Z-Wave

Device Sentinel supports individual Z-Wave devices out of the box. It does not read the Z-Wave controller itself.

Here is what works, what it does not do, and how you can help.

What Works Today

Every Z-Wave device on your network gets the full treatment automatically. Device Sentinel learns each device's reporting rhythm, calculates its freeze window, and actively monitors it for freezes, unavailable states, and unknown states.

If a device exposes a battery or signal entity, those are fully monitored too. Your Z-Wave devices will appear normally on your problem list, in your daily brief, and across all reports.

A Z-Wave device that dies stays "available" in Home Assistant, still showing its last values. Device Sentinel catches it anyway, as frozen, from its own learned rhythm and the device's last-seen time. That's why Enable Last Seen matters most on Z-Wave.

The controller itself is listed as a device too, with the type Z-Wave Controller. If it is a stick in the Home Assistant machine, set its power to USB Direct to Server with the pencil on its page, so it is never asked about a battery.

What It Does Not Do

Device Sentinel does not read the Z-Wave controller directly, so:

No Controller Sensor: You will not see a "Bridge: Z-Wave" sensor. You are still protected from alert spam: if the Z-Wave integration itself crashes or fails, Device Sentinel catches it as an integration outage. You still get one row naming the integration, and the devices behind it are safely cleared of blame. When it comes back, that row counts your devices home as they rejoin, and a slow mesh gets a few minutes before any device is reported on its own.

No Pairing Recognition: Device Sentinel cannot currently see when your Z-Wave controller is in inclusion mode. When you include, replace, or repair a device by hand, you must turn on Maintenance Mode first. This tells the system that the recovery was your doing, preventing your manual fix from being learned as the device's normal rhythm.

No Second Opinions: Device Sentinel does not currently read the controller's native ping status, so freeze verdicts stand entirely on Device Sentinel's own learned statistics.

None of these limitations stop Device Sentinel from catching a dead Z-Wave sensor. They only change how much manual context you need to provide when you are actively working on your network.

Help Build Z-Wave Support

Turn on Z-Wave under Extended Diagnostics and follow How to Submit Your Data there. The tests that help most on Z-Wave: unplug a Z-Wave plug for 10 minutes, take the battery out of a sensor until it reads frozen, and unplug the Z-Wave stick for 10 minutes. In the issue, say which controller you use, roughly how many devices you have, and your mix of mains-powered and battery-powered devices.