Mesh Device Group Diagnostic & Management Dashboard (Z-Wave, Zigbee, Lyra)

[chefdeit]

Problem: One of my HA installs has 17 Z-Wave dimmers of 2 different models, and checking their firmware version, updating device options / settings, ascertaining devices’ recent issues to troubleshoot mesh communication, updating firmware - took more than a full day. ...90% of which was clicking through multiple screens from one device to the next, copy-pasting data into a spreadsheet, as well as lack of easy way to batch e.g. firmware updates of multiple devices (with 1-2 auto-retries).

Suggested Solution: Extend the [HA UI]/config/devices/dashboard screen or make a dedicated “mesh management” screen that would list devices of a given mesh (Z-Wave, etc - same type screen might be used for all supported meshes), with useful status/info fields, and allow a given action (with retries, if applicable) to be batch-started on any of the given mesh’s devices (multiple selection). These fields would seem useful for such a screen:

1. Device selection checkbox (to select multiple devices for a batch action). The first device selected is “super-selected” (like in Adobe Lightroom) - which is useful to designate a particular device as the source / model - e.g. to replicate its chosen settings / options to the rest of the selected devices.
2. Device’s assigned Area if any (same as on current HA device dashboard)
3. Manufacturer (same as on current HA device dashboard)
4. Model (same as on current HA device dashboard)
5. Persistent device hardware ID (e.g. MAC address or Z-Wave code; optionally truncated to first 2 plus last 4 digits of it plus complete number “on mouse hover”)
6. Device’s assigned HA Name if any (same as on current HA device dashboard)
7. Device status (alive / error / unconnected etc - same as seen on [HA UI]/config/devices/device/[device id]. Can be conveyed via a color-coded circle and/or icon, with more info available in a pop-up tooltip on-mouse-hover
8. Firmware version
9. Signal strength icon, color-coded (antenna icon or the little bar graph, like on smartphones), with dB number if available or empirically possible to estimate by HA integration & populate.
10. Signal stats. Recent-weighted averages for packet loss / latency / throughput / retransmits / fails. Not overly integration-specific / more conceptual. Synthetically derived by HA integration if unavailable from vendor. Less data to clog the eye, more actionable answers. Color-coding (in the context of given mesh’s hardware capability vs reasonable thresholds for failure rate levels) - are the numbers being listed, good vs meh vs borderline vs problem.
11. Mesh neighbor topology. For meshes where explicit route or “parents”, “peers”, and “children” are identified / reported, this column can list them - CONCISELY! The goal of this column is an easy way to see “the big picture” of which node talks to which without too much text or some big fancy graphs that look impressive but are actually hard to use. Cull the info that goes here carefully so the field isn't chock full o'gibberish, making it hard on the dashboard to see the forest for the trees.
12. Recent errors. This text field lists error messages, if any, with timestamps, reported by the device recently. Dashboard option fields at the top of this dashboard screen can specify if this goes back only 5 min or 2hrs or 48hrs, for example, and how many lines max to report per device.
13. Diagnostic info (one of batch actions available is to run diagnostics routine for the entire mesh - if directly supported by mesh / device vendor - or if not, do the next best thing, such as change dimmer brightness 1% and then back, or run any other innocuous command to test). Small text field, making it easy to see problem nodes and basic nature of the problem. Less data to clog the eye, more actionable answers. Things not already explicitly listed in the earlier columns.
14. Statistics. Again, few reasonable key:value sub-columns - that for his field can be vendor / mesh-technology-specific. Recent-weighed averages. Things not already explicitly listed in the earlier columns.

Am I missing any other fields? Please suggest.

At the bottom of the dashbard we have batch action buttons, applicable to all selected devices whose checkboxes are checked by the user:

1. Export dashboard table to CSV
2. Copy/sync settings (HA log level, device-specific options). Only allow syncing device-specific options if the vendor, model, and firmware version match. Maybe allow limited option syncing across model/firmware versions of same vendor.
3. Re-interview
4. Run diagnostics
5. Heal
6. Update firmware
7. Remove | Remove all failed / disconnected | Remove all unnamed | Factory-reset (if supported) and then remove

Batch actions (e.g. firmware update): concurrent if supported; otherwise (or if explicitly preferred) sequential, with 1…3 retries per device. Sequential actions that target individual devices, try to follow the mesh topology, from the HA mesh controller out - as opposed to go alphabetically or in a random order.

The bottom of this [HA UI]/config/devices/dashboard (or a separate "mesh management dashboard") screen shows batch progress bar graph (how many devices done vs total, and % current device progress). Should be able to schedule the batch to start immediately or at a given time / in “X hours”. This is because eg. Z-Wave firmware updates make switches & dimmers non-responsive while the update takes place, and there may be less RF interference overnight.

Am I missing any actions (that would be appropriate fr multiple devices at once and wouldn’t be made redundant by the dashboard info already listing the effect)?

Related: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/mesh-device-batch-management-ui-z-wave-zigbee-lyra-tp-link-casa-broadlink-other-meshes/475572 - this is the updated version at the recommended forum