How to Add Minoston Z-Wave Smart Plugs to Home Assistant

Guides & Tutorials
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If you run Home Assistant and you are adding a Minoston Z-Wave plug for the first time, this guide walks through the whole thing: hardware, pairing, renaming, and a first automation. The button steps below are verified against the MP21Z manual and apply to the Minoston plug series (MP21Z, MP21ZP, MP21ZD, MP22Z, MP22ZD, MP24Z, MP26Z, MP31ZD).

What you need

  • A running Home Assistant instance (HAOS or a Docker install)
  • A Z-Wave USB adapter plugged into the host, for example a 700 or 800 series stick
  • The Minoston plug itself, plugged into a wall outlet near your hub for the first pairing
  • The DSK code from the packaging if your adapter setup asks for it (it is printed on the box, along with the QR code)

1. Set up Z-Wave JS (one-time)

If Z-Wave is already working in your HA, skip to step 2.

  1. Install the Z-Wave JS add-on (Settings > Add-ons) or connect to your own Z-Wave JS UI instance.
  2. Go to Settings > Devices & Services. Home Assistant should discover the Z-Wave integration. Confirm your USB stick shows up on the correct serial port.
  3. Once the integration is running you will see a Z-Wave card with your controller listed.

2. Pair the plug

  1. Plug the Minoston plug into an outlet near your controller. You can move it to its final spot after pairing.
  2. In Home Assistant: Settings > Devices & Services > Z-Wave > Add Device.
  3. Put the plug in pairing mode: press the program button on the plug 3 times.
  4. Wait. The plug shows up in Home Assistant as a new device, usually in under a minute. If your setup uses SmartStart, scanning the box QR code can add it automatically instead.

Success is confirmed by the device appearing in Home Assistant, not by the light on the plug.

3. Rename and test

  1. The new entity lands as something like switch.mp21z. Rename the device to the room it lives in, for example “Porch Outlet”. HA will offer to rename the entity along with it.
  2. Toggle the switch once from the HA dashboard to confirm on/off control end to end.

4. A first automation

Sunset trigger, plug turns on. Paste this into an automation in YAML mode and adjust the entity id:

alias: Porch outlet on at sunset
trigger:
  - platform: sun
    event: sunset
action:
  - service: switch.turn_on
    target:
      entity_id: switch.porch_outlet

Energy-monitoring models (MP21ZP, MP22ZD, MP26Z) also expose power and energy sensors in HA, so you can build consumption alerts on top of the same device.

5. Tweak the LED behavior (optional)

By default the plug’s status light is on when the load is on. If you want it inverted or off entirely, change Parameter 1:

  1. Open the device in HA > Configure Z-Wave device (or the Z-Wave JS UI configuration panel).
  2. Set Parameter 1 (1 byte) to 00 (LED follows load, default), 01 (LED inverted), or 02 (LED disabled).
  3. On the plug itself you can also change it without a hub: quickly press the program button 6 times. The status light flashes twice when the change takes.

Troubleshooting

The plug never shows up in HA.
Move the plug closer to the controller and retry. If it still fails, exclude it first (in HA: Remove Device, then press the plug button 3 times quickly) and try pairing again. A device that was paired to another hub before needs an exclusion before it will re-pair.

I want to start over.
Factory reset: press the button twice quickly, then hold a third press for 10 seconds. Host reset also works: removing the device from the hub restores factory defaults.

Pairing worked but the device looks generic.
Run an interview refresh from the device’s Z-Wave panel. That re-reads its capabilities and fills in the entity list.

Range issues after moving the plug.
Z-Wave is a mesh: any other mains-powered Z-Wave device between the hub and this plug acts as a repeater automatically.

Related

Questions about a specific model? Reply here or email ask@minoston.com.

– MinostonCS