Large Z-wave Network

[tlovgren]

Brand spanking new guy to home automation. I am in the process of building a new house and plan to use Homeseer z-wave switches extensively. I've done a trial run in my current house and in one weekend wired my whole first floor, fired up a few plug ins, designed a pretty nice HSTouch screen on an insignia 10in tablet, got email-txt working and also got alexa up and working. These forums are amazing and have made this a fairly fun and painless exercise thus far so I'm going to try and do a whole house next.

I'm estimating around 250 devices between switches, sensors and home security. I've read the max number is 232 per network but you can "bridge" networks.

I have several questions about this-
1) I think I know the answer to this but- each physical switch creates multiple "devices" in HS. Is my Z-wave network limited to 232 physical devices or the "devices" created in homeseer?

2)If I have more than 232 devices, how should I build the networks so they can communicate? Is this as simple as plugging in 2 Z-sticks? How, as specifically as possible, do I bridge them?

Thanks for your time and help.

[thewizardofoz]

1) The 232 is for parent devices. Child devices do not count against that number.

2)I have (3) Z-Nets all setup on Ethernet with my router assigning them their own static IP. The stick would have to be in the computer with HS3, so I don't believe that would be an option except for the one on the cpu. The Z-Nets are added to HS3 and then your devices are added to each Z-Net how you choose. Once all that is done, the construction of events / (scenes) and other operations is transparent for the user.....HS3 knows where the devices are located. Make sure you do a full optimization for the entire system after everything is in its final location so HS3 knows the correct neighbor nodes and routing.