Aeotec Smart Strip

I have been looking all over for a z-wave smart power strip for a while, even thought about some kickstarter projects since I have not seen anything on the market. However, Aeotec has a smart strip on sale now at staples for $80 with 4 controllable z-wave outlets that looks perfect for my needs. Curious if anyone has had any experience as the first alert smoke detector issues have me concerned about vera compatibility with store branded HA products.

Here is a link to the device:
http://www.staples.com/Aeotec-Smart-Strip/product_279180

And here is a link to some development info at smartthings:
http://build.smartthings.com/forums/topic/zwave-power-strip-from-aeon/

Interesting. from the link, looks like the Smartthings folks got it partially working (but as a single Z-Wave node) and found out it’s compatible with “Aeon Smart Energy Switch” devices; I’m guessing at least this functionality would work fine with Vera. I wonder, however, if we can actually get Vera to control the 4 outlets individually…

I am one of the posters on Smartthings forum. My Smart Strip was delayed so I didn’t get it Friday but it should be here today. I’ll pair it with my Vera tonight and let you know if it works.

New devices seem to be one big advantage Smartthings has over Vera. The folks at Smartthings got the First Alert Smoke Detector working on their platform over a month ago (I have one of those too) but we are still waiting on Vera. I have transferred all of my z-wave devices to Smartthings and just keep my Vera for a few IP devices (an area where Smartthings is weak).

I have been waiting for the Aeotec Smart Strip for many months, so eager to see your results testing with Vera-

Finally got home. The smart strip paired up no problem. It appears in Vera as 5 devices: one for each switchable outlet, and one master switch that turns them all off. On/Off functionality worked great.

The energy metering seems a little wonky: I was getting energy usage in outlets with nothing plugged and the total energy used was more than the total of the individual outlets. I’ll have to play around with it a little more.

[quote=“Trotsky40, post:5, topic:178167”]Finally got home. The smart strip paired up no problem. It appears in Vera as 5 devices: one for each switchable outlet, and one master switch that turns them all off. On/Off functionality worked great.

The energy metering seems a little wonky: I was getting energy usage in outlets with nothing plugged and the total energy used was more than the total of the individual outlets. I’ll have to play around with it a little more.[/quote]

good to know! Thanks for sharing.

The Aeotec Smart Strip installed flawlessly with my Vera Lite.

Five appliance modules appeared in the Devices list. One acts as a master switch. Four outlets can be independently controlled by Vera. Two of the six outlets are always on. It should be noted that if the strip loses power, ALL the outlets default to ON when the power is restored.

EDIT: My first observation was incorrect. Upon further testing, the outlets return to their previous state when power is restored.

I bought mine through Staples (office supply store) online. The power strip will be part of Staples Connect, a MCV-like device soon to hit the market. The box says it speaks Z-Wave.

[quote=“Lonestar10, post:7, topic:178167”]The Aeotec Smart Strip installed flawlessly with my Vera Lite.

Five appliance modules appeared in the Devices list. One acts as a master switch.[/quote]

Well, I think you overstated that a bit. Mine paired fine. But power monitoring is all hosed up. Right now I have two of the switchable ports on, two off - but the two that are off show 120-130 Watts of usage, while one of the ones on shows zero usage and the other shows 27 Watts. The 'master switch" is the sum of the four numbers, but that can’t be correct as I have a device plugged into one of the always-on ports and so there should be some additional non-trivial usage from that…

And the ‘master switch’ isn’t one at all, as it does not control the always-on ports. They are on even if they master switch in VERA is off. So all the master switch does it turn-on all four switchable ports - which is stupid, the whole point is individual control.

And I hope you are wrong about the power loss/restore. I bought this to better automate the lighting and heat for my bearded dragons (pet lizards), and turning all on could cause overheating (only want one pair on at a time). When I get home I will test and if you are correct I will have to create a process to restore the correct lighting on power loss/restore.

EDIT: Smite over this post? Really?

[quote=“wilme2, post:8, topic:178167”][quote=“Lonestar10, post:7, topic:178167”]The Aeotec Smart Strip installed flawlessly with my Vera Lite.

Five appliance modules appeared in the Devices list. One acts as a master switch.[/quote]

Well, I think you overstated that a bit. Mine paired fine. But power monitoring is all hosed up. Right now I have two of the switchable ports on, two off - but the two that are off show 120-130 Watts of usage, while one of the ones on shows zero usage and the other shows 27 Watts. The 'master switch" is the sum of the four numbers, but that can’t be correct as I have a device plugged into one of the always-on ports and so there should be some additional non-trivial usage from that…

And the ‘master switch’ isn’t one at all, as it does not control the always-on ports. They are on even if they master switch in VERA is off. So all the master switch does it turn-on all four switchable ports - which is stupid, the whole point is individual control.

And I hope you are wrong about the power loss/restore. I bought this to better automate the lighting and heat for my bearded dragons (pet lizards), and turning all on could cause overheating (only want one pair on at a time). When I get home I will test and if you are correct I will have to create a process to restore the correct lighting on power loss/restore.

EDIT: Smite over this post? Really? [/quote]

Funny, I bought the strip for exactly the same purpose. My experience is the similar – the power reporting is wonky, but the strip otherwise seems to do what I ask. I’d be interested to see what you do for the power recovery, if you wouldn’t mind sharing that.

[quote=“wilme2, post:8, topic:178167”][quote=“Lonestar10, post:7, topic:178167”]The Aeotec Smart Strip installed flawlessly with my Vera Lite.

Five appliance modules appeared in the Devices list. One acts as a master switch.[/quote]

Well, I think you overstated that a bit. Mine paired fine. But power monitoring is all hosed up. Right now I have two of the switchable ports on, two off - but the two that are off show 120-130 Watts of usage, while one of the ones on shows zero usage and the other shows 27 Watts. The 'master switch" is the sum of the four numbers, but that can’t be correct as I have a device plugged into one of the always-on ports and so there should be some additional non-trivial usage from that…

And the ‘master switch’ isn’t one at all, as it does not control the always-on ports. They are on even if they master switch in VERA is off. So all the master switch does it turn-on all four switchable ports - which is stupid, the whole point is individual control.

And I hope you are wrong about the power loss/restore. I bought this to better automate the lighting and heat for my bearded dragons (pet lizards), and turning all on could cause overheating (only want one pair on at a time). When I get home I will test and if you are correct I will have to create a process to restore the correct lighti?ng on power loss/restore.

EDIT: Smite over this post? Really? [/quote]

I am curious what you find out

I was thinking about getting one these for my snake cages.

In my brief testing tonight, after power loss and restore, the switches power back up to their same state. Like nearly all other Z Wave devices. Lonestar10, in what scenario did all the outlets turn on?

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

I stand corrected. The power outlets return to their previous state when power is restored. (I could have sworn they returned to full power when I first tested it.)

I only have LED Christmas lights connected to it now, so I really can’t accurately test wattage use at the moment.

Has anyone figured out configuration details to make this thing work as advertised ?
It mostly works, but right now, The master switch is off, nothing is plugged into the un-switched outlets, and it is reporting that Switch 1 is on and the master has a 57 watt draw.
My switch 1-4 do not report power ever. I tried programming the master with the same configuration parameters as a AEOTEC smart switch, that experiment crashed and burned.
…Barry

No, the strip is wonky. Does what I need it to in terms of powering different outlets at different times of day (day and night lights for lizards), but is really disappointing otherwise. The manual/master control’s dumb functionality is what really gets me. To the point if I manually turn off the strip for a few minutes, I can’t manually set back to the previous condition when I turn it back on, and have to run a scene in VERA just to get the right outlets back on and off…

Thinking about picking one of these up. The power consumption reporting sounds a bit disappointing. Curious though, is this an issue with the strip itself or something that will likely be resolved on the MCV side?

Mapped out the parameters; it’s similar to other Aeotec devices, but things got laid out differently.

The strip measures power on all 6 sockets, but only appears to advertise the 4 sockets that are switchable, so Vera does not expect reports for more than 4 sockets.

And there is a mapping issue. They appear to just use as many channels as needed for on/off (i.e. 4), and as many channels as needed for energy reporting (i.e. 6), with different socket mappings, rather than associating each socket with an end point, so that on/off and energy reports for a given end point belong to the same socket.

So, by default, 4 on/off sockets show up as end points 1 through 4.

However, for energy reporting, channels 1 through 6 are used, starting with the permanent-on sockets on channels 1 and 2, unfortunately. So this causes energy reports to be shown on the wrong socket in Vera; they are ‘shifted by 2’.

Not sure why they did it this way and it doesn’t advertise itself as say 4 on/off sockets with energy reporting and 2 power meters, mapped to end points 1 through 6.

I think this can be worked around in Vera, so I’ll ask MCV to have a look.

Made a first attempt myself, as a temporary hack to validate the theory. It currently shows power for all 6 sockets, but not yet remapped. (The permanent sockets were added as end points 5 and 6.)

The labels in the screenshot correspond to the sockets on the strip from left to right (permanent-on 1, permanent-on 2, switchable 1 through 4): P1 - P2 - S1 - S2 - S3 - S4
The device that draws 41W is shown as S1, but is physically plugged into P1.
The device that draws 3W is shown as P2, but is physically plugged into S4.

Wow. Glad to see that someone was able to figure this mess out.

I bought 2 of these, and have been fighting to get them to report power accurately. Now i see why.

Hopefully, MCV will respond soon. I’d love to see this problem fixed.

One question: How often are the watt values updating for you? This is another issue I have been having.

As often as you want. Like other Aeotec devices, you can configure the interval and enable a customizable filter so that only ‘large enough’ deltas are actually sent. I have them update (wattage) every second, so you can actually trigger pseudo-instant scenes off of energy events.

[quote=“oTi@, post:16, topic:178167”]The labels in the screenshot correspond to the sockets on the strip from left to right (permanent-on 1, permanent-on 2, switchable 1 through 4): P1 - P2 - S1 - S2 - S3 - S4
The device that draws 41W is shown as S1, but is physically plugged into P1.
The device that draws 3W is shown as P2, but is physically plugged into S4.[/quote]

Nice! But mine don’t make sense even with the shifting. Right now the “main” shows 157W, while two sockets show 143W and 28W. So theorectically 171W might be the total, but I have items on the non-switchable ports (actually likely the 28W). My guess is the true use is 157W+143W+28W = 328 W as this is about what I know the loads to be…

Edit: re-read your post, and I assume the point is I am missing two readings, and if I had those, I could logically figure it out…

Interesting. Did you change any of the configurable parameters at all, or are you operating with default settings?