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I am just starting my Z Wave journey (converting from Insteon) and have a question on the response times of two nodes, a switch and a relay, in a Direct Association. I expect to update, change (and break!) the hub often during development so I want the basic switching functions to be independent of the hub.

With a Hubitat hub connected, the relay responds to the switch after about 1.2 seconds and without the hub connected it takes about 8 seconds. In my old Insteon system that response time is less than 100msec with or without a hub.

I am being told by the switch/relay supplier that this is because the Z Wave spec says the switch must report its status to the hub before it can issue the command directly to the relay. Hence a "short" extra delay of ~400ms when the hub is connected and a timeout of 8 secs when it isn't.

Is this "report to the hub first" really part of the Z Wave spec and therefore cannot be fixed?

Remove the association with the Hub on both devices: the reporting is in the group #1 of the plug, also check the association on the controlling node. everything will work within 50 ms after that

Many thanks for the reply. Unfortunately the driver in the hub automatically associates the switch to the hub in group 1 and reports the status change before executing the group 2 association. I guess I could look into the driver code but the switch manufacturer is telling me this is all part of the Z Wave specification. They say they would not get certified without implementing it this way.

Seems odd to me that Z Wave allows associations but would then mandate rules that effectively make them useless. Is this really part of the Z Wave spec?

It is correct, they have to do it by default, but the user should always have the choice to override it. The Z-Way controller gives you full control over your devices. Time to look in that direction

Before carrying out the group 2 association, the driver in the hub will first automatically link the switch with the hub in group 1, then report any changes in the state of the switch tunnel rush

Many thanks for all the replies, I think people are confirming what I heard from the switch manufacturer. The Z Wave specification only allows the hub to be in group 1 and that if a node changes state it must report that to the hub first. That means if the hub is down, a node to node association is very slow (6-8 seconds).

Seems odd but I guess it is what it is.

The spec mandates the controller to add itself in group #1 on inclusion but still allows to remove this association by user request (manually). Here it depends on your controller. Z-Way allows it, Fibaro too, and some others don't.

Many thanks - I'll get back to the switch manufacturer, they wrote the code for the hub driver.

In the Z-Wave protocol, the behavior you described, where a switch must report its status to the hub before it can issue a command directly to the relay, is not a general requirement specified by the Z-Wave specification itself. The Z-Wave protocol allows for direct associations between devices, bypassing the need for communication with a hub or controller.It's possible that the behavior you described is specific to the combination of the switch, relay, and hub you are using. It may be worth reaching out to the manufacturer or support team of the devices or the hub to inquire about the observed response times and any potential optimizations or settings that could improve the performance in direct associations.