I wanted to share my findings of this useful tool I got yesterday. For anyone serious about their Z-Wave network or wanting to do trouble shooting this is the tool.
Within 30 minutes of installing the software on my laptop and plugging in the dongle I had a floor plan of my house drawn up within the program, all my devices were discovered and visible on the screen (except one lock) and all devices dragged and dropped into the respective locations within the onscreen rooms and clickable to where the devices responded within a nanosecond of the click.
Right mouse clicking on any of the devices and selecting signal strength immediately shows which other devices sees that one device. Pressing F8 shows you how many hops from Vera to any of the devices, If a device is not configured, out of range or experiencing problems it will also show you that.
Running a heal network took 30 minutes which also updated the routing tables.
To add to that, since 1062, my thinkstick and thinkessentials are now working a lot better. I was having issues with the software not properly polling devices when the thinkstick is not the primary… after a while, it stopped polling properly. Now, those issues have gone away, and I am redrawing my floorplan…
@strangely,
I tried the Aeon which worked for a while but caused errors and crashed the program shortly after.
Then I tried the TrickleStar with the same results. Both the dongles reported a bit more information about themselves than the Thinkstick did. Z-wave version, firmware build, house id etc. Which I could never get displayed in Vera. The house id is an important thing to have as you can recover a damaged network with this program just using the id.
@mbairhead,
Well, after setting it up, really it set itself up after maybe 6 mouse clicks it immediately saw my existing Vera network and asked to be joined as a secondary controller. Just that alone was worth the $90. Now I can use it as an inclusion / exclusion controller and not mess with moving Vera. You can also click to have it take primary role or another click to transfer the network back to Vera.
But couple that fact with the display of which neighbors are in direct range of any device, signal strength & hop count, I told the wife to go get balloons and a cake cuz it felt like it was my birthday!!
90% of my devices are within 1 hop and the remainder display 2 hops. Actually all but I think 4 of that 10% are battery devices. I didn’t know this but it looks like all the battery devices 1st need to be routed through a SUC device, Is that a true statement? Non were linked directly to Vera even one device that was about 3’ away still displayed 2 hops.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but wanted to verify in case things have changed recently, especially since there might be newer Vera updates made after this thread’s earlier posts were made.
I haven’t setup my Z-wave network yet. I have about two dozen switches or dimmers that I plan on installing sometime in the next 2 weeks. I plan on getting the Z-Wave compatible Kwikset locks after that as well. I have a Vera 2 which I plan on using as a primary controller.
So, can folks confirm that the following are good features of the ThinkEssentials Pro that are not yet available in the latest & greatest Vera 2 software?:
Signal Strength
hop count
which devices see each other (or don’t see each other)
might be easier to include/exclude devices with ThinkEssentials Pro USB stick.
If Vera 2 is primary and ThinkEssentials is secondary, I can include/exclude with ThinkEssentials and have the change propagate to Vera 2??
@randman: I can’t speak to the rest since I haven’t used Thinkessentials myself, but I’m pretty sure that as of 1.1.1234, secondary inclusion controllers are no longer supported.
Good point. I do find the aforementioned “analysis” (strength, hop, etc.) features of Thinkessentials very interesting though. Is that the only controller that supports this functionality? Do any other controllers provide this information?
I was looking at the Thinkessentials forum, and it seems it’s not very active anymore, so I’m wondering about the long term of this software.
Took a quick look. Interesting if it’s not too much trouble to use the plug-in. It looks like the ThinkEssentials would be easy to use for debugging. I’d have to see if the plug-in for the ADD issue would be worth the effort in using. I’ll have to read more on that thread. Thanks for the info.
So, I’m thinking of using my Vera 2 (version 1.1.1245 and Z-Wave firmware 3.20) as the primary controller and Controlthink Pro as the secondary controller. I already have the Vera 2 but haven’t purchased the Controlthink Pro yet. My main interest in the Controlthink Pro is for debugging/analysis (hop count, signal strength, etc.). I have Z-wave firmware 3.20 which disallows use of secondary controllers for including and excluding nodes.
I’m also considering getting the new VRC0P serial controller, as a secondary controller, since I want to be able to control my Z-Wave network using my Philips Pronto TSU9400 and Pronto RFX9600 (with these Pronto equipment, I can speak to the VRC0P via RS-232). Another option would to use TCP/IP/http from the TSU9400 to talk to Vera 2 directly.
General questions about secondary controllers:
other than not being able to include/exclude nodes with a secondary controller, are there other things that can’t be done with a secondary controller?
Any “gotchas” if I were to have 2 secondary controllers (VRC0P and Controlthink Pro)?
Not sure what you expect ‘etc.’ to be. Besides what you mentioned, it’s nice to see the associations visualized, and it’s a good way to inspect (or program) your Leviton zone/scene controllers and to update your Leviton remotes. I also see it as a backup of my network, so you can easily take over with TE if necessary (and transfer the network back to Vera, if things got really dire).
TE is a bit unstable. And the performance isn’t always there; it can be a bit flaky and slow in its operation.
1. other than not being able to include/exclude nodes with a secondary controller, are there other things that can't be done with a secondary controller?
I'd say that's basically it. It's just a role, and in their secondary role they are not allowed to include/exclude to keep the network information consistent.
2. Any "gotchas" if I were to have 2 secondary controllers (VRC0P and Controlthink Pro)?
You can have a bunch of remotes, scene/zone controllers, other secondary controllers. One thing is that you gotta keep them all updated as you include/exclude nodes with the primary controller, so that your secondary controllers are up to date with the latest topology.
Thanks. Your point about using a secondary as backup is a good one. I haven’t had to relearn my network but I’ve read too many posts about others having to do so to make it a concern.
