Not new user to ISY, but new user to Z-Wave

[bachguy40]

I have owned the ISY for quite some time and have been very pleased with its functionality. I am ready to jump into the Z-Wave products, but I am requesting help from anyone who has already done so.

I have looked through the forums, but I would hope someone could give me the absolute, simple step-by-step guide to WHAT I NEED to purchase in order to use Z-Wave devices.  For instance, I know I need to buy and install the daughterboard, but what else is necessary?  Where do I begin? Perhaps point me to a page with this info? 

Thanks for your patience.  I own the isy 994i pro. 5.0.12

 

[lilyoyo1]

That is all that is necessary. Once you have the daughter board and the zwave module you would simply add the zwave devices that you want to you. The zwave subforum has a link pinned that has a link to where you can buy the module

[Brian H]

The Z-Wave Daughter Board instructions in the UDI Wiki may help.

It mentions a $1.00  Z-Wave Firmware module.  In the purchase module area of the Administrative Console. Along with the Z-Wave board itself.

https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=Z-Wave:_Ordering/Assembly_Instructions

[Techman]

The ISY Z-wave module has a limited RF range so you'll probably also need a range extender. Take a look at the Aeotec site.

[jblackst5000]

I first owned the ISY99i and then upgraded to the ISY994i about 5 years ago. I have many Insteon devices as well as an Elk M1 Gold security system. Just like you a few weeks ago I wanted to add some Z-Wave devices to my network. I ordered the brand new gen 3 Z-Wave ISY994i dongle from Orchestrated Home. I received it in about 2 days and it was easy to add it to your ISY994i board. I started out by adding a few light on/off controls, a repeater from Aeotec and most recently a Schlage Z-Wave door deadbolt. I really like the Schlage door lock because now I can see the status of my front door (locked/unlocked) and even the battery level. My ISY994 I with Z-Wave dongle is in my finished basement and I get a great signal with the repeater throughout my house. All of the Z-Wave lights and door lock work great. From what I understand the newly released Z-Wave dongle is big improvement over the older versions.

Good luck with adding Z-Wave to your system.

 

[asbril]

On 6/29/2018 at 2:10 AM, Techman said:

The ISY Z-wave module has a limited RF range so you'll probably also need a range extender. Take a look at the Aeotec site.

I really want  new Zwave users to understand that by far most (non-battery) Zwave devices are repeaters as well. As such rather than buying the Aeotec repeater, get a Zwave Plus switch or plug-in device. This will give you functionality (controlling a light or something else)  AND extend the Zwave network. The more Zwave devices, the better your network.

[lilyoyo1]

2 hours ago, asbril said:

I really want to new Zwave users to understand that by far most (non-battery) Zwave devices are repeaters as well. As such rather than buying the Aeotec repeater, get a Zwave Plus switch or plug-in device. This will give you functionality (controlling a light or something else)  AND extend the Zwave network. The more Zwave devices, the better your network.

My sentiments exactly though I would recommend an exposed plug in device over an installed device for someone not trying to invest to much in zwave devices. 

[brians]

I am pretty much in exact same situation - old ISY user that just added the new 500 series board.  Something to look out for is decided that don’t do instant status - couple Leviton I bought from Home Depot don’t and if I check closely they are a different suffix after the PN vs. versions that do. What this means is there is no in or off sent to ISY if you turn on or off a switch locally.

Some devices this is not necessary eg. my WaterCopZ and a plug in outlet - both which are meant to mainly  receive Z wave commands. 

[asbril]

6 hours ago, brians said:

I am pretty much in exact same situation - old ISY user that just added the new 500 series board.  Something to look out for is decided that don’t do instant status - couple Leviton I bought from Home Depot don’t and if I check closely they are a different suffix after the PN vs. versions that do. What this means is there is no in or off sent to ISY if you turn on or off a switch locally.

Some devices this is not necessary eg. my WaterCopZ and a plug in outlet - both which are meant to mainly  receive Z wave commands. 

Make sure to get Zwave Plus devices. These will give you instant status.

[brians]

3 hours ago, asbril said:

Make sure to get Zwave Plus devices. These will give you instant status.

I bought some Leviton to test at Home Depot. They are advertised as Z wave Plus but do not support instant status. It’s giving me a bad first impression of zwave and is frustrating me like there is something I’m doing wrong. I do read that Leviton appears to have a problem or bug in their implementation. Anyways I’m going to order in a model that I know for sure to test so I can put this to rest. 

[lilyoyo1]

44 minutes ago, brians said:

I bought some Leviton to test at Home Depot. They are advertised as Z wave Plus but do not support instant status. It’s giving me a bad first impression of zwave and is frustrating me like there is something I’m doing wrong. I do read that Leviton appears to have a problem or bug in their implementation. Anyways I’m going to order in a model that I know for sure to test so I can put this to rest. 

This is my biggest gripe with zwave and why I can't support it as strongly as some others. You always have to watch what you buy. 

[asbril]

6 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

This is my biggest gripe with zwave and why I can't support it as strongly as some others. You always have to watch what you buy. 

It is true that there are multiple manufacturers of Zwave devices and that there can be an issue with one or another device. UDI makes a big effort to integrate as many different devices into ISY but some don't work. On the other hand, generally by far most Zwave devies work well. Personally I use Homeseer, GE/Jasco and Inovelli (*) devices, and having multiple manufacturers make me less dependent on just one.Pros and Cons !

If you have doubts then you should consult this forum before buying a new Zwave device, but generally you should feel comfortable going the Zwave way.

(*) Lately I have issues with including/excluding Inovelli wall switches with 5.0.13 and/or the new Zwave board.

[Techman]

Aeotec publishes a list of their products that have been tested and  are compatible with the ISY.  The firmware on their devices are also field upgradable.

https://aeotec.com/z-wave-gateways

 

[lilyoyo1]

2 hours ago, asbril said:

It is true that there are multiple manufacturers of Zwave devices and that there can be an issue with one or another device. UDI makes a big effort to integrate as many different devices into ISY but some don't work. On the other hand, generally by far most Zwave devies work well. Personally I use Homeseer, GE/Jasco and Inovelli (*) devices, and having multiple manufacturers make me less dependent on just one.Pros and Cons !

If you have doubts then you should consult this forum before buying a new Zwave device, but generally you should feel comfortable going the Zwave way.

(*) Lately I have issues with including/excluding Inovelli wall switches with 5.0.13 and/or the new Zwave board.

I like uniformity in my home so there is no way I can use multiple types of switches. To me that looks tacky but to each their own. 

Outlets I do not mind so much since they are below eye level and generally hidden anyway. My visible outlets are insteon and my zwave outlets are generally behind a piece of furniture or decoration. 

Ditto for my sensors. Common areas all use the same fibaro motion sensors, outside floods use insteon, and recently added motions to my closets and went with dome (which I really like). They are cheaper than fibaro and at first glance appear the same. 

In the end it's still a thing for me that outside of a few companies, you still have to figure out what something does before you buy it. A switch should be a switch. I don't think a person should have to worry about one company using this type of association vs another route (sometimes from the same company). Nor do I want to deal with one device being scene capable but a switch that looks just like it not being scene capable

 

[asbril]

1 hour ago, lilyoyo1 said:

In the end it's still a thing for me that outside of a few companies, you still have to figure out what something does before you buy it. A switch should be a switch. I don't think a person should have to worry about one company using this type of association vs another route (sometimes from the same company). Nor do I want to deal with one device being scene capable but a switch that looks just like it not being scene capable

You are right that there is confusion for new users, not knowing what device works with ISY or not. The uniformity is also something that I agree with. Personally,  overall I am comfortable with my Zwave setup and strongly recommend Zwave over alternatives. Your input and the input from others on this forum have helped me greatly.

However I have far more communication issues since I changed to new Zwave board and 5.0.13. I hope that this will improve over time with new firmware updates.

[lilyoyo1]

55 minutes ago, asbril said:

You are right that there is confusion for new users, not knowing what device works with ISY or not. The uniformity is also something that I agree with. Personally,  overall I am comfortable with my Zwave setup and strongly recommend Zwave over alternatives. Your input and the input from others on this forum have helped me greatly.

However I have far more communication issues since I changed to new Zwave board and 5.0.13. I hope that this will improve over time with new firmware updates.

The things i mentioned is not an Isy issue. The compatibility issue is a zwave issue. For the most part, the commonly used items are now supported (unless they use the 4.0 branch). 

I really want to like zwave. Where they are now and where they can go has me interested. When I do upgrade my switches, if I don't go with control4 switches I want to use the aeotec wall swipe switches. It's just a matter of where zwave and insteon are at at that they time. Alas, that's still 5+ years away but we'll see

[rccoleman]

3 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

The things i mentioned is not an Isy issue. The compatibility issue is a zwave issue. For the most part, the commonly used items are now supported (unless they use the 4.0 branch). 

I really want to like zwave. Where they are now and where they can go has me interested. When I do upgrade my switches, if I don't go with control4 switches I want to use the aeotec wall swipe switches. It's just a matter of where zwave and insteon are at at that they time. Alas, that's still 5+ years away but we'll see

My experience with Z-Wave on the ISY is that it's kind of a crapshoot what will work and how well it will work.  It's highly likely that there will be quirks, and functionality that either doesn't work or works inefficiently, and the question is whether those issues can be overcome through clever, or simply different, programming.  Sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it.

Case in point, I bought a Z-Wave module with an external temperature sensor and it kinda/sorta worked as long as I froze Z-wave nodes and could handle query sequences that take a long time with lots of inexplicable retries (see this).

I couldn't really use it in condition, so I switched to a cool programmable board called a Z-Uno (see this), and quickly found very weird and unpredictable query behavior (see this).  This also wouldn't work for me, but luckily, I was able to reprogram the board to just report at a programmable interval without an explicit query and rejigger the programs a bit.  This improved the situation considerably, but it still seems to act strangely from time to time.

I also have a MIMOLite that I'm using for my garage door sensor & switch, and it gives me repeated failures every time I try to query it.  The sensor will only start reporting the correct value when I open or close the door, so I have to do that manually every time I restart the ISY to get it synced up.  I usually notice this when I have to restart my ISY for some reason and then run my "good night" program, which queries my garage door and triggers the button if it thinks it's open.  It was already closed, this, of course, opens it!  I noticed that my garage door had been open all night a few days ago when I left for work.

I hope, and expect, that things will calm down and get better, but I'm currently in the "expect weirdness, appreciate sanity" mode whenever I get a new Z-Wave device, and I'm almost guaranteed to have to troubleshoot it.

[asbril]

7 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

The things i mentioned is not an isy issue

There are a number of Zwave devices that are not working with ISY.   5.X.X resolved some but others remain (incl some sensors). I am however confident that this will be resolved.

I read about the negative experiences of some in this forum with Zwave. In some cases they mention global issues and some have more specific problems that are not shared with most of us.

Recognizing that there are issues, I am betting that Zwave will continue to grow and evolve, and it will stay alive longer than current alternatives. Then one day, something better will come along.

[lilyoyo1]

I am not as concerned about controller based issues as I am about built in issues with devices. Part of the problem with zwave is that mfg. get to pick and choose what and how they support something vs. having everyone support things equally across their line. This can contribute to compatibility issues with controllers which means native support doesn't happen automatically like it should. 

 

[asbril]

4 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I am not as concerned about controller based issues as I am about built in issues with devices. Part of the problem with zwave is that mfg. get to pick and choose what and how they support something vs. having everyone support things equally across their line. This can contribute to compatibility issues with controllers which means native support doesn't happen automatically like it should. 

 

Good point ! However, and this for new Zwave users, once you have identified well working Zwave brands (such as Homeseer and GE/Jasco) Zwave gives great functionality and reliability.

[lilyoyo1]

9 minutes ago, asbril said:

Good point ! However, and this for new Zwave users, once you have identified well working Zwave brands (such as Homeseer and GE/Jasco) Zwave gives great functionality and reliability.

Even with strong brands one has to be careful with what they purchase. You can purchase 1 model that is scene capable and another that isn't and lose capabilities. There are other caveats but hopefully they are working towards fixing those issues that plague them in general

[mwester]

1 hour ago, lilyoyo1 said:

...You can purchase 1 model that is scene capable and another that isn't and lose capabilities. There are other caveats but hopefully they are working towards fixing those issues that plague them in general

Of course, that NEVER happens with Insteon devices, right??

Don't answer, it's a rhetorical question.  I have a junk box that contains several ancient switchlincs that speak only the i1 protocol, along with something that looks exactly like a switchlinc, but has the extra word "Icon" on the label in the back -- it doesn't report local status (Just like older z-wave devices, how about that!??!)... and then we have the devices with features that aren't supported on the ISY (due to API/documentation issues), etc, etc.

Bottom line - do your research, no matter if it's z-wave or insteon, and know what you need the device to do -- and make sure you can return it, just in case.

[lilyoyo1]

40 minutes ago, mwester said:

Of course, that NEVER happens with Insteon devices, right??

Don't answer, it's a rhetorical question.  I have a junk box that contains several ancient switchlincs that speak only the i1 protocol, along with something that looks exactly like a switchlinc, but has the extra word "Icon" on the label in the back -- it doesn't report local status (Just like older z-wave devices, how about that!??!)... and then we have the devices with features that aren't supported on the ISY (due to API/documentation issues), etc, etc.

Bottom line - do your research, no matter if it's z-wave or insteon, and know what you need the device to do -- and make sure you can return it, just in case.

Actually I will answer that. If your whole argument is based off a 10+ old revision then you definitely need to come better than that.

Not once did I bring up issues from older zwave revisions. All that I state effect devices that are sold and easily purchased in retail stores today. Not something that some unscrupulous seller on eBay is selling. 

If you're going to comment with a rebuttal (especially since this wasn't a comparison) at least have your rebuttal go against what I state. API documentation is for developers not necessarily end users. My gripe with zwave isn't about controllers not supporting something since I clearly state I'm not referring to controller based issues. You can go out and buy any insteon switch and no exactly what you are getting. The biggest mixup you'll have is not paying attention and buying a relay switch instead of a dimmer. Insteon switches that you buy today from reputable places (which is the topic I was referencing) all do exactly the same thing. 

Simce you bought up comparisons, here's a couple  that actually do effect usage. With insteon you don't have to worry about buying an insteon switch and it not being able to control another switch. You do with zwave. Instant status or not, if it doesn't support scene control it won't control another device properly!  You don't have to worry about setting parameters for common uses with insteon. Buy 2 different type zwave switches and try setting the same parameters. 

Yes, researching g before you buy is Paramount with anything. Just with zwave you have to dig a little deeper for something that was supposed to be designed to be user friendly.

[asbril]

22 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Actually I will answer that. If your whole argument is based off a 10+ old revision then you definitely need to come better than that.

Not once did I bring up issues from older zwave revisions. All that I state effect devices that are sold and easily purchased in retail stores today. Not something that some unscrupulous seller on eBay is selling. 

If you're going to comment with a rebuttal (especially since this wasn't a comparison) at least have your rebuttal go against what I state. API documentation is for developers not necessarily end users. My gripe with zwave isn't about controllers not supporting something since I clearly state I'm not referring to controller based issues. You can go out and buy any insteon switch and no exactly what you are getting. The biggest mixup you'll have is not paying attention and buying a relay switch instead of a dimmer. Insteon switches that you buy today from reputable places (which is the topic I was referencing) all do exactly the same thing. 

Simce you bought up comparisons, here's a couple  that actually do effect usage. With insteon you don't have to worry about buying an insteon switch and it not being able to control another switch. You do with zwave. Instant status or not, if it doesn't support scene control it won't control another device properly!  You don't have to worry about setting parameters for common uses with insteon. Buy 2 different type zwave switches and try setting the same parameters. 

Yes, researching g before you buy is Paramount with anything. Just with zwave you have to dig a little deeper for something that was supposed to be designed to be user friendly.

But then again, with Insteon there are failing PLM's,  there is a reluctant sole manufacturer with a limited selection of devices. The good thing about ISY is that you can use both technologies. Some swear by Insteon, others (incl me) prefer Zwave, and some use both. There is something for all of us.

[lilyoyo1]

I'm open to any technology that allows me to accomplish what I'm looking for. No system is perfect. This is true from x10 to Savant and Crestron. What it boils down to is whether the the pros outweigh the cons and if you can live with the bad parts. 

As I stated previously, I want to like zwave. I think it's great technology. However, until they work out the fractured nature of it, I can't use it as the backbone of my system. The cons outweigh the pros. They have come a long way so I'm not writing them off. In 5 to 7 years when I upgrade my house, I will take a look at where things are and decide then. Hopefully most devices and how to work will be universal by then