The interface is no problems but wow z-wave just isn’t all it’s cracked up to me. The main problem is that random problems come ups and even reading through all the FAQ and forum posts, it’s still a guessing game.
Current problem: I have 2 everspring motion sensors. One is just outside the door from Vera, and after including it got configured quickly. The other one I included and then mounted it. vera still sees it (doesn’t that mean its in range???) but it’s been sitting in “waiting for wakeup to configure” for hours.
What confuses me is this
Why does Vera not configure the device as soon as its included??? Why wait that makes no sense. I am pretty sure other closed systems configure immediately (2gig, nexia etc)
Why does Vera not report signal strength? Clearly there should be a way to measure SNR for the connection, so you can quickly diagnose whether range is a problem.
Sorry for the rant, but it just feels like either zwave or vera have some pretty big oversights that should be critical in a remote access system
Oh yeah I also had two everspring door sensors which completely did not work but that was not due to Vera (there were broken parts inside the sensors even though I bought them new…)
Well a anyways, I came here for help so…what do I do with the 2nd motion sensor??? How can I find out if its too far away? I don’t want to remount it…but I will me getting some leviton switches installed in between vera and the motion sensor soon. When I install those, is vera smart enough to learn the new route to it?? Well it wait to find a path to it and configure it?
The issue is the battery powered devices only wake up for a short time and communicate.
If there are any communication problems … than effectively nothing gets communicated and it waits until it’s next wake up interval to try again. They do this to save batteries. You might need to move the Vera and the device closer … at least until the full device to device bonding takes place.
That makes sense. Do you think I would need to move it closer (would rather not since its already mounted : ) to get it to configure before I out in the switches?
I suppose my question is, does the hopping logic include only configured devices or will it try to communicate through the switch?
I guess I can always leave the vera by the detector overnight but then when I move it back it out of range, will it find it through the switches once they’re installed? Does the routing logic work such that z wave devices pick up other devices and communicate its info back to the controller?
You should (Setup → Z-Wave) repair your network when you move any devices.
I always setup my battery devices before I install them … then do a repair … but I do that the repair at night because I have a lot of devices … and the algorithm get’s worse quickly as you add more devices.
Because a lot of devices make auto configuration a lengthly process, is there any reason not to manually enter the routing for as many nodes as possible? Particularly if Vera has already done it once and you can see the quickest hops.
On a related note, I’ve failed to find concise documentation on entering routes. Would you be kind enough to provide the routing entry for these two cases:
Case 1: The node is within easy range of Vera (node 1). What is the entry that forces direct communication between Vera and the node?
0
1
something else??
Case 2: Vera → Node 10 → Node 20 → Device AND backup Vera → Node 30 → Node 40 → Device.
Thank you… that answers the multiple route question (10.20, 30.40).
But not the direct route. If a device is sitting next to my Vera, how do I tell Vera to communicate directly with it and skip any routing?
If I leave it blank, that seems to tell it to check other routes, which is obviously pointless. But none of the examples show either Vera or the device in the manual route entry!
[quote=“garrettwp, post:8, topic:174020”]I believe you would use 1 as the direct route.
Garrett[/quote]
I realized how to check: the auto-route reported includes the time required so it’s clear that Vera uses it.
Vera accepted 0 but not 1 as the manual route. The last two times I checked, I received 0-5 and 0-12 results.
If there is any conceivable reason NOT to manual route this, I’d love to know. I have about 20 devices or so within easy range of Vera, so it seems silly to let Vera try to build any other routes. I’m also turning off auto-polling to Z-wave receptacles since I rarely if ever manually switch those off.
Have you made any progress on this, I’m interested in what you find out and decide to do ?
Also the link @garrettwp shared pointed to a repeating section on Manual Routing, how do you find the variables names they talked about (in bold)…
If you are using Z-Wave 3.20, you can go to the advanced settings for a device, add a variable with the [b]service id: urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:ZWaveDevice1 and the variable name: ManualRoute[/b] and the value is a dot separated list of Z-Wave node ID's, just like the [b]AutoRoute variable[/b]. The Auto route variable may be something like this: "2-20x,7-59x,2.7-78". This means there are 3 routes found. #1 uses node 2 as an intermediary, and it has a 'score' of 20. The score is a measure of latency and accuracy, the lower number is better. The 'x' that follows means the last attempt to use it failed, so it won't be used anymore. The next route uses node #7, it scored worse, and also failed. The 3rd route uses node 2 & 7. It had the worst score (78), but it's currently working (no x).
I checked a few ZWave devices under settings, but could not see those variable names or example values? Just wondering what I am missing?
Based on my testing, I am thinking that we just don’t understand exactly how Vera handle z-wave battery devices. I started a new thread so we can discuss this, and I hope the develoeprs can chime in becuase this is obviously pretty important;…