Multisensor problem and Mesh understanding woes

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  • Last Post 29 January 2015
shoffman posted this 03 January 2015

I'm sorry I'm such a slacker and it's taken me so long to reply but wanted to report back that I was finally able to get everything working and reporting correctly by doing what was recommended.

I now have reasonably accurate battery, temp, light and humidity readings...

The whole reason I bought it though was for motion and I'm not sure if I mounted it too high or if I need to tweak the sensitivity somehow but it seems to trigger motion but as time permits I will get back on that! All that other info is nice and I will incorporate it in later but really what I want is triggering walkway lighting and driveway flood lights based on motion. I think my next step is to exclude/reinclude this as a powered device as I understand it's "always on" as opposed to sleeping to conserve battery.

Thanks again for the help!

Steve

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Ryan-Scott posted this 03 January 2015

I just got a multi sensor for christmas that I intend to use for several outdoor scenes based on darkness, motion and temperature but unfortunately I seem to be having communication issues with the device that basically turned it into a cute little ball...I've emailed Aeotec support but haven't heard back from them yet so figured I'd see if anyone here had any suggestions for me.

Here's the details:

Straight line from controller to sensor is 45' however there are effectively 3 walls, one of which is brick, in the way of the controller.

I do have several devices installed that should be relaying commands to/from the sensor. The devices I have surrounding this sensor are:
1 Evolve LTM-AS dimmer (2 walls and 30' from sensor)
1 Leviton wired outlet (1 wall and 20' from sensor)
1 Linear Garage door opener (1 brick wall and 10' from sensor)
1 GE Portable Outdoor outlet (10' WITH line of sight)

I've looked at the manufacturer specs for each device and they all claim they will relay commands so unless my understanding of zwave mesh is wrong...that's both directions right?

I have no problems communicating with any of these modules and they all respond instantly...but I can't seem to connect to the sensor even when I wake it for 10 minutes...but the outlet directly below it responds instantly to commands...

Is there any way to see what devices other devices can see? Am I mis-understanding the nature of the mesh network? Is the repeater function only from controller to device or do they relay both ways?

Thanks for any help!!!

Steve



Can you confidently say it's a range issue? If you were to move the sensor to your computer, would it work?

The trick with the mesh is that each device know who its neighbors are. Usually you would include the device at it's final location because during the inclusion, it will reach out and figure out which devices are around it and then later use them as relay nodes to get back to your main controller.

If you aren't able to include it at the final location, you could use the network heal; however, if you are unable to communicate with it while it's awake, the network heal may not be successful.

shoffman posted this 04 January 2015

At this point there isn't much I can confidently say...

I can tell you that if I move the device down 8 feet and remove the brick wal as an obstacle...I can communicate with it seemingly fine (get parameters works fine when awake).

I did not include it into the network from its final home but I did do the "10 minute wake" option on the sensor and did the network heal to no avail so that leads me to believe it's a range issue but what baffles me is the fact just 10 ft below the sensor is the GE switch and it receives command instantly...

From what I know about Zwave mesh (which i readily admit is damn near nothing) the maximum hops is 5 and if I I drew a nice series of cirles around each device with about a 20 ft radius circle there should be a max of 3 hops from the controller to get to this device from two paths...

When I get home tomorrow I will try to exclude the device and re-include it from it's current location. Does it matter that I use the Z-stick to include it which I'll have to remove from my server to bring it to the sensor or should I try the "add device" command from the software (I think I tried that once from the garage door opener but had to bring the opener to the server because of security keys or something.

Thanks for the help.

Steve

Ryan-Scott posted this 04 January 2015

At this point there isn't much I can confidently say...

I can tell you that if I move the device down 8 feet and remove the brick wal as an obstacle...I can communicate with it seemingly fine (get parameters works fine when awake).

I did not include it into the network from its final home but I did do the "10 minute wake" option on the sensor and did the network heal to no avail so that leads me to believe it's a range issue but what baffles me is the fact just 10 ft below the sensor is the GE switch and it receives command instantly...

From what I know about Zwave mesh (which i readily admit is damn near nothing) the maximum hops is 5 and if I I drew a nice series of cirles around each device with about a 20 ft radius circle there should be a max of 3 hops from the controller to get to this device from two paths...

When I get home tomorrow I will try to exclude the device and re-include it from it's current location. Does it matter that I use the Z-stick to include it which I'll have to remove from my server to bring it to the sensor or should I try the "add device" command from the software (I think I tried that once from the garage door opener but had to bring the opener to the server because of security keys or something.

Thanks for the help.

Steve


I would do this - go ahead and exclude it using your z-stick, then using the z-stick, go to the perma location of the sensor and include it again. While it's awake, head back to your computer, get InControl back online and when the sensor shows up, right click and auto-configure it.

From there, test it out and see if communication is working out with it.


shoffman posted this 29 January 2015

I'm sorry I'm such a slacker and it's taken me so long to reply but wanted to report back that I was finally able to get everything working and reporting correctly by doing what was recommended.

I now have reasonably accurate battery, temp, light and humidity readings...

The whole reason I bought it though was for motion and I'm not sure if I mounted it too high or if I need to tweak the sensitivity somehow but it seems to trigger motion but as time permits I will get back on that! All that other info is nice and I will incorporate it in later but really what I want is triggering walkway lighting and driveway flood lights based on motion. I think my next step is to exclude/reinclude this as a powered device as I understand it's "always on" as opposed to sleeping to conserve battery.

Thanks again for the help!

Steve

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