Agreed - I don’t have to have lighting - any kind of two way would work.
Initially, I tries bypassing and unbypassing zones as a way to communicate between the two units. Imagine my surprise when it didn’t work at all because each has it’s own bypass status! ???
As hokey as this implementation would be, if each security device in Vera could show the actual bypass status from the Elk and also allow bypassing and unbypassing zones in the Elk from the Vera, that would at least give enough rudimentary 2 way com to actuate relays and other commands by bypassing dummy zones within the Elk.
My Oh My! I can’t believe I finally found you guys!
This is a jackpot for me after so many weeks of research. This all looks like what I need to get my problems solved.
I am Jack, a USA guy living in SW China mainland. I am designing my HA project for my new townhouse here in Kunming. It is a 200 sq meter, 3 story brick building. I just returned from the US with a few suitcases of Elk M1 Gold goodies for which to build my HA home. Currently I have my entire system breadboarded in my condo, programmed and running nicely. I hope you all can appreciated the mass amount of work involved to get everything happy with Chinese voltages, devices, etc. But it is all good. You can see my system on my blog in the Cocoontech.com. I cannot post a link here(???) so you can just go to cocoontech.com and click blogs there.
I am at the lighting control phase now. After much more research, I decided to go with Z-Wave for control. Well, in China, I can get Z-Wave products, but no joy with getting anything hooked up to my M1. I cannot use VRCOP+3 due to the freq difference. In China, Z-Wave operates on 868.42Mhz. Then I ran across MiCasaVerde! The company Wintop makes “iHUB” which appears to be the Vera3 in all it’s glory, AND working on 868.42Mhz like I need here.
PLEASE let a newbi throw a few questions a you good folks before I jump into this other investment…
I already have the M1XSP with the latest FW. Do I need to get the M1XSLZW? Do I get more features using the M1XSLZW over the M1XSP? If I understand things, the M1XSLZW allows beaming. Is this the only extra?
I need my M1 to use rules for light controlling because I am using OC sensors, water valve, door contacts reporting to the M1 zones for rules in lighting control. Am I correct in thinking the Vera3 and this plug-in will allow me to do this?
I also use the EKpro app on the iPhone and iPad for control and it of course connects to my M1 and sees whatever the M1 has listed for devices.
Will this app work, say, I turn on a light, and the M1 knows to send this command to Vera3? OK, maybe a dumb question, but I need to ask.
Is there anything more I need to get for my M1 controlling Z-Wave?
How do I get this plug-in? Where is the link?
Thanks in advance for your help. I’m really in no mans land out here. It doesn’t help that I can’t speak Mandarin either!
The current plugin version gives you only basic control of the panel: arming and disarming the panel, bypassing and unbypassing the zones, enabling/disabling the Chime Mode. The version I’m working on will allow you to control thermostats, trigger tasks, control the outputs and see the temperatures from the temperature sensors and keypads. It won’t show you the status of the lights because there’s little support for lights in the Elk API.
You can install the plugin from apps.mios.com, or from the Vera UI in Apps >> Install Apps.
Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but Bucko has two ways to go here:
Use the Vera to emulate a VRC0P (assuming the Wintop uint has this emulation function)
Connect the Vera to the Elk via serial or ethernet and use Florin’s plugin.
I assume that option 1 requires the M1XSLZW
Option 2 can be done serially using the M1XSP or over ethernet using the M1XEP
Option 2 can’t be fully implemented until the new Elk plugin is complete, with the lighting limitation Florin mentions (hopefully this limitation can be overcome using task & rules to control lighting so not a major problem).
Which option you choose may depend on whether you intend to put most of your interface and control logic / UI in the Vera or most of it on the Elk.
I’m currently using option 2 and I am anxiously awaiting the new plugin. I can currently disarm the Elk remotely and via z-wave door locks through Vera. All of my lighting control is done via the Vera.
Once the new plugin is done, I can actuate the Elk outputs from Vera and use it for things like irrigation control, garage door control, etc.
I still haven’t decided what to use for an aggregated UI for the Elk, Vera, Audio, etc. I’m considering Girder webserver…
THIS is what I need to complete my Elk integration. I don’t care about lighting control… that is what I have Vera for! If Vera can get the status of outputs and act on them then I can do all I need!
@electnixon- You mentioned an option of Vera and VRCOP emulation. I thought the Vera3 does indeed emulate the VRCOP+3. Then the Elk M1XSLZW should would work the same way with Z-Wave. If this is an “assumption” only, do you know how I may go about verifying this is indeed the case? My resources are a bit limited in China. I can’t talk with the WIntop people about the Vera3 here. All I know is that the Wintop device is indeed a Vera3 UI5.
Hey, maybe I am going about this all the wrong way so let me ask you guys this way. Sounds like you all have the Elk, controlled lights, etc. so we are in the same boat. Are you all running a PC server with HA software (i.e Premise, Homeseer, Elve, etc?) Is this how you guys roll?
I am trying to accomplish lighting control using the M1 for basically one reason. I’m using OC sensors that will just report to Elk zones. Then I will write Elk rules to trigger lights based on zone trips. i.e bedroom Zn 20 open then turn on bedroom light. if after 10pm turn light on at 40%. Or if the alarm trips, flash all on and off. This kind of thing. Am I thinking about this correct? You guys have a better way to do it? I can only figure that if I need zone input from the Elk, then SOMETHING somehow has to report status to Z-Wave. If I wanted to pick up remote every time I need a light to do something, then all I need is a standalone Z-Wave system. I just thought I would utilize the Elk to do control since that is a function of the M1 system. Later I will expand the Vera3 to do my audio/video control.
I mean, what do you all do? I’m sure you have more experience with this than me. I am just getting into the whole Elk/HA thing. I wanted to avoid having a PC server running 24/7 to use some HA software. My needs are not so complicated to justify the cost of that now. Maybe in the future, but not now.
@bucko
The M1 can definitely do lighting control the way that you state using the Vera as a VRC0P (I haven’t actually tried using it as a VRC0P, so maybe get confirmation of this first).
If you are using z wave lights though, you can also use the Vera to control the lights - it can get zone trip and alarm status from the Elk and run those through scenes for lighting control as you describe.
That’s what I’m currently doing and I’m awaiting the new plugin so I can also utilize Elk’s outputs and other features from Vera.
With Vera and the M1, you have some redundancy between the M1’s rules and Vera’s scenes. I actually like Vera’s scenes better because you can put in some fairly powerful code, whereas the M1 seems a bit limited but the M1 is still a great panel and I’ll still use rules to “help” with the Vera interface.
I don’t have a HA server such as Homeseer which would add some features, but also add more redundancy. I plan to add something for UI and for AV server / control but I’ll probably keep the security on the Elk and lighting on Vera and just have the UI server handle certain scene activations and security status reporting.
Sorry I missed your question on the 29th.
I do not use the M1XSLZW, only the M1XEP. My original plan was to have the Elk do direct zwave, but I trust the Vera enough to do it for me and I did not like the Elk’s integration with Locks (I couldn’t figure where their plugin would do things based on which user PIN was entered, but the Vera can).
[quote=“mcvflorin, post:103, topic:168585”]The current plugin version gives you only basic control of the panel: arming and disarming the panel, bypassing and unbypassing the zones, enabling/disabling the Chime Mode. The version I’m working on will allow you to control thermostats, trigger tasks, control the outputs and see the temperatures from the temperature sensors and keypads. It won’t show you the status of the lights because there’s little support for lights in the Elk API.
You can install the plugin from apps.mios.com, or from the Vera UI in Apps >> Install Apps.[/quote]
@MCVFLORIN - Any status updates on the updated Elk plugin? Thanks.
All the new features are implemented, I just have to test it and update the documentation. Up until this week I didn’t have access to an Elk panel, but now I have, so I hope I will be able to release it the next week.
I have been using an Elk M1G for about 5 years and recently added a Vera 3 to my system. I can’t get the Vera 3 app to connect through my M1EXP. I get the “Elk Alarm Panel: Failed to get zones” error. I started by using the secure port number but then enabled the unsecure port but am getting the exact, same results either way. My M1EXP works fine from Elk RP and a browser. I was using a really old version of M1EXP FW (getting the same error) but upgraded it to the latest (1.3.28) and don’t have access to the version people say works better, 1.3.26 so I can’t try that. I also don’t have the Door Zone and Fire Zone variables on the advanced tab like was mentioned eariler in the thread so I’m not sure if I have the correct version of the app installed or if we are supposed to manually add those variables to the Advanced tab (I installed right from the Vera 3 the other day so I don’t see how I couldn’t have the latest). I can telnet to the unsecure IP:Port just fine.
Quick question does the Elk M1G plugin support the virtual outputs,
ie if i was to program a task on the Elk to control an output and have Vera register the change to trigger a scene. (Hope this makes sense)
Unfortunately I’ve been given some high priority tasks since coming from vacation and I didn’t have much time to read the forums or work on plugins. I think things will return to normal starting from the next week. The Concord plugin and the Elk plugin are the first on my list, since they’re both very close to completion.
