Aeotec Smart Switch 6 Energy Meter Reporting

[suderman]

I bought a Smart Switch to monitor if my TV is on or off, sensing the wattage being used. The change in energy consumption wasn't being reported to my ISY, although I could manually "Query" the device to see the current stats. It turns out I had to modify a Z-Wave configuration parameter to get this working.

Parameters 91 & 92 represent the minimum change in wattage or percentage of wattage needed to trigger a report. The default values are 25W and 5%, which are fine for me. What I didn't notice until later was parameter 90, which enables/disables parameters 91 & 92. This ought to be a default of 1 (enabled), but my Switch was defaulted to 0 (disabled). Setting this value to 1 fixed everything, and now I have a program which sets an ISY variable to 0 when the wattage is 0W, or 1 when the wattage is above 100W. 

Here is the extended manual for the Smart Switch 6, which helped me out.

One question for anyone who has one of these devices. Adding this device to my ISY gave me the following nodes:

• On/Off Switch
• Color Switch
• Energy Meter
• Multilevel Switch

Does anyone know what that last one, the multilevel switch is for?

[telljcl]

This is an old thread, but I'd be interested to know more about the parameters and how to set them (and why in some cases).

I just put one in and by default it wouldn't update any current wattage / current parameters w/out issuing a query. Glad I found this about setting parameters 90,91,92.

It still doesn't seem to update the "Current" parameter - only the wattage - unless I query.

I remember there was a reason I wasn't crazy about Z-Wave... Secret parameters and parameter codes.

Anyway, I'm looking over the reference guide linked above, and still don't see exactly how to get the thing to send a comprehensive status report of what it's readings are upon wattage change or some other event. I did set the parameter 90 to 1 as suggested, and that makes the wattage figure update when it changes by the amount set in the other parameters, so that's good at least.

[Michel Kohanim]

@telljcl,

We actually had to do this for over 200 devices for our utility project. Here's how you do it:

111 – 4 bytes : time interval for report 1. Values from 1 to 32K seconds
112 – 4 bytes : time interval for report 2. I don't know what this reports but the value is the same as 111
113 – 4 bytes : time interval for report 3. Same as 112
101 – 4 bytes : this has to be 15 (to report everything for report 1)
102 – 4 bytes : this has to be 15 (to report everything for report 2)
103 – 4 bytes : this has to be 15 (to report everything for report 3)

With kind regards,
Michel

[telljcl]

1 hour ago, Michel Kohanim said:

@telljcl,

We actually had to do this for over 200 devices for our utility project. Here's how you do it:

111 – 4 bytes : time interval for report 1. Values from 1 to 32K seconds
112 – 4 bytes : time interval for report 2. I don't know what this reports but the value is the same as 111
113 – 4 bytes : time interval for report 3. Same as 112
101 – 4 bytes : this has to be 15 (to report everything for report 1)
102 – 4 bytes : this has to be 15 (to report everything for report 2)
103 – 4 bytes : this has to be 15 (to report everything for report 3)

With kind regards,
Michel

Thank you - that's a huge help!!

I don't know why they don't make this clearer with docs included with the device.

[lilyoyo1]

2 hours ago, telljcl said:

Thank you - that's a huge help!!

I don't know why they don't make this clearer with docs included with the device.

Clarity is a relative term. What's easy for 1 person to understand may not be for another. 

In addition, there are different variables to account for as to why certain parameters would be used. It's easier and simpler to provide the information and allow the end user to test different things out while learning is capabilities

[telljcl]

19 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Clarity is a relative term. What's easy for 1 person to understand may not be for another. 

In addition, there are different variables to account for as to why certain parameters would be used. It's easier and simpler to provide the information and allow the end user to test different things out while learning is capabilities

True, but my point I guess is that there was no mention anywhere in anything that came with the device that there even WERE additional parameters that could change or tailor the device's parameters further.

 

[lilyoyo1]

3 minutes ago, telljcl said:

True, but my point I guess is that there was no mention anywhere in anything that came with the device that there even WERE additional parameters that could change or tailor the device's parameters further.

 

Most companies will put a quick start guide with a product and have the full manual online. That's where I found the parameters when I got my devices.

Due to trying to be environmentally friendly and keep people from having to save papers that can be easily lost, it's rare nowadays to find full manuals coming with products

[DaveF]

15 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Most companies will put a quick start guide with a product and have the full manual online. That's where I found the parameters when I got my devices.

Due to trying to be environmentally friendly and keep people from having to save papers that can be easily lost, it's rare nowadays to find full manuals coming with products

It's that, plus I believe those additional parameters are geared towards hub manufacturers so they can expose them via user friendly interfaces.

[lilyoyo1]

1 minute ago, DaveF said:

It's that, plus I believe those additional parameters are geared towards hub manufacturers so they can expose them via user friendly interfaces.

Maybe in a perfect zwave world. However I doubt it since every company has different parameters including devices within their own lineup. No one is going to do that for every single product out there. Especially as it can change with different firmwares

[telljcl]

Slightly OT, but for a number of my Z Wave devices I see sub-devices: "Color Switch" and "Multi Level Switch"

Even my repeaters have these sub devices listed. Have just ignored.

What gives?

 

 

[mwester]

Bug.  I think UDI has said the bug is in the z-wave proprietary firmware, but I've only ever seen these phantom nodes on the ISY...  Regardless, these phantom devices are auto-added to the node whenever these bad data records are encountered -- recent versions of the 5.x firmware have a setting that allows you to "lock" the z-wave nodes down so that these silly things will be simply thrown away when they appear instead.