I am 90% certain the has to be a problem with home assistant . Before I upgraded from HAOS 17 to HAOD 18 I had a nice well behaved network..I have had nothing but problems since. I followed the suggest and made sure I excluded my ZEN76 switch and the re included then ue the scan. The one switch I could get the saved to work on is included into provisioning and that is where it sits …I had that the scanning the QR was the preferred way. Any help would be appreciated Z-Wave seems to be going the way of Insteon..
Thanks for reaching out!
If you used SmartStart to include the device, can you please confirm you turned off the breaker so the switch was not powered at the time you initiated SmartStart inclusion in Home Assistant?
SmartStart inclusion must be done precisely. The unit you are including must be fully removed from power while you initiate the SmartStart inclusion process on the hub UI. The device will automatically broadcast for inclusion ONLY for a short time immediately after being powered on. If you attempt to use SmartStart inclusion on an already powered device, it will hang in provisioning indefinitely, as the inclusion broadcast is only run right after being powered on.
We have the full troubleshooting process for this type of issue outlined in the following article in the SmartStart and Z-Wave Long Range Inclusion Troubleshooting section: Can't Add the ZEN76 S2 Switch to Home Assistant - Zooz Support Center
And just to address your comment about Z-Wave going the way of Insteon, the Z-Wave ecosystem is actually continuing to grow and evolve. There are now more than 4,500 certified Z-Wave products and well over 100 million Z-Wave devices in the market, with manufacturers continuing to release new products and adopt newer technologies such as Z-Wave Long Range.
Z-Wave is also fundamentally different from a proprietary ecosystem like Insteon. It is an interoperable wireless standard supported by many manufacturers, hubs, and platforms, so it is not dependent on the continued operation of any single company or cloud service.
Z-Wave Long Range adoption in particular has grown significantly, with more than 125 Long Range certified devices already available as of early 2026. The Z-Wave specification itself also continues to be actively developed and expanded.
Since your Z-Wave network was stable prior to the Home Assistant update, I would focus on determining what changed within that environment. An issue introduced by a Home Assistant or Z-Wave integration update can certainly affect the user experience, but it isn’t indicative of Z-Wave itself declining or being discontinued.
Let’s first make sure the ZEN76 is being included correctly, and then we can troubleshoot further from there if needed 
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Insteon worked until the company quit With Zwave there are to many derivatives (LR Mesh 500 800 etc),. I found everytime I I scanned for inclusion to take advantage of tha feature. the device went int provision purgatory. After factory resetting the Z-wave dongle. (ZWA-2(. and factory resetting the device I was able scan for it and manually add it as long as I did do without security. All my Zen76 are up and running and I have recovered Half my ZSE 11 motion sensors.
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I’m glad to hear you have the ZEN76 switches back up and running and are making progress with the ZSE11 sensors.
I do want to clarify a few points here, as some of the terminology and inclusion methods appear to be getting mixed together, and that may actually help explain the behavior you’re seeing.
First, 500, 700, and 800 Series are different generations of Z-Wave technology, not separate or incompatible versions of Z-Wave. Backward compatibility has always been a fundamental requirement of the Z-Wave standard. An older certified Z-Wave device can continue operating on a network with newer generation devices. Moving to a newer Z-Wave controller generally does not require replacing all of the older devices on the network.
Z-Wave Long Range is also not a replacement for traditional Z-Wave mesh. It is an additional network topology designed to coexist with mesh. An LR-capable device can communicate directly with an LR-capable controller when included using Long Range, while traditional Z-Wave devices continue operating through the mesh network. This was specifically designed to allow existing Z-Wave installations to continue operating while newer capabilities are added.
SmartStart is another separate concept. Scanning the QR code does not actually initiate inclusion. Scanning registers the device’s DSK with the controller and places the device in the SmartStart provisioning list. Once provisioned, an unjoined device sends its SmartStart inclusion request when it is powered on. That is why the power state and sequence I mentioned previously are important. If the device is already powered when it is added to the provisioning list, simply scanning the QR code does not cause the device to immediately begin a new SmartStart inclusion attempt.
Traditional manual inclusion works differently. You put the controller into inclusion mode and then activate inclusion at the device. You do not need to scan the QR code or add the device to the SmartStart provisioning list first. We cover both mesh and SmartStart inclusion processes in all of our inclusion articles that are linked in the device manuals.
You also mentioned that you were ultimately able to include the ZEN76 switches manually as long as you selected no security. Since the ZEN76 supports S2 security, consistent failure when attempting secure inclusion while unsecured inclusion succeeds would point to a separate issue with the secure inclusion process. It would not indicate an incompatibility between 500, 700, 800 Series, mesh, or Long Range devices.
The fact that your network was operating normally prior to the Home Assistant upgrade is also significant. Z-Wave itself did not lose backward compatibility as a result of that update, so I would be hesitant to attribute the problems you’re now experiencing to the different generations of Z-Wave technology.
At this point, the most helpful thing would be to isolate exactly which inclusion method is failing. When you say you “scanned for inclusion,” were you:
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Scanning the QR code to add the device to the SmartStart provisioning list, then powering the device on afterward, or
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Starting traditional Z-Wave inclusion in Home Assistant and manually activating inclusion on the device (3 clicks on the upper paddle)?
Those are two different inclusion processes and cannot be combined. Once we establish exactly which one you’re using and where it fails, we can troubleshoot that specific issue rather than making additional changes to the network.
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Scanning for. QR codes is no longer feasible for the ZSE 11s. as the camera can only read 2 of the QRs. Also I have mixed up the covers so who knows goes to what. I will try to scan the light switches
Ok The light were in off position I scanned using my phone. and. for one of the switches its ll ok the the other welcome to provision purgatory
Ok The two light were in off position I scanned using my phone. and. welcome to provisioning purgatory both say S2 Unauthenticated, S2 Authenticated but one has been included. so much fun
Thanks for those details!
When you say the lights were in the off position, does that mean the power was fully removed at the breaker or you simply turned the switch to the off position? The switch itself cannot be receiving any power when you initiate SmartStart via the hub, and having it in the off position does not accomplish this. You can only restore power once the SmartStart process is fully initiated on the hub side.
I once agains misunderstood. I will retry during the daylight
Thank you
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This detail has tripped me up on more than one occasion–important to know! Devices that have an “air-gap” switch let you cut power right at the switch instead of running to wherever the circuit breaker panel is–but, alas, the ZEN76 800LR devices I have don’t have this option…
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Ok to be completely honest it’s a ZEN71. I created the air bridge trying including by scanning int both z_wave integration and z-wave js. It appear it z-wave integration with no controls. I guess I need to go back and exclude rest and include.
I excluded the switch which di nothing I then factory reset the switch. added it in using the zwave integration where it was provisioned I then used the z-waxe inclusion add added the switch using the text version of the QR. While air gapped This works. PITA