Is Ezlo Plus Ready for Prime Time?

Community Playground General Discussions
#295

Hmm, I cannot fully echo this report.

Currently I have 16 Z-Wave devices, 1 Wifi device, 4 Zigbee devices, 11 Hue bulbs through the Hue plugin and 1 MQTT client connected. On this mix of devices run 25 Meshbots.

Devices stay connected and adding devices is still pretty straightforward, even though I have 2 Z-Wave networks running in my house (the old Vera is still there with 17 devices connected).

The system runs for roughly 1~2 weeks before meshbots fail to run and a reboot is needed. I’ve had to deal with support several times after my hub got really stuck, and both times response was surprisingly quick and effective.

No, the system is not perfect. The Vera App is pain to use on iOS. My Vista doorbell with instavue is usually way to slow to show who’s ringing at the door. I don’t use voice control, and reading the feedback from others on VOI I’m happy to stay away from that for now. Plugins are still in their infancy phase, the marketplace is not yet populated by a flourishing community. Meshbots don’t fully support my use cases.

To me, it’s a hobby and I make sure that most things in my house have local control so my house doesn’t fail me if the domotica system goes down.

So, it’s getting there and I’ve seen gradual improvement over the years.

At the same time, I do sometimes wonder if the foundational architecture on which the ezlo ecosystem is built is resilient enough to support a domotica system (look at HMI components, the recent long term issue with the marketplace, the fact that reboots are needed, duplication of devices I’ve seen). The lack of community engagement on the forum is troubling, how many users are driving this system? Is this financially sound for a long term business model? The broad development direction (EzloPi, Softhub, EZVidoo), seemingly without anyone on this board using these products, is confusing and doesn’t show user-centric development.

On the other hands, the components for a really all-encompassing domotica solution are all there in some form. I’ve integrated one of my A/C’s into the Ezlo hub with an ESP8266 module and MQTT. The flexibility to tinker and expand is in there…

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#296

Great observation!
And yes, we still have some work to do, and everyone is on it. Progress is being made every week and will continue until our users are happy!

#297

Hi @Dan-n-Randy ,

You are right and we apologize for all the problems you have experienced. For a long time the issues reported were most of the time one-off cases with specific device/hub/cloud problems and were fixed with manual intervention. But recent feedback was focused on some problematic areas that we definitely should improve. So for the upcoming months, we will increase our percentage on bugfixing and stability work on our end. And now trying to gather all the pain points and requests from you.
You and most of the people sharing feedback on this forum are really our power users and we would like to improve the platform under their supervision and guidance for sure.
So you can be sure there will be a huge amount of increase on our efforts to pay more attention to customer pain points and feature requests.
For your specific case, I have reviewed all of your 64 tickets to this date. and tried to consolidate some areas we can work on:

PROBLEMS

  • Controller unresponsive, need reboot (very often)
  • Controller/local-cloud connection problem (often)
  • Smart Start inclusion process errors with some devices
  • Orphaned devices remain (need force delete)
  • Zwave node ids remain , after devices deleted
  • Meshbot page validation errors even when nothing is changed.

Feature Requests

  • Ability to replace a device with other so that all meshbots will be changed as well
  • Ability show broken meshbots because of device removal. (and ability to fix those by replacing other devices)
  • Ability to see which meshbots use that device
  • More documentation on how to use capabilities of devices
  • Meshbot execution result is not properly communicated back (on errors, identifying real problem)
  • Copy version and controller info from the tech support page for tickets

Feel free to add anything you want on top of those.
And from the customer care system I believe you are setting up the system again. I would be tracking the steps and gather all feedback while doing that. Feel free to reach me anytime meanwhile as well.

#298

So as i move more deivces over to Hubitat, its obvious that Ezlo is a better system if its base fucntions would work like Alexa integration and reliable scenes…

The hubitat scene creation seems to be quite rough and unrefined. It has not been fun to learn.
It is also not easy to edit existing.

So im caught between a system that can work instantly with Alexa and execute execute scenes reliably and a system that doesnt work with alexa, locks up frequently, and scenes that miss devices or dont run at all but has great scene management.

Ezlo, you guys need to regroup on core functionality. Why do we keep seeing updates to EzloLogic while Alexa integration does not work?!
I think that is what is most maddening to me, that you’re not focusing on fixing what is broke. Your devs are woking on new features for some reason!

Get EVERYONE one fixing Alexa and scene reliablity please!

2 Likes
#299

EzloLogic is pointless if scenes cant be relied upon, right?

#300

Hi @meathead88 ,

We are exactly doing it right now. Alexa integrations are done by cloud devs so that team is focused on those right now. UI team is meanwhile continuing their roadmap. But in any case of need on UI for Alexa and Google Home integrations, they will take those tasks as priority. Please be sure about that.
Also another team on controllers firmware is working right now on scene execution reliability. Its their highest priority. We will take our upfront development cycles to work mainly on stability issues for sure.

2 Likes
EzloPlus First impression
#301

Ok, but I’ve had real, multiple, support tickets in for Alexa starting in July 2022 and i’ve seen no movement.

#302

Hi, my EzloController suffers this so usually my HVAC continue to heat with no stop all the night long because connection is lost with the switch.

#303

You should NOT use a HA device to control HVAC system. Instead have a local thermostat control the HVAC and then you can connect in to the thermostat via WiFi and the manufacturer’s app or a plugin if your gateway vendor makes one. Bad idea to control directly.

1 Like
#304

With all due respect, maybe" all-encompassing" is not what EZLO should be shooting for at this point. I agree that should be the overall goal, but the basics must first be there.

I will be entirely fair about this, I have not tried to use my EZLO in production in probably six months, and at that point, lots of the basic functionality was sketchy. I poke in from time to time to see how it’s going, and I plan to upgrade to the latest firmware and try again. I personally don’t need Meshbots or any of that for my use case because I use another logic platform. All I need is a stable hub with broad, reliable device integration that can be easily administrated from a browser.

Dashboards, Meshbots, and so on could all be icing on the cake, but the cake has to be baked first.

(and yes, I am still irritated that the latest legacy Vera beta was dropped on it’s head with items still broken)

#305

Hi @TKMike ,

Can you let us know what type of devices you want to control and what features do you want on the logic platform ? How can we make sure we support all functionality you expect ? Can you give more information ?

#306

For my part, I currently have two devices that (as of the last time I checked) are core to my home automation, apparently irreplaceable (as in, I can’t find another device that performs the same functionality), and not yet supported by ezlo. Both have had tickets open for over a year:

  • The GoControl/Linear Isolated contact Fixture module, FS20Z-1 (ECS-800, opened October 7th, 2021).
    • This one I could probably find an alternative for - I just need to be able to close a switch (dry contact).
  • WayneDalton WDHA-12R (ECS-797, opened October 6th, 2021, and also apparently ECS-40, opened September 4th, 2018)
    • @melih personally told me support would be added for this device:

…but if that happened, I missed the announcement, and my ticket was never updated with the result. So, at the moment, that device remains on my old (but still fully functional thanks to the local web interface) Vera Lite running UI5.

#307

This thread has me a bit very bothered, wondering if I made a mistake starting a move away from Vera. Is there a place we can see all open bugs? Would like to be aware of any issue BEFORE moving from my existing systems.

#308

https://jira.mios.com/servicedesk/customer/user/requests?status=open&reporter=all

You can reach it from the above menu

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#309

Hello!

In order to start getting information useful for our devs to start working on issues reported by you guys, we’ll need to start setting up the proper environment on your controllers and do a couple of tests.

Important issues regarding the unreliable inclusion/exclusion of devices have been mentioned.

Adding devices usually requires several attempts and seems very tricky. It is also still not possible to add devices via the web frontend.

On occasion, inclusion does not work (I move ezlo right next to device, doesn’t matter)

@Odyssey we have set your controller’s logs levels to TRACE mode in order to track as much information as possible.

@meathead88 we still have no access to your unit to take a look closely. In order to do so, could you please share your unit’s serial number via PM and let me know if you authorize us to create a support username under your account for testing purposes?

The test approach would be:

  • Provide us with all devices brands and models that you have noticed have any kind of problem during the inclusion. This can guarantee us a precise approach to focus on that device specifically since the device models listed from the API rely on how the controller identifies and configures them.

  • An inclusion test for each of these devices will be necessary. Ideally, a couple of attempts for each device should be enough to gather as much information as possible. During the test, we’d need to know the exact date and hour of the inclusion trigger.

As soon as we have confirmation from @meathead88 and his controller’s logs are in TRACE mode, we’ll notify you guys to start with the test.

Looking forward to hearing from you guys soon, and hopefully getting these issues solved as soon as possible.

1 Like
#310

Regarding issues that have been reported with Smart Start:

If possible, we’d also like to extract logs from controllers, specifically from @JimMac, @meathead88, and @ryantatum20, since you guys mentioned this issue has been experienced often.

Smart start doesn’t work, skips to the end most times after scanning QR code then if you are able to add it correctly, it never really deletes.

Smart Start does not work

Smart Start still does not work/include devices

We have already set the log levels to TRACE for @ryantatum20’s controller, and looking forward to getting @meathead88’s serial number and support username setup.

@JimMac we’ve been working in the past with your controllers. Since you’ve moved your setup a few times, could you please confirm the serial number to be used via PM? As soon as we have the confirmation, we’ll set the log levels to TRACE for yours as well.

The approach is not too different from the inclusion test that has been described above:

  • Provide us with all brands and models of Smart Start devices that you guys have experienced issues with.

  • Provide us with the exact date and hour of the Smart Start inclusion.

To take into consideration before adding any Smart Start device:

  • Make sure that all devices that were previously installed with the Smart Start feature are removed from the Smart Start list before trying another inclusion. Devices that are not deleted from this list will remain pending for configuration and will block any new inclusion attempts. This can be checked from the Mobile App by going to Settings > Smart Start Devices.

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Thank you!

1 Like
#311

PM’d my serial

1 Like
#312

Thank you @meathead88!

We’ve enabled logs in TRACE mode for your controller. Now that @Odysee’s controller has logs enabled as well, we’ll be looking forward to getting this information soon.

The test approach would be:

Provide us with all devices brands and models that you have noticed have any kind of problem during the inclusion. This can guarantee us a precise approach to focus on that device specifically since the device models listed from the API rely on how the controller identifies and configures them.

An inclusion test for each of these devices will be necessary. Ideally, a couple of attempts for each device should be enough to gather as much information as possible. During the test, we’d need to know the exact date and hour of the inclusion trigger.

Thank you!

#313

I’ve just (26/01/2023 10:08 pm German time) tried some excluding/including with Aeotec Door/Window Sensor 7 ZWA008-C FW 1.01.

First I’ve successfully excluded the device. The next two attempts to re-include the device lead to an unknown device which I was able to exclude again. The next including attempts lead to the choice of an secured/unsecured inclusion menu. I’ve chosen the secured mode and then got back to the devices menu where no new device was shown. An excludision was not successfull at this point, so I’ve resetted the device and tried again but again it endet with no device created after the secured/unsecured dialog.

#314

Smart started a Zen14 and its no where to be found.