Zigbee vs Zwave on the ISY?

[paulbates]

Long story, but I have lost faith in my power company to allow me to connect my ISY ZS to my Smart Meter. That gives an extra slot in my ISY. I see reasons why zwave would provide a lot of additional choices in sensors, switches and locks.

 

Anybody here using zigbee with your ISY as your powerline, sensor and/or lock solution? If so, what do you think? What are plusses and minuses?

 

Paul

[Teken]

Long story, but I have lost faith in my power company to allow me to connect my ISY ZS to my Smart Meter. That gives an extra slot in my ISY. I see reasons why zwave would provide a lot of additional choices in sensors, switches and locks.

 

Anybody here using zigbee with your ISY as your powerline, sensor and/or lock solution? If so, what do you think? What are plusses and minuses?

 

Paul

 

Hello Paul,

 

I personally did not see a lot of value in connecting the ISY to a smart meter. In part, it really indicated the total amount of power you consumed which was exactly what the POCO was giving you anyways. The idea and intent of having the ISY Series Controller connected to the smart meter in my humble opinion was to help to off set over all costs.

 

This could be from load shedding high current device during peak periods via the ADR etc. This of course requires HA devices such as Insteon to be present but again did not address large appliances most commonly used. To control the HVAC system would require a ZigBee TSTAT which integrates with the ISY Series Controller and thus would help load shedding during peak periods.

 

I have never personally seen, read, or heard of anyone using the combination in their homes.

 

Assuming load shedding is not the topic of discussion for a moment and its simply a matter of having the ability to control specific loads in the home based on the KWH at the time.

 

To me this is really a half measure and you really never have complete insight and awareness using this method. This is why I went the long route and purchased the Brultech GEM which you know integrates with the ISY and provides 32 discreet nodes.

 

In this way there is no guessing what is on, off, or consuming energy. With detailed information about discreet circuits in the home programs can be deployed to act upon real time power use.

 

As of this writing the ISY Series Controller does not support the HA protocol so locks and sensors are out of the picture. The ZigBee profile currently only supports the energy aspect so its quite limited at this time.

 

What exactly is going on with the current smart meter & ISY? 

[giesen]

I'm sure Michel will chime in here at some point but I couldn't agree more with Teken. The ZigBee solution on the ISY supports only the SEP profile and as such can't be used for anything but Smart Meters. Giving up Z-Wave for it is not worth it IMHO, as there are other solutions for power monitoring, and since Insteon is not exactly the most secure protocol, it's worth having just for the the locks alone.

 

Out of curiosity, is the problem with your power utility a policy one (ie they won't let you connect to your meter), or a technical one? (they've been unable to figure how to make it work with your ISY).

 

If it's the latter, I'm sure ISY could provide some assistance as I believe they've worked with customers and utilities in the past to make it work.

 

If it's the former, I have little faith that will ever change (I certainly don't expect my local utility to offer it, even though I'm already on their Demand-Response program; they shut off my air conditioner during periods of peak demand).

 

That being said, I believe at one point UDI was working on the ability to have multiple ISYs connected together so you can have both Z-Wave and ZigBee simultaneously. Not sure how far they got with that, as I know there are a lot of demands on their development resources to get the Z-Wave stack matured and get 5.0 out the door.

[paulbates]

 

What exactly is going on with the current smart meter & ISY? 

 

Hi Teken

 

I knew I was taking a risk of getting the meter connected when I started. The purpose for trying to connect with the ISY is that my utility has an off hours rate schedule. Under that program, the price spikes dramatically when they call a ADR event. If the ISY simply knew that an ADR event is being called, there are several power hungry devices and certain lights that the ISY could shut off during that time.

 

I've had my ISY ZS for a little over a year, and have contacted the power company several times and been sent on several missions calling other departments.. I recognize the vendor that services the meters, I see them in the neighborhood and have approached them about what to do to join my ISY to the meter, but they sent me back to the metering department, who told me I should contact the vendor... I followed the ISY wiki directions, can see the meter, can generate an install code, but that's as far as I get.

 

The utility did sign me up for a program to put a network appliance in my house that did join with the meter and provides whole house power and gas consumption stats, comparisons to previous periods, overlays vs outside temp, to a smartphone app. The iphone app can even estimate power usage of a device by holding the power cord up to it and sensing the magnetic field.

 

When I hooked up the utilities appliance to my meter, I also tried again with the ISY at the same time thinking the meter would be administratively open and I could connect then. No joy. I contacted the group that provides the app / appliance, and told that I would not be able to connect my ISY. Since the internet meter appliance and app give me a good read on power use, I've accepted that's what I'm getting

 

Paul

[Teken]

Yes I recall the thread where you showed the link about that product and phone app. It was pretty cool to see how it operates via the smartphone.

 

Over the years this whole smart meter integration to me at least has been a hit or miss affair.

 

I know UDI has had success in helping a few members here to get it working. I don't recall if you have engaged them to do the same?

 

So on a related note, what happens if you have no smart HA tech in your home? How does the POCO control devices for the ADR?

 

 

Ideals are peaceful - History is violent

[paulbates]

Out of curiosity, is the problem with your power utility a policy one (ie they won't let you connect to your meter), or a technical one? (they've been unable to figure how to make it work with your ISY).

 

If it's the latter, I'm sure ISY could provide some assistance as I believe they've worked with customers and utilities in the past to make it work.

 

If it's the former, I have little faith that will ever change (I certainly don't expect my local utility to offer it, even though I'm already on their Demand-Response program; they shut off my air conditioner during periods of peak demand).

 

That being said, I believe at one point UDI was working on the ability to have multiple ISYs connected together so you can have both Z-Wave and ZigBee simultaneously. Not sure how far they got with that, as I know there are a lot of demands on their development resources to get the Z-Wave stack matured and get 5.0 out the door.

 

Thanks. My recollection was that there was a non AMI zigbee card. I thought I saw that some zigbee devices like thermostats could be supported, but maybe that's commerical only.  I don't need a thermostat, so I think this answers my original question,  I'll start looking at zwave

 

For the AMI meter,  its the utility side. I was never told there is a policy specifically. I did run the traplines. I was sent an email by the group managing their internet appliance that said no.  I did talk to Michel & Mike I. They were (as always) very supportive. They pointed me to someone who was not able to respond to my questions.  After using to app to watch my power usage, I don't think the staggered demand pricing will help me that much. so the thought is to use what I have and move on.

 

I've had interruptible air for more than 20 years, and that meter was swapped out with an AMI last year. The ISY can identify it too.

 

I haven't decided yet on what to do yet, just want to make sure i understand the options. We've started some remodeling and there are 2 places where a simple 2 switch in one gang would fit the bill, I've talked through options with the family and a keypadlinc is not in the cards. 

 

Thank you both for the feedback

 

Paul

[paulbates]

So on a related note, what happens if you have no smart HA tech in your home? How does the POCO control devices for the ADR?

 

 

Teken, there are 2 approaches. 

 

1) Today, if I participated, I would get an email / text identifying that I am in 1 of 20 potential annual ADR Events. Its up to me to run around and remediate, turning things off. Since these events likely align with business hours, and people are likely working, it's not a compelling offering. This approach would send spouse approval factor into the ground at my house. So I will not opt into it in its current form.

 

2) Some internet appliances can login directly into cloud ADR. You log into your poco's ADR cloud from the device and then set what the ADR behavior should be.   I could imagine my poco supporting this before a centralized, managed HA approach. Since we have interruptible air, this could be introduced to the family, ...when my poco provides the capability.. The venstar colortouch series is an example of this type of ADR, it can be configured for cloud ADR notifications from participating pocos.

 

It seems that the new wave of HA is focusing on individual devices that talk to their own cloud service..in other words disintegrated HA. Manage each devices behavior separately with an app.. Tstats, sprinklers, alarm, ..., etc.  The same is proving true at my poco. I think I will see my Venstars connected to a cloud ADR to my poco before them taking interest in an HA controller

 

In a nutshell, that's why I'm giving up. The zigbee card is useless and I see no glimmer that a solution I can use is on the horizon. I will keep the zigbee card, with a potential that the poco changes its minde, and a newer ISY supports a mutlicard bus

Paul

[Teken]

Teken, there are 2 approaches. 

 

1) Today, if I participated, I would get an email / text identifying that I am in 1 of 20 potential annual ADR Events. Its up to me to run around and remediate, turning things off. Since these events likely align with business hours, and people are likely working, it's not a compelling offering. This approach would send spouse approval factor into the ground at my house. So I will not opt into it in its current form.

 

2) Some internet appliances can login directly into cloud ADR. You log into your poco's ADR cloud from the device and then set what the ADR behavior should be.   I could imagine my poco supporting this before a centralized, managed HA approach. Since we have interruptible air, this could be introduced to the family, ...when my poco provides the capability.. The venstar colortouch series is an example of this type of ADR, it can be configured for cloud ADR notifications from participating pocos.

 

It seems that the new wave of HA is focusing on individual devices that talk to their own cloud service..in other words disintegrated HA. Manage each devices behavior separately with an app.. Tstats, sprinklers, alarm, ..., etc.  The same is proving true at my poco. I think I will see my Venstars connected to a cloud ADR to my poco before them taking interest in an HA controller

 

In a nutshell, that's why I'm giving up. The zigbee card is useless and I see no glimmer that a solution I can use is on the horizon. I will keep the zigbee card, with a potential that the poco changes its minde, and a newer ISY supports a mutlicard bus

Paul

 

Hey Paul,

 

I believe you are right the direction lots of these POCO's are taking is via their own cloud hosted services. With respect to a home with out HA technology thanks for the explanation as to how it would operate.

 

I can't see anyone being very successful in turning off loads during peak period where most of the folks are at work etc. Then you have the other extreme where someone does have HA tech and in this case it would be a centralized hub / controller like the ISY Series Controller.

 

Working in concert with Insteon, Z-Wave, Zigbee, X-10, a person and the POCO could make this work effectively. On a side note I have been told that other ZigBee profiles have been considered for inclusion.

 

But with anything it comes down to priorities and resources and trying to balance the ROI for UDI. Sadly, I have been involved with this whole energy management for more than ten years and at its current pace. This area is very slow moving and when you compare it to other HA elements is not very sexy.

 

The reality is people are more attracted to colored lights, A/V gear, and so on. Even though there has been a very big push toward energy conservation like LED bulbs. These items have very low impact on the monthly utility bill when compared to heating / cooling.

 

People place comfort over costs in most cases and rarely do they consider the buildings infrastructure as the first step. From past threads which you and I have conversed such your spray foam insulation thread. Again, what you're doing is not very sexy the family doesn't see these things as value adds.

 

But you and I both know with your push toward better TSTAT control, insulation, and using the ISY Series Controller and in concert with Insteon, Z-Wave, ZigBee, X-10, its helping to manage costs during peak periods and also sustains the homes environment much longer which ultimately equates to long term comfort and reduced energy costs.

 

Unfortunately you're on the bleeding edge in your area as am I.

 

In that area you're not rewarded or supported very well so my humble suggestion is to keep pushing forward with new ideas or recycle old ones.

[Earl]

Is DTE or whichever company there using openADR?

[paulbates]

DTE does not.  They offer an appliance to monitor your meter usage on an app, and offer a demand based pricing product, but automation is not a part of it.

 

I may have not been clear in writing above... I believe I will eventually see OpenADR through DTE, but dubious about connecting my ISY to my meter.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi paulbates,

 

You can certainly switch your Zigbee module with a Z-Wave one. The main question is the type if application you're envisioning.

 

With kind regards,

Michel