and then after a few seconds PC controller will pop up asking for the DSK. If all goes according to plan, you should see the new node (with security) in both controllers.

    Even though it’s discouraged from including devices with a “mobile” controller, I found this was often the most reliable way of ensuring successful S2 bootstrapping. Including devices was definitely more sensitive than normal, perhaps because there is another controller in the mix. So often I had to move the device, or the controllers to get a reliable pair, and deal with healing the routes later.

    Don’t be afraid to reload PC Controller, disable/enable the radio in the IQ panel, or reboot… and often. Both PC Controller and the IQ Panel can be buggy and definitely had moments where they were not behaving as expected, and usually that was a sign to just give it the on/off.

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