glacier991 Posted March 18, 2017 Posted March 18, 2017 I am in the process of sort of test driving ISY and newer HA stuff (been using X 10 and older Insteon til now) prepatory to a move into a new house this fall. My present problem arises with GE Z Wave toggle switch. It was my first Z wave addition, about 20 feet from the controller. Worked well, not perfect. I since have added 2 range extenders and a couple different motion sensors (aeon and monoprice) and after that I noticed I had lost the range extenders and toggle switch as devices. I have been able to re add the range extenders but trying to exclude and re add the switch is not working. Short of getting 20' cables to bring IZY closeby, is there anything I might try? I have to say this experience is making me gunshy about including Z Wave in my new home this fall.
stusviews Posted March 18, 2017 Posted March 18, 2017 In general. Z-Wave needs a lot of line powered devices or a really good range extender. Battery powered devices don't help. I don't know which range extenders you're using, but my experience is that Aeotech DSD37 range extenders are useless. Probably the best range extender for Z-wave is the Aeotec siren.
glacier991 Posted March 19, 2017 Author Posted March 19, 2017 Thanks Stu. I want to have a siren in my system so will try that! Any general consensus on Z Wave at present among experienced users?
glacier991 Posted March 21, 2017 Author Posted March 21, 2017 I received the siren. It has no trigger for being joined into the network, and the instructions for it are based on use of a Z stick or minimote. I am at a loss on connecting it. Just putting IZY in pairing mode and plugging in the siren is unavailing. Ideas?
stusviews Posted March 21, 2017 Posted March 21, 2017 It's always best to exclude a Z-Wave device before including it. Plug in the siren, select exclude and tap the action button once or twice. Then add the device using the same instructions as for a Z-stick or Minimote
glacier991 Posted March 22, 2017 Author Posted March 22, 2017 Duh. I had failed to notice there is an action bar on the device (red faced)
glacier991 Posted March 22, 2017 Author Posted March 22, 2017 So... now I have the siren paired and operational, and it is about 4 feet away from this toggle switch I am trying to re-pair.. I have healed the network multiple times, but no matter how much I try I cannot get the toggle switch to pair (or exclude for that matter having tried that as much and first). I suppose anything can fail, and I am wondering if it is in the realm of likely probabilities that I may be dealing with a failed switch.
stusviews Posted March 22, 2017 Posted March 22, 2017 I've found some Z-Wave devices that instructed to tap once to exclude, but that really required a double tap.
doubleohwhatever Posted March 23, 2017 Posted March 23, 2017 Any general consensus on Z Wave at present among experienced users? I've found Z Wave to be quite solid compared to Insteon. Other than the PLM (which I've had to replace almost yearly), the Insteon hardware is okay. I've only ever had to replace a couple of devices (again, the PLM is cr@p though). The problem I've had with insteon is communication. It seems like every single day some random device fails to receive commands from programs. The next day it'll be a different device that didn't receive a command (from a program). I even reconfigured all of my programs to send the commands a second time five minutes later in an attempt to get commands to every device in the program. Even that didn't solve all of the problems. I also tried resetting the ISY, getting a dual band PLM and starting from scratch. Didn't help. I haven't done a count but there are at least 50 devices in the network and none are a lonely island. So communication should not be the problem. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago we came to a mostly dark house and I had had enough. I started the process of ripping out everything Insteon and installed Z Wave devices. This past weekend I finished that process and I'm very impressed so far. Everything just works. Not a single command (so far) as failed to reach a device. The only downside is that the ISY is lacking in the Z Wave department. I didn't realize how bad it was until trying to setup a few devices. So unfortunately my project this week has been moving everything from the ISY to a Pi3 running home-assistant.io. Home Assistant is awesome. It's a much more comfortable environment for me than the ISY with the JAVA interface. I'm going to hang on to the ISY just in case they ever get around to releasing 5.x and a new interface in the future. However, the rest of the Insteon devices will be on eBay this weekend.
glacier991 Posted April 1, 2017 Author Posted April 1, 2017 Update. Replaced the toggle switch with a new one and it works just fine in the network. Old one possibly defective?
Broyd Posted April 5, 2017 Posted April 5, 2017 . Anyway, a couple of weeks ago we came to a mostly dark house and I had had enough. I started the process of ripping out everything Insteon and installed Z Wave devices. This past weekend I finished that process and I'm very impressed so far. Everything just works. Not a single command (so far) as failed to reach a device. The only downside is that the ISY is lacking in the Z Wave department. I didn't realize how bad it was until trying to setup a few devices. So unfortunately my project this week has been moving everything from the ISY to a Pi3 running home-assistant.io. Home Assistant is awesome. It's a much more comfortable environment for me than the ISY with the JAVA interface. I'm going to hang on to the ISY just in case they ever get around to releasing 5.x and a new interface in the future. However, the rest of the Insteon devices will be on eBay this weekend. Hi there. What Z-Wave dongle did you use with your Pi3? I did see that a gen5 unit was available. Thanks!
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