If anyone is interested I found this tilt sensor works with InControl. It's much more reliable then the window/door sensor I had been using. Plus if the 10 year battery life is even half accurate it's a major improvement.
http://www.staples.com/Ecolink-Wireless-Garage-Door-Tilt-Sensor-White/product278640
Garage Door Tilt Sensor
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- Last Post 16 September 2016
tnamey
posted this
30 December 2013
Ryan-Scott
posted this
30 December 2013
If anyone is interested I found this tilt sensor works with InControl. It's much more reliable then the window/door sensor I had been using. Plus if the 10 year battery life is even half accurate it's a major improvement.
http://www.staples.com/Ecolink-Wireless-Garage-Door-Tilt-Sensor-White/product278640
Nice find! Are there any tricks to mounting it to your garage door?
tnamey
posted this
30 December 2013
It just sticks on the inside of a door panel. They recommend placing it on the top panel.
SickPup404
posted this
02 January 2014
Is EcoLink compatible with Z-Wave?
tnamey
posted this
02 January 2014
I'm not sure about other ecolink products but this one had "zwave" in the model number so I figured it was worth a try. It included with no issue.
SickPup404
posted this
02 January 2014
Awesome! I've seen where others usually have the Aeon Labs (or other mfg) door/window sensor and then add the magnetic reed switch for the garage door. This tilt one looks like a better option! Thanks for sharing!
Axial-User
posted this
08 January 2014
Very cool. Any problem with the signal range to the garage door? Did you have to use a repeater to extend the z-wave that far?
mnagel08
posted this
08 January 2014
I got two of them from Staples a couple of weeks ago. There range is not very good at all. I have many z-wave devices between my controller and the sensors so I thought the signal would be repeated; not. I tried heal network server times, it didn't help. It's been a while since I started my z-wave network and I've added devices over time so, as a last resort, I removed all devices and rested the Aeon USB stick. I re-added all my devices starting from the closest and worked my way out. I then added the tilt sensors every which way I could think of. The only time I saw the sensor was tripped was when it was in the same room as my PC. I was about to give up and send them back when I saw the Aeon Labs DSD37 Aeotec Z-Wave Range Extender. I got one and installed it as closely as possible to the tilt sensors. They both now work.
I ordered the range extender from Amazon but I just found them at Stables (online) for less and ordered two more. I also ordered (from Staples) the Aeotec Smart Strip. I plan on adding a couple of lights that will show the status of my garage doors while I'm home. We've, more than one, gone to bed with one or both doors open.
Remote control is next.
tnamey
posted this
08 January 2014
I can't say I've had any range issues. Mine is about 40 feet from my controller, through two walls. Several devices between the two. I can tell you that it keeps working during subzero temperatures too.
Instead of running lights to see if the garage is closed, you could just have InControl send you email reminders. I receive one if the garage has been open for more then 2 hours and also one that tells me if it's still open around when I head to bed.
mnagel08
posted this
08 January 2014
Mine is about 45 feet away and 1 wall. Maybe the devices you have between are better at repeating the signal. I know it is the z-wave standard but...
I'm not the only one that may leave the doors open and, most of the time, I'm not the last one to go to bed. I don't get (nor do I want to get) e-mail alerts 24/7. Could the phone's InControl app sound an alarm instead? I guess you'd have to leave the app open all the time for that to work.
I do like your delay idea. Instead of a light, some kind of beeper could be set to go off after several minutes. That would notify anyone that's home. I'm sure radio shack has something.
And I will set up an e-mail message with a longer delay. That would come in handy when I'm at work and really come in handy when I get remote control working.
Axial-User
posted this
08 January 2014
mnagel08 - one possibility, rather than an e-mail, maybe you could setup a text message instead. Depending on your phone, you can setup specific tones for certain text message contacts.
tnamey
posted this
08 January 2014
I can understand the multi-person house issues. Having to make a system that notifies and is controllable by more then one person(even guests) can be an extra challenge for some situations. I had looked into TTS announcements but I don't know enough about programming to get it working. A simple set of speakers hooked to the computer(or sound system hook-up)could make all sorts of useful announcements. Plus it would add to the cool factor when the house talks!
I've also been working on getting sensor status to be readable by Tasker. That way you could set up a home control tablet or old phone to announce(via TTS, say action) when the garage door has been left open. Similarly delayed to have Tasker perform the check at a specific interval of time. Again my novice programming skills have made that difficult to get working.
jonfrance
posted this
08 January 2014
I've also been working on getting sensor status to be readable by Tasker. That way you could set up a home control tablet or old phone to announce(via TTS, say action) when the garage door has been left open. Similarly delayed to have Tasker perform the check at a specific interval of time. Again my novice programming skills have made that difficult to get working.
This is what I have set up on my tablet and phone. Every 10 minutes between a certain interval at night it does all kinds of things to my devices to alert me the garage door is still open. I also do it on my PC, however I often have the speakers turned down so this becomes pointless for audio alert from there.
I did have it set up to auto-close at a specific time at night if left open, however I've removed that for now after nearly getting locked out when it closed one night when I was outside! So much for that "clever" idea. I think a few more rules around that are needed.
tnamey
posted this
09 January 2014
How did you set up the audio(TTS) alerts on you PC?
Yeah I had though about setting the garage to close at specific time of night too. Then I thought just one day it will close while I'm doing something late at night and be very annoying. Half the fun is automating things and trying to think of every scenario that it will and won't work
Axial-User
posted this
16 January 2014
Just finished setting up two of these. Great concept that simplifies installation (just stick it to an appropriate place on the garage door, I have metal doors, so I mounted them on one of the braces and looped electrical tape around it and the bracket is is mounted to as an extra measure to ensure it stays put). They were smaller than I expected from the picture. They work great and report remaining battery percentage back to InControl.
mnagel08
posted this
21 January 2014
I was have pretty good results with my two tilt sensors till this weekend. Both doors have now failed to report the change from open to close. I reopened and closed the door and it then worked; not a viable workaround.
I did try setting polling on both sensors but they failed and disabled polling after a server minutes. Force polling doesn't work either. I guess this is normal for (at least some) battery operated devices.
I did get a MIMOLite that I was going to add as the open/close device. I was able to add it to InControl but have held off making the connection to the door since I now have some concerns about the tilt sensor. Looking through the MIMOLite docs, I think it could be configured to both control and monitor the garage doors but InControl would have to see it as two devices. Is that what Multi-Channel Support is suppose to allow? If so, MIMOLite could be used with a wired magnetic sensor to show the open/close status and then used to control the door too. Since it's not battery powered could it be polled?
Yeah, a lot of question and no answers. If someone beats me to the answers I'd love to hear. If not, I'll let you know when/if I find the answers.
krishkal
posted this
18 June 2014
Did you ever get this issue resolved? I seem to be having the same problem: InControl reports "open", even though door is closed; opening and closing the door fixes the problem, but is not a viable work-around.
Let us know how it is working for you, thanks!
rjwerntz
posted this
04 October 2014
I have the ecolink tilt sensor installed as part of my garage door setup. Long term alignment of the magnetic type switches seemed like it would be an issue so the tilt sensor was chosen. Perhaps a capacitive type proximity switch or photoeye would be a good non-contact approach but would require a device like MIMOLite and costs now go up significantly. Being that this is my first hardware setup, I am having issues with what I perceived as connectivity. I only have 2 Z-waves devices so there isn't much opportunity for repeating. I did find out that if I take the sensor and place it in direct line of sight with the Z-stick, I have no issues and it reads immediately every time a change occurs. My installation is separated by a single wall. My relay actuating the door is further away and higher and I haven't expereinced an issue with that device. Could it be serving as a repeater? If so it is direct line of sight with the sensor.
I found a repeater on Amazon and went through the inclusion process. It shows up as a Dimmer Switch. Is there a better option to choose? I saw a request for that posted a couple months back with no resolution. Playing around with different options for device type, I noticed that a "stuck" open signal on the tilt sensor changed to closed when I changed what device type for the repeater. I was trying all kinds of things so I wasn't sure which option so I need to re-visit that aspect. What I did see in the past though was that the only way to change a stuck signal was to cycle the actual tilt sensor. So is this a hardware or software issue?
Not having options for device type for a repeater, do you need to associate the repeater?
tnamey
posted this
05 October 2014
I found some good information on how z wave networks work and communicate(http://www.vesternet.com/resources/technology-indepth/understanding-z-wave-networks). Basically you need to make sure you're including battery powered devices in the location they will be operating. When the device includes it senses the node around it and send this list to the controller. It will then use those nodes for communication if it can't reach the main controller directly. This might be why I don't always get the open close signals. It just fails to reach the controller some times.
I wasn't doing this initially. I haven't had time to exclude and re-include this tilt sensor yet, to see if it will help. So if you installed the repeater after including the sensor, the sensor may not even try to use the repeater as a communication node. I could be wrong but I thought the link would be helpful.
jschiesser
posted this
23 December 2014
I bought a couple of these tilt sensors, had similar range issues until I did an auto-config on them with the cover off and they seem work better now. Maybe that enables the routing?
tnamey
posted this
14 September 2016
I've switch my house back from Smartthings to Axial. I must say ST received the tilt sensor's status 100% of the time and Axial is still missing status changes every once and a while. Any reason for this?
