KeviNH

So the answer to "Does the claimed greater range/power of the Aeotec 700 extender apply in an ISY994 network with mostly older Z-wave devices?" would be "No"?

Having Z-wave mesh issues at my non-profit, looking for the best bang for our buck -- do we buy two older "Range Extenders" or wait for a backordered Aeotec RE7 to finally ship? Does the claimed greater range/power of the Aeotec 700 extender apply in an ISY994 network with mostly older Z-wave devices? Currently best priced in-stock plug-in z-wave device is the "Ring Alarm Range Extender (2nd Gen)", is this what we should go with rather than spend +$30 on a smart plug that is going somewhere we'll never use the plug part? Normally I'd go with hardwired power on motion sensors, but those also are tough to find in stock and also expensive (see "non-profit" in first sentence)

PoE standard applies when using an IEEE compliant "active" splitter, perhaps you are thinking of "passive" PoE where you use a separate "injector" and then a "splitter" at the other end? If you want to get power from a 802.3af/at "active" PoE switch, you can buy "Gigabit POE Splitters", these do comply with IEEE802.3af Most active IEEE802.3af/at splitters seem to max out at 24W. The GIgE splitters are available at this output and mention, 802.3at, for example this is the one I ordered to split off power to the ISY994.

As mentioned in the old thread, I have a reliable setup with 30 feet of CAT5e. The maximum distance for reliable RS-232 at 19,200 baud, transport over Cat5e is 50 feet.

Long-term I think the Apple, Amazon and Google-backed smart home standard "Matter" (formerly Project Chip) is going to be the way to go. Silicon Labs is also a backer of Thread/Matter.

All this is why I refuse to buy cloud-tethered home automation where the API is out on an internet server somewhere and can be taken away at any time. I'm not on city water, have no meter. I do have a water softener with inlet and outlet flow tracking, looks like the sensors are just hall-effect flowmeters. Somewhat tempted to try to get the pulse-per-100ml output from those, but just haven't had time or a pressing need.

I've been monitoring the "remote read" transmissions from several meters using the open source "rtlamr" project. It uses a small $15 RTL-SDR radio receiver plugged into a computer or raspberry Pi.

I use this: Saw 1st floor off button - [ID 0942][Parent 00FF] If 'Family Room off button' is switched Off Then Run Program 'evening lights OFF' (Then) !!Runs the "Then" path, so ignores conditions on the program being run Saw 1st floor off button recently - [ID 0011][Parent 00FF] If From Last Run Time for 'Saw 1st floor off button' To Last Run Time for 'Saw 1st floor off button' + 2 hours (same day) Then - No actions evening lights on - [ID 0077][Parent 00FF] If Time is Sunset - 30 minutes And Program 'Saw Family room off recently' is False Then Set 'Evening Lights' on evening lights OFF- [ID 0078][Parent 00FF] If Time is 8:45:00 PM Then Set 'Evening Lights' off Basically I'm using the "False" status of the "Saw...recently" program to simulate a logical NOT statement.

Well that was too good to be true -- SmartHome (SmartLabs on Caller-ID) just called, said they had no stock of the the 240v controller and no new supply coming in, would not be able to fulfill. Guess I need to go back to researching ZWave options for North American 240.

I've been adding Z-wave devices, mostly sensors but also a few switches, thermostats, etc. While the Z-Wave standard is tightly controlled by the Z-Wave Alliance, there are now a couple of different manufacturers for the interface chip, not all of Z-waves eggs are in one basket. And of course there are hundreds of members and dozens of brands of Z-wave enabled things. None of my home automation is WiFi enabled, none of the edge devices talks to a "cloud", they don't even have IP addresses.

I've got the Fibaro multi-sensor, and it has a seismic motion sensor which is moderately sensitive; mount it on a door frame and it'll detect the door being shut unless you are gentle as all get out -- like most such sensors, it picks up single sharp changes in motion, not subtle repeat vibrations. So that's a special case of "vibration" sensing, I'm not sure there's a standalone consumer device available which would accomplish this, I kind of suspect that unless the fan is horribly unbalanced, even that Aqara sensor would not work for your need. By US electrical code, there has to be a way to get at that wiring without busting out drywall. Or maybe you can trace the wires from the hood (or forward from the breaker), find the electrical box where that circuit splits off?

I determined I had an issue only because my on-at-dusk lighting events stopped working, but program was still running See here for more:

SanDisk cards have reserved spare blocks, and I believe some of their products have in-firmware wear leveling? I know the "WD Purple" cards do. If you can obtain an "Industrial" spec card like ATP, they provide tools which can tell you when a card has exhausted the spares.

The trick to using the MultiSensor for presence is not to rely on queries, but rather to use a program with with conditions such that it ensures the program runs every time an update arrives from the sensor (you can set the Aeotec to update anytime temperature varies by a fraction of a degree, etc). If the MultiSensor goes out of range, values for temperature/light/motion/vibration stop receiving any updates at all, so the program using those as conditions no longer runs.

If you're willing to have some delay in the detection, could put a Z-Wave multi-sensor in each car and have a program for each vehicle, with conditions that will ensure the program runs every time an update arrives from the sensor. If no updates in recent history (you'd have to play with how long to wait), can assume vehicle is gone. Saw Lambo sensor reading recently - [ID 00DF][Parent 0064] If From Last Run Time for 'Lambo Sensor' To Last Run Time for 'Lambo Sensor' + 30 minutes (same day) Then - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Lambo is Gone - [ID 00D6][Parent 0064] If Program 'Saw Lambo sensor reading recently' is False Then Do Something Personally, I would do the same thing, but have a little ESP32 module in each vehicle which connects to the home WiFi and makes a REST call to run the program every X minutes. Same detection -- if program wasn't called recently, assume the vehicle is gone (or battery is dead).

If there's room in the box (at the fan, or at the switch), could use a X10 PRO In-Line Noise Reducer (XPNR) filter.

Speaking of Linux, if you are running a Polyglot nodeserver on Linux (e.g. on rPi), you can install NGINX as a "proxy" and set it up to store your admin credentials and provide "guest" users access to just certain URLs. I've got this configured so the UDAjax web interface is accessible to most internal users, allows viewing all device status and controlling most devices, and also "RunIF" for programs, but nothing else - no admin console, no network resources, etc. Not saying this solution is something the average enduser can build and deploy without considerable effort, but it does work.

I tried testing with an Integer variable, and it worked as you said -- conditions were not re-evaluated after a wait.

The key phrase from the Wiki is "The program's conditions are reevaluated each time a Wait statement is encountered" IOW, when the Wait time concludes, the If clause is re-tested; if it is now false, execution of the Then statements is aborted and any Else statements are executed.

What thermostats are people using with ISY? (that is, direct control, not via a cloud API) I'm still getting good results using Honeywell Z-Wave thermostats (YTH8320ZW1007), and (as mentioned earlier in the thread) not great results from inexpensive CT32/CT100 models from Radio-Thermostat. I'd be willing to look at WiFi thermostats if they supported a local API (even if required building a node server), but want to avoid cloud services.

I suspect the fault is with the actual ballast dimmer device. Have you tried adding another responder to the scene and confirm that other responders in the same scene turn on and off appropriately?

I have a two Honeywell Z-Wave thermostats (YTH8320ZW1007), they've been stable for years (running 4.x with Z-wave version 4.55 on original Z-wave module) Upgraded from 4.7.3 to 5.0.16B. Next day, one thermostat gave a "Communications Lost" message (on the thermostat's LCD), and also a Schlage lock disappeared from the ISY console. Upgraded to 5.0.16C and I got the Schlage back, but now both Honeywell Z-Wave thermostats sporadically fail with "Communications Lost"; power-cycling the thermostat brings it back online.

Looking at the various documents on "Plus" and "500", how much of this relevant to the chipset in the ISY? Given that I still have a bunch of old non-plus Zwave devices, I'm not sure that I will benefit significantly from replacing the dongle with a plus/500 version? Mostly I'm reluctant to upgrade because I have a good external antenna setup (because the ISY is in a big metal datacenter cabinet), and upgrading means switching to the onboard antenna.

Only because the low-budget cloud-tethered services have no incentive to implement reasonable security. I design security for corporate networks where the risks are far greater; the systems corporations routinely "expose ... to the internet in (a) way" would keep you up at night. In some cases we work around risks by using things like a "data diode", where data is allowed in only one direction, or other compensating controls. For a more realistic home alarm example of secure exposure -- it's technically possible (trivially easy) to make a one-way connection so the panel display message (Armed/Disarmed/Zone/etc) are made visible to a secured client (e.g. PushBullet's end-to-end encrypted SMS), but there's literally no wire connected to allow traffic the other direction. Or with a little more engineering, to enable the equivalent of hitting the "ARM" convenience button (no PIN used) and nothing else. For most users, I'd expect that those two specific use cases (secure status, remote arming but not disarming) actually do provide convenience gains with acceptable risk.

Easiest way to bypass the Z-Wave is to install it to a standard box, add a double-pole switch which bypasses the Aeotec switch.