ISY as secondary Zwave controller

[DarthVoder]

Is anyone successfully using their ISY as a secondary zwave controlller?

 

I'm currently running the 5.0.10 firmware but success stories from the 4.x branch would be welcome.

 

My unsuccessful attempt at making the ISY a secondary controller to my Vera Plus yielded the following:

 

1. Some but not all devices populated as ZWxxx devices on ISY, all uncontrollable.

2. Yale locks populated but uncontrollable

3. Multifunction devices that appeared showed up on the ISY as multiple ZWxx devices, but not a complete subset, also uncontrollable.

4. Two zwave devices, a mimolite and zw037 repeater dropped off my Vera zwave network and cannot be recovered by restoring the zwave network from the Vera. I will have to manually unpair/re-pair them.

 

I did perform a zwave factory reset before putting the ISY into learn mode...

 

I have been using my ISY for years to successfully control my Insteon devices and like the programming capabilities provided by the ISY. I'd like to leverage the ISY programming capabilities to zwave and provide redundancy for my Vera setup but this first attempt at using ISY as a secondary controller has left me less than happy.

 

I'm not willing to "move" my zwave network to ISY since the Vera device portal function requires no monthly or yearly fees for remote access.

 

Please share your success stories using ISY as a secondary zwave controller.

[KeviNH]

Seems Vera may not play nice with ISY.

 

 

See this thread:   http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/19722-running-isy994i-zwir-pro-as-secondary-controller/

[oberkc]

I'm not willing to "move" my zwave network to ISY since the Vera device portal function requires no monthly or yearly fees for remote access

 

One can have remote access to the ISY without annual fees.  It just takes a bit more work, and can be a bit frustrating getting things to work.  There is port-forwarding and static addresses and security certificates and stuff like that.  If that does not sound daunting to you, perhaps you should reconsider your willingness to move your network to the ISY?

[cyberk]

Not a VERA issue, it's an ISY issue. Secure devices added in other controllers won't be usable in the ISY. Other devices are hit or miss. ISY doesn't function well as a secondary Zwave controller.

[Chris Jahn]

Hi,

 

We're still looking into this problem, it could be for a variety of reasons.  It is a challenge for central controllers to play well with each other in the same network because each one thinks its the center of the universe (e.g. default associations, links, settings, etc.). Regardless, at a minimum each controller should be able to control and query all the Z-Wave devices in the network.  

[DarthVoder]

One can have remote access to the ISY without annual fees. It just takes a bit more work, and can be a bit frustrating getting things to work. There is port-forwarding and static addresses and security certificates and stuff like that. If that does not sound daunting to you, perhaps you should reconsider your willingness to move your network to the ISY?

[DarthVoder]

I am not intimidated by network and port translation (NAPT) and indeed use this feature for other devices in my network. Using dyndns facilitates easy remote access. I am temporarily unable to use this technique as infrastructure maintenance by my ISP leaves me on a cellular wifi hotspot and the wired clients on this network necessitate a wifi to wired workaround which results in double-NAT which breaks NAPT.

 

Needless to say the free portal provided by VERA isn't affected by double-NAT and hence my happiness with Vera providing the portal at no recurring cost with their controller (which is found at a similar price point to the ISY). I hope UDI will consider providing portal services free with their devices at some point in the future as it would indeed convince me to move my Zwave devices to the ISY. At this point the programming capabilities provided by the ISY are what currently keep me from abandoning ISY for Vera.

 

I also read into statements on the UDI site that portal services are required to use Alexa functionality. I'm not at this point willing to spend recurring $ to be able to use Alexa on ISY.

[DarthVoder]

Not a VERA issue, it's an ISY issue. Secure devices added in other controllers won't be usable in the ISY. Other devices are hit or miss. ISY doesn't function well as a secondary Zwave controller.

[DarthVoder]

That's welcome news as I wasn't quite sure whether I should be pursuing zwave troubleshooting with the Vera folks or the UDI folks.

 

I also see elsewhere on the forum someone having issues with their mimolite dropping off the zwave network. This secure device issue appears to duplicate what I was seeing.

Hi,

 

We're still looking into this problem, it could be for a variety of reasons. It is a challenge for central controllers to play well with each other in the same network because each one thinks its the center of the universe (e.g. default associations, links, settings, etc.). Regardless, at a minimum each controller should be able to control and query all the Z-Wave devices in the network.

[DarthVoder]

I'm very pleased that UDI is addressing this issue. I would expect that the Zwave alliance would expect manufacturers that claim Zwave support would be expected to provide/test/confirm support for the secondary controller function.

[cyberk]

Hi,

 

We're still looking into this problem, it could be for a variety of reasons.  It is a challenge for central controllers to play well with each other in the same network because each one thinks its the center of the universe (e.g. default associations, links, settings, etc.). Regardless, at a minimum each controller should be able to control and query all the Z-Wave devices in the network.  

 

Hi Chris,

 

pinging this again...

[Chris Jahn]

Hi guys,

 

This is on our todo list and as time becomes available we want to resolve problems as best we can.  It does not have the highest priority at the moment mainly because most people do not use multiple central controllers, and doing so is always going to cause some problems.  For example, both of the controllers are going to want to set up their own associations and scenes, default configuration values among other things.

[simplextech]

On 12/13/2017 at 4:27 PM, Chris Jahn said:

Hi guys,

 

This is on our todo list and as time becomes available we want to resolve problems as best we can.  It does not have the highest priority at the moment mainly because most people do not use multiple central controllers, and doing so is always going to cause some problems.  For example, both of the controllers are going to want to set up their own associations and scenes, default configuration values among other things.

@Chris Jahn I'm digging up the past.  What's the current status of using an ISY as a secondary controller?  My intent is a primary/slave of multiple ISY's.

[larryllix]

7 hours ago, simplextech said:

@Chris Jahn I'm digging up the past.  What's the current status of using an ISY as a secondary controller?  My intent is a primary/slave of multiple ISY's.

This was one of the intended targets of Polyglot before inception, to connect multiple ISYs, possibly very remote,  together in a co-operative manner.

[simplextech]

3 hours ago, larryllix said:

This was one of the intended targets of Polyglot before inception, to connect multiple ISYs, possibly very remote,  together in a co-operative manner.

I can see the potential there with mirroring an ISY through Polyglot.  However Z-Wave has the standard defined for multiple controllers.  Problem is hardly anyone implements this and even fewer do it correctly.

[larryllix]

14 hours ago, simplextech said:

I can see the potential there with mirroring an ISY through Polyglot.  However Z-Wave has the standard defined for multiple controllers.  Problem is hardly anyone implements this and even fewer do it correctly.

Zwave won't connect a second ISY in another state. PolyGlot could for cottage or summer home usage from a primary ISY at home.

[simplextech]

17 hours ago, larryllix said:

Zwave won't connect a second ISY in another state. PolyGlot could for cottage or summer home usage from a primary ISY at home.

I'm not looking for another state.  Reliable in my own home and getting past the 4 hop limit would be nice....

[larryllix]

Wires crossed here. I was responding to your

" I'm digging up the past.  What's the current status of using an ISY as a secondary controller?  My intent is a primary/slave of multiple ISY's."

post. Not related to Zwave anything.

[lilyoyo1]

45 minutes ago, simplextech said:

I'm not looking for another state.  Reliable in my own home and getting past the 4 hop limit would be nice....

4 hop limit? I doubt that's your issue in regards to Insteon at least. Even with zwave it's hard to believe. I've seen both used in 7000+ sq foot homes without needing an extra one

[larryllix]

6 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

4 hop limit? I doubt that's your issue in regards to Insteon at least. Even with zwave it's hard to believe. I've seen both used in 7000+ sq foot homes without needing an extra one

The time for comms would become too slow due the the exponential factor of hopping.

[simplextech]

9 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

4 hop limit? I doubt that's your issue in regards to Insteon at least. Even with zwave it's hard to believe. I've seen both used in 7000+ sq foot homes without needing an extra one

This isn't a Insteon issue. 

It's purely a Z-Wave issue that I hit and not just specific to ISY.  I have a single story ranch style but with a add-on suite on the far side of the garage.  Even with devices in the garage and in that room it's a hit or miss on those farthest devices.  The problem is the mesh isn't dense enough to provide the lower number of hops from the ISY to the farthest device.  Could I add more repeaters to the mix to solve this?  Absolutely.  reduction of hops with a dense mesh but there are only so many plugs I care to have stick out from my walls. 

When my lighting was all Z-Wave this was not a problem but now that I've replaced EVERY switch with Insteon now it's a problem.  A problem that could be easily solved.  A second ISY in the garage is all that is needed to address this.  I do this today with my HomeSeer setup with a z-net.  I have my primary HS in the house with a SmartStick+ (thinking to replace with another z-net) and then a Z-Net in the garage.  100% coverage without the need to have a plug sticking in every wall socket.

So my thinking was one of either a NodeServer to mirror ISY devices so I could have a single point for programming or if the ISY supported the Z-Wave spec for secondary controllers then I would go that route.  I found this thread and it was 2 or so years old... so I asked the question.