simplextech

Yes that is correct. There is an upgrade path from RA2 Select to RA2 then to HomeWorksQS. Caseta is the only system that has no upgrade path to the higher end systems. One really must have a huge house to outgrow RR2 +7500 sq/ft. HomeWorksQS is a larger control system which utilizes RA2 Main repeaters and wraps the systems together. Again using a control system you can grow RR2 to huge sizes using multiple Main Repeaters as individual systems. Lots of people do this as the price tag to HWQS is unreachable by most.

Just to add some clarity for those not familiar with RadioRA 2. With the standard L1 (free class) you can have 1 MAIN repeater and up to 4 AUX repeaters in the system. You really have to have a VERY large home to get to a point of needing 2 MAIN repeaters and 8 AUX repeaters requiring L2 programming.

My opinion... If I had "normal" HVAC where I could use a standard Thermostat my choice would be Venstar. They have a public API and it's made for integrating with systems. Also widely supported by almost every home automation/control system too.

Yeah... we can talk about the prices You only need the L2 class if you're going with full RadioRA 2 system AND you want to support multiple main repeaters in the same system. There's a handful of devices that are only available in the L2 programming but they are niche and not a lot of people deploy them because they are niche so they do take more "care" in setup. Yet again you can hire a L2 programmer for those specific items if/when you need/want them. From an overall perspective you can make them behave as a single system. You will not be able to have clean integration between them such as a N-Way setup between the systems though. Easily resolved in planning the install though. The NodeServers I've written for Lutron are available on Polyglot V2 currently but were written for Polisy and are being ported to Polyglot V3 which is Polisy only. Whether I maintain backwards compatibility is unlikely unless there's a large demand for it. The only Lutron system that provides any conditional logic capabilities beyond time based events is HomeWorksQS which is in a completely different ball park.

Here's a comparison guide for you: https://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocumentLibrary/3682773_RA2_HWQS_comparison.pdf Within Caseta there are two bridges available. The difference is that the "pro" bridge has the option of using the Lutron Integration Protocol also known/referred to as the telnet interface. This is required to cleanly integrate the bridge into a control system. RA2 Select is DIY as well and supports more devices and more repeaters for a larger install. The full RA2 system has multiple expansion options and 200 devices. To get to the full 200 devices you will need 2 main repeaters in a single installation which will require L2 certification as was pointed out before. If Lutron is still offering online classes this training includes a gear bundle worth well over the $650 class fee which includes a main repeater. When working with a Lutron system regardless of the product family you can always have multiple installations of them and tie them together with your central control system. Whether that's the ISY or another system. This is how many get around or beyond the system limits.

If you have any "poof" of this or communications with AirThings about any company promises about the API please provide it to me.

I'm sure some of them are going out of business. Especially now. Yet a few years ago when I lived up there for almost a year it was a joke that everyone laughed about.

This reminds me of NYC. All of the shops in times square and around broadway all the way up to 10th are all "going of business".... LOL yeah... right. Total marketing tactic to the tourists!

Welcome. The newer Jasco (GE, Honeywell) switches/dimmers support instant status through Basic and Report CC's. The HomeSeer switches/dimmers also support Instant status as well as the ZLink which are what HomeSeer OEM's for their switches. There's a new line of Eaton switches and devices out as well which you may want to look into. Essentially if it's a newer Z-Wave Plus device you should be relatively safe. If it's a somewhat older one that was in the middle period of changes you should verify. If it does NOT support Instant then it will have "hail" defined so you'll know.

That device does not support Instant Status it uses "hail" Verified from the z-wave products DB. https://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/1910/embedpics

Perfect use case for MQTT

Do you want an RTI, Control4, Savant or Crestron system? ??

Yeah now try to document and then support this setup for a non-technical end-user..... ???? full time job anyone? At this point support for multiple ISY units is moot considering the converged plan. After the convergence something should be done about supporting multiple Polisy units in a depolyment to account for out-buildings and remote locations. Very similar in how multiple ISY's can be managed through the Portal but should have a bird's eye view of the "whole system" and ability to manage the "whole system" rather than individual elements. Yet that's a LOOOONNNGGG way off and likely not to ever happen.

It would be possible to use a NodeServer to create a producer/consumer type relationship between ISY's. However for this use case I do think it's better suited for Polyglot to support multiple ISY's. With that said it's very unlikely to happen anytime soon as the current effort is towards moving the ISY functionality INTO the Polisy and it would then be a converged system and not separate. At this point it would be a Polisy at each location but still acting independently. What could and should be done is a focus on the converged Polisy having support for multiple Polisy with a overall "view" into the entire ecosystem. This way one could have multiple Polisy units and share data between them which is sorta the point of MQTT being a backbone component of Polisy and Polyglot.

I guess I should dig mine out of the boxes of a disorganized (construction zone) office.

The direct linking to create the N-Way (3-way typical) setups? Nope. Not until you move up into higher end systems of which you've said you don't like the Lutron "style" but most other keypads out there mimick that button style of rows. The keypads aka "Scene Controllers" available with Z-Wave are mostly all OLD non Plus Z-Wave.

Yes Z-Wave does need a strong mesh. What defines "strong" is the variable and you will get as many answers to this as I have opinions on things For starters. Not all devices are created equal. All powered devices are repeaters. This is true. Not all powered devices are GOOD repeaters. Some are better than others. Because of this you will see people where they have a hundred dimmers in their walls and are complaining about problems and people automatically jump to "it's a mesh problem". No... not always. Sometimes it's as simple as the new device is bad or doesn't like Network Wide Inclusion which is why you have to have it in the same room as the controller to include it or the receive strength of the device is so poor that it has to be very close to another device to work properly. There's a LOT of different issues that come with Z-Wave and having a 1001 devices from 1001 vendors all adding their own spice to the firmware and design. I have a love hate relationship with Z-Wave.... is it showing yet? Why a device would show the ISY as a neighbor would need a definitive answer from UDI. However in speculation it's because the device does not have a direct route to the ISY but it's neighbor does. So it's a friend of a friend type thing. Device -> ISY = not a neighbor but direct communication Device -> Device -> ISY = won't you be my neighbor? How and why the ISY will show some of the Z-Wave mapping and relationships is a mystery to me still. Especially with the new 5.3 changes and updates. In order to see a full direct layout you will need to use a separate Z-Wave controller and PC Controller software from SiliconLabs to see the full mesh and translate the routing table from the primary controller. Options for this are. Buy a USB Z-Wave controller stick. The UZB7 is Z-Wave 700 chip and is $20 from Mouser and then register and download the PC Controller software from SiliconLabs. It's free. You will then have to include the UZB stick into the ISY as a secondary controller to see the devices and trace out the information. This is not an easy journey and there's potential for destruction in doing this. Tread very carefully and if in doubt. Don't do it. The zniffer can be bought as part of the Z-Wave Development it for I think it's something like $350 currently which is a lot cheaper than the $3500 before SiliconLabs. The development kit includes a zniffer and software. Alternatively you can buy a UZB3 from Mouser for again about $20 and FLASH the USB Stick with the Zniffer firmware. This is different firmware than a controller and once flashed the USB stick can only be used as a Zniffer going forward. You will then need the Zniffer software which you can again download from SiliconLabs for free. Using this it will "sniff" the Z-Wave packets from the air and is a non-destructive and fun thing. Previously this was only possible with a Certified Installer Toolbox from the Z-Wave Alliance which required membership. Lastly the other option is to buy a cool little box which is also a Sniffer and network mapper and can do lots of mapping and information gathering. This box is call the Z-Wave ToolBox and you can buy it for $129 from Z-Wave Products The Z-Wave toolbox is a fun tool to explore the z-wave network with.

That could work and would be nice. I would include into that DO NOT try to update battery devices. IE exclude battery devices.

The routes will change over time. So moving something today and looking at the route and then again in a week it may be different. 1. If it works. Leave it be. Sleeping dogs remember? 2. If it doesn't work then investigate the why. Invest in a zniffer if you get crazy about things. The ISY will not have neighbors. It is the controller and has the routing information. It doesn't have neighbors because it is at the top of the hill in the high castle.

I don't have any of these and have never used them. I'm guessing they are powered? Are they the type that are either battery operated or powered? If so how were they included into the ISY? On battery or on power? Were batteries installed when they were included?

You need to go lobby the Z-Wave Alliance. They made the changes in the Z-Wave Plus V2 specification. There are negative effects of having the full z-wave repair bazooka approach as it totally cripples the entire network/controller during the process which can take hours often many hours to fully complete and prone to failures. I think the change in the specification to do device based "healing" or optimization (depending on wording of control system) makes some sense in not taking out the controller for long periods of time. Downside as you've experienced is that it can lead to a lot of work to manually "heal" the environment after doing such a drastic change to the mesh. There's a few odd things the Alliance changed and forced in the new certification. Some I do not agree with, but I'm just a poor member without voting rights. I didn't pay the premium for voting rights.

Z-Wave Plus has "self-healing" functionality. It is not instant. It happens when a device communication fails. The failure will trigger an explorer frame and response to find a working route for that device. As you experienced and can tell this can be a long and painful process if you have lots of devices. The routes will also change as other devices become aware of their new working routes causing another round of explorer frames from devices that were previously working. Think of it like when you move and you issue a change of address to the post office. For quite a while some mail is not delivered to your new house and then even for weeks/months/years! your mail still gets delivered to the wrong address sometimes. Until of course you issue another change of address or call up the postmaster and say...dude... WTH! In FW 5.3 the full z-wave repair is now gone. For better or worse. So yes when doing a huge move that will disrupt and break all of the routes you will need to go to each and every device and perform an update neighbors. Then after you've gone through every device. Do it AGAIN! to then force each device to update it's information based on the new information that the neighbor received when you finally got to that device. This still is not fool proof and some routes will change again. However going through this process you won't have to just sit and wait and have lots of "errors" to either deal with or ignore.

I've sent them a note. Also informing them that customers are wanting to integrate these devices and if they can't they WILL look for and find alternative devices.

Their polite way of saying....we don't want to deal with end-users API support requests.

I'll ping them and see what I can get from them.