Hi.
I’ve set up my fire alarms in Vera (Popp), but haven’t really tested them. Tonight one of the went off (I was stupid - to not make noise while changing the battery in one of them I changed it under my bed covers and the air quality or dust must have set it off). Lights started blinking and all my sirens started wailing. Since it was a false alarm and I wanted the noise to go away I took them all down and removed the batteries. I turned off all the lights and turned them back on. Things seemed fine. Until I reinstalled the batteries and the alarm went off again.
Had a similar incident myself - was pairing a door lock, Vera decided to crack one of its sh#ts and screw up the pairing, and every single light went into flashing mode.
You’d think it would be obvious what to do, but I couldn’t work out how to cancel the alert. So I had to turn every single light on and off to reset them. Even had some outside fans spinning as I have them on a light switch too.
I’m curious about your “air quality” under the sheets - are you implying human gas set off the sensor? ;D ;D ;D ;D
So, guys, Vera DOES NOT have any control in terms of actually “triggering” a smoke sensor. It’s not Vera detecting the smoke and it’s not going to be Vera who’s going to cancel the sound alert on that siren. The best it can do, in case you have additional automation attached, you can stop/turn off any scenes doing that secondary automation.
To answer tiwas’s question. This can be done from the sensor itself. See the manual of your particular smoke sensor to see if it has a button to cancel the alarm.
I have various different types of devices from different manufacturers, and all of them have had pairing issues. You take them within a metre of the Vera and pair - can outright fail. Try again, ends up in an eternal loop of doing “security pairing” - doesn’t matter what kind of device it is, when they part goes screwy it has caused every single switch to start flashing alarm state. Try again and it ends up as a non-secure inclusion. Try again and it partially pairs - Try again and it might sit there for a long, long time, and then bang suddenly it’s there. Sometimes it’ll take ages doing the config and work, sometimes it’ll instantly do the config, sometimes it says it didn’t even work but then the device appears anyway. Although one device I never got out of this eternal loop - an Aeon wall plug, gave up in the end and did a non-secure inclusion.
For the most part it simply works, straight away. But that same device can then be unpaired, repaired, unpaired, repaired and the above will then happen… sometimes it happens the first time. Personally I fear pairing devices as each and every time I worry if I’m going to be put through the above.
Maybe it’s Vera, maybe it’s the fact that any Z-Wave devices works with any Z-Wave device is the biggest lie I’ve ever heard, whatever the case the pairing can and does go to sh#t and in a rare few occasions it somehow causes everything to go into alarm state.
Only if the Z-Wave slogan is changed to “Maybe stuff works, maybe stuff don’t” can all the manufacturers rightly step back and point the blame at one another - until then you’re all at fault for everything in my opinion
Tillsy, I really appreciate your contribution to the community as you’re doing an amazing job. One thing I gotta kindly ask. Please keep the theme of the topic.
Vera DOES NOT and CANNOT trigger the built-in siren in a smoke sensor, based on a faux smoke alert and neither can cancel it. This is how Smoke sensors work.
I really appreciate your understanding. Thank you.
