AEOTEC Wallmote with 5.0.10

[chrisheider]

New owner of an ISY994iZW and wanted to try the Aeotec Wallmote Quad with it. Original version on ISY was 4.6.2 and, although the Wallmote would join the network, I couldn't do anything with it in the ISY.
 
Then I read it would be supported in ISY 5.x. So I downloaded and installed the 5.0.10 beta (or alpha whatever). It says this release is dated 4/25/17 so that's a mighty long alpha phase, if that's true. Either way, it's what I have running.
 

HERE ARE MY OBSERVATIONS:

On 5.0.10, the Wallmote joins to the network as before but now the ISY recognizes it as a "4.24.1" device. Actually five devices show up in the ISY list:

 

 

They all appear with the light bulb icon instead of a switch.

They all say "uninitialized".

They don't show a current state, and their statuses don't change when I press any of the buttons.

 

HOWEVER, using the Event Viewer, I can see the Wallmote is communicating with the ISY, but the ISY is reporting an error: "node not found... event ignored". Anybody know what this means?

 

Another idiosyncrasy of the 5.0 release -- it forces me to periodically reauthenticate even if I'm actively using the app. This just seems like a bug to me. I HOPE it's a bug because it's annoying as hell.

 

HERE IS MY QUESTION:

 

I don't care about scenes or checking the status for now. I just want to know how to set up the Z-Wave Associations between the Wallmote and other devices. I simply want to push button 1 and have a light go on. I'll get to more complex things later, but I'm just trying to do that.

 

Should be really easy... but can the ISY do the job? Or do I need to bite the bullet and get a more modern ZW hub to do it?

 

Chris

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Chris,

 

You need to use 5.0.11 for Z-Wave scene association.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[chrisheider]

Hi Chris,

 

You need to use 5.0.11 for Z-Wave scene association.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Thanks so much! I installed 5.0.11 and now I see a lot more information. Each of the quadrants has the following devices (this is just for button 1):

 

When I press button 1, the Dimmer (Key 1) toggles between 100% and 0%.

 

This is great progress! I can now write programs to take action on button presses.

 

HOWEVER I still don't see how to set up Associations (link directly between the Wallmote and a Z-Wave bulb, for example) so that I don't need to rely on the ISY for simple on/off control.

 

If the functionality is here, it's certainly not obvious to me.

[stusviews]

I downloaded and installed the 5.0.10 beta (or alpha whatever). It says this release is dated 4/25/17 so that's a mighty long alpha phase, if that's true. Either way, it's what I have running.

 

Whatever really matters. Alpha is considerably more primitive than Beta. And if you think since April is mighty long, then consider that Alpha 5.0 was originally released May, 2015

[MWareman]

HOWEVER I still don't see how to set up Associations (link directly between the Wallmote and a Z-Wave bulb, for example) so that I don't need to rely on the ISY for simple on/off control.

 

If the functionality is here, it's certainly not obvious to me.

I assume that you simply put the bulb and Minimote button into a scene, and the ISY will create the association for you.

 

ISY should not need to be online, unless you mix Insteon and Zwave in the same scene...

[chrisheider]

Whatever really matters. Alpha is considerably more primitive than Beta. And if you think since April is mighty long, then consider that Alpha 5.0 was originally released May, 2015

 

Wow that really concerns me. As an IT guy, it sounds to me like the company is really understaffed. How can they keep up to remain competitive with the rest of the marketplace. Things are changing much too quickly for them to take years for a firmware release.

[chrisheider]

I assume that you simply put the bulb and Minimote button into a scene, and the ISY will create the association for you.

 

ISY should not need to be online, unless you mix Insteon and Zwave in the same scene...

 

That's what I thought as well, because that's how Insteon works, but the ISY's Z-Wave implementation appears to behave differently.

 

I also have an AEOTEC Multisensor; I created a scene with a Z-Wave bulb as a responder and the motion sensor as controller. This works (the light goes on when motion is detected) but only when the ISY is on. I unplugged the ISY and tripped the motion, but the light didn't go on.

 

I tried the same test scene with the Wallmote's Dimmer (Key 1) as controller. I click the button, the ISY sees the button click, but it doesn't turn on the light.

[mwester]

Wow that really concerns me. As an IT guy, it sounds to me like the company is really understaffed. How can they keep up to remain competitive with the rest of the marketplace. Things are changing much too quickly for them to take years for a firmware release.

 

Yep, it deeply concerns me as well.  There are lots of excuses, some are even valid.  But the marketplace looks at released functionality, and 5.x is 2.5+ years into the making, and is nowhere near ready yet -- meanwhile, other solutions (as weak as they might be in terms of things WE on this forum like) have announced and released functionality regarding newer z-wave devices.

 

Documentation, like how one creates z-wave associations, is simply unavailable -- and there aren't enough z-wave experts on this forum IMO to be able to sort it out on our own.  So this is a wild guess:  perhaps one  creates the association from device to device, without intervention of a controller?  Does that even work with Z-Wave?  (It does with Insteon, but is discouraged with the ISY in favor of having the ISY do it -- but absent an obvious way to do that with Z-Wave, coupled with the way the z-wave controller is so loosely coupled to the host (ISY or PC, they're all the same in that regard), make me wonder if the host is involved at all...)

[chrisheider]

Yep, it deeply concerns me as well.  There are lots of excuses, some are even valid.  But the marketplace looks at released functionality, and 5.x is 2.5+ years into the making, and is nowhere near ready yet -- meanwhile, other solutions (as weak as they might be in terms of things WE on this forum like) have announced and released functionality regarding newer z-wave devices.

 

Documentation, like how one creates z-wave associations, is simply unavailable -- and there aren't enough z-wave experts on this forum IMO to be able to sort it out on our own.  So this is a wild guess:  perhaps one  creates the association from device to device, without intervention of a controller?  Does that even work with Z-Wave?  (It does with Insteon, but is discouraged with the ISY in favor of having the ISY do it -- but absent an obvious way to do that with Z-Wave, coupled with the way the z-wave controller is so loosely coupled to the host (ISY or PC, they're all the same in that regard), make me wonder if the host is involved at all...)

 

The Wallmote documentation says to use your gateway to set Associations. I broke down and purchased the Aeotec Z-Stick because there is much more knowledge out there for that controller.

[chrisheider]

Progress report!! I deleted the Wallmote (since it was originally created by 5.0.10) and added it back again.

 

Now I have four scene button devices. I can create a scene for each button to turn devices ON, but nothing seems to turn them OFF. When set to "default" action, I assumed they would toggle. They don't.

 

Ok, so I tried one button turning the light on and another turning the light off. Even though I explicitly set the bulb's scene action to Command>Off, it still turns ON. I give up.

 

The good news is, I can create four programs that reliably toggle four different devices. I was investigating the use of the Wallmote Quad for a new bathroom remodel that I'm planning (separate buttons for the vanity light, ceiling light, exhaust fan, and shower light), but I don't like the idea of the ISY being a single point of failure. If it dies and I need to wait for a replacement, my bathroom has no lights.

 

And what if UD goes out of business. I'd have to switch to a different gateway.

 

So I'll wait for the Z-Stick to arrive and give that a try that next.

[lilyoyo1]

The good news is, I can create four programs that reliably toggle four different devices. I was investigating the use of the Wallmote Quad for a new bathroom remodel that I'm planning (separate buttons for the vanity light, ceiling light, exhaust fan, and shower light), but I don't like the idea of the ISY being a single point of failure. If it dies and I need to wait for a replacement, my bathroom has no lights.

 

And what if UD goes out of business. I'd have to switch to a different gateway.

 

So I'll wait for the Z-Stick to arrive and give that a try that next.

With the way you want to set your bathroom up, If any controller dies (ISY or wallmote), your bathroom would be without lights. I keep backup's of all critical devices for that very reason.

 

The same applies if UDI went out of business. That statement applies to any company. Since the ISY is not cloud based, you could always get another one as long as you could find one.

 

The good thing about the ISY is that it would operate as long as you had it. It's not tied to any cloud services. The few features that are, are ancillary things. wWile useful are not completely critical in the sense that the whole system collapses.

[Chris Jahn]

Thanks so much! I installed 5.0.11 and now I see a lot more information. Each of the quadrants has the following devices (this is just for button 1):

Screen Shot 2017-12-10 at 8.06.32 PM.png

 

When I press button 1, the Dimmer (Key 1) toggles between 100% and 0%.

 

This is great progress! I can now write programs to take action on button presses.

 

HOWEVER I still don't see how to set up Associations (link directly between the Wallmote and a Z-Wave bulb, for example) so that I don't need to rely on the ISY for simple on/off control.

 

If the functionality is here, it's certainly not obvious to me.

 

Hi chrisheider,

 

We'll take another look at this because as of 5.0.11, you should be able to use ISY scenes to create native links between the wallmote buttons and other Z-Wave devices.

[Chris Jahn]

Looks like there is a small problem ...

 

Starting with 5.0.11, all Z-Wave scene links are implemented using batch (similar to how we handle Insteon links).  It looks like there is bug where if you update the link and the device is not awake, it doesn't get written to the device but the ISY think it does.  I also notice the status values for some of the nodes are not being set correctly (although all the events appear to be generated correctly)

 

The easiest way to get around this is to first plug in your wallmote so that its always powered, then create your scenes and links, and after you are done you can remove the wallmote from power again.

[Chris Jahn]

Some additional info ...

 

- You should see a total of 19 ISY nodes for a Wallmote Quad (4-Button)

- You should see a total of 12 ISY nodes for a Wallmote Dual (2-Button)

 

 

The wallmote has 3 different types of control per button

 

e.g.

 

ZW 040 Scene Button 1

  This is a central scene controller, and all it does is report button presses to the ISY.  You can use this in programs, but you cannot use it for native Z-Wave links

 

ZW 040.1 Dimmer Control

   This sends out the 'Multilevel Switch Set' command, and is only useful when linking to devices that support this command (typically only dimmers)

 

ZW 040.1 On/Off Control

   This sends out a Basic Set, and is useful when linking to almost any Z-Wave device

 

 

Make sure you add these to ISY scenes as a controller (not a responder).

[Irakandjii]

On ‎2017‎-‎12‎-‎12 at 10:42 PM, Chris Jahn said:

Some additional info ...

 

- You should see a total of 19 ISY nodes for a Wallmote Quad (4-Button)

- You should see a total of 12 ISY nodes for a Wallmote Dual (2-Button)

 

 

The wallmote has 3 different types of control per button

 

e.g.

 

ZW 040 Scene Button 1

  This is a central scene controller, and all it does is report button presses to the ISY.  You can use this in programs, but you cannot use it for native Z-Wave links

 

ZW 040.1 Dimmer Control

   This sends out the 'Multilevel Switch Set' command, and is only useful when linking to devices that support this command (typically only dimmers)

 

ZW 040.1 On/Off Control

   This sends out a Basic Set, and is useful when linking to almost any Z-Wave device

 

 

Make sure you add these to ISY scenes as a controller (not a responder).

Hi Chris Jahn

I too would like to better understand this device and getting it working properly.

I do not see 19 nodes and I get an error message, see the picture above.

I am using Firmware 5.11C, the "Not implemented" Error, shown in image,  took many (around 22 clicks) to clear.

I tried to create an error log to help in the diagnosis, but it just hung on a "Hour Glass".

There are 12 messages identified and documented in your post. 

1. What are the other 7 / 19?
2. Please fix the bug causing the error so I can use the code in confidence.

Thanks in advance.

Update:

1. Only the scene buttons work at this point.  This is sub-optimal for me.  I need the dimmer / slide functions.
2. There is an "oddity" on how the Wallmote updates.  In the  Aeotec Wallmote documentation.  I am required to press the rear "Action Button" for 3 seconds.  The Wallmote LED goes yellow and the wall mote sends a " I am" awake to the ISY.  Then the wall mote should stay in "update mode" for up to 10 minutes.  While in update mode the yellow LED flashes repeatedly.  After all updates then a terminate message is sent and update mode is exited on the Wallmote. It is not working this way, the Wallmote exits almost immediately..  

I think there is something odd in how the update sequence is implemented.  I seems it is updating a single "record" then terminating?????

 

[tritip.films]

On 12/12/2017 at 7:42 PM, Chris Jahn said:

- You should see a total of 19 ISY nodes for a Wallmote Quad (4-Button)

- You should see a total of 12 ISY nodes for a Wallmote Dual (2-Button)

The wallmote has 3 different types of control per button

ZW 040 Scene Button 1

  This is a central scene controller, and all it does is report button presses to the ISY.  You can use this in programs, but you cannot use it for native Z-Wave links

...

 

Chris, the Aeotec devices all need ZWave configuration updates to change their default behavior.    For example WallMote dimmer control needs to be explicitly enabled per button. Have you been able to successfully update any ZWave parameters on any Aeotec devices?  I've had no luck so far. 

[lilyoyo1]

I've been able to update my parameters in the couple of smart switch 6s that I have