Leviton Lamp RZP03-1LW module doesn't work with the WDHA-12R Wireless Gateway

Community Playground General Discussions
1

This mystery story started four days ago with a very bad accident in our home. My mother-in-law fainted and fell in the bathroom, to make things worse she fell right into the Jacuzzi bathtub and couldn’t pull herself out (challenging task at age of 88). She tried to call us, but we couldn’t hear her while sleeping in our bedroom on the second floor. Finally we found her in the morning, but she spent 9 hours in the bathtub without any help. We immediately called 911 and they helped us to pull her out and bring to the hospital. She is OK now, no fractures, just bruises. We were lucky this time, but we needed to take a swift action and provide her with the panic button that would activate local alarm and call us and/or 911 when we are not at home.

Luckily, I already had all hardware available (I bought it for my Garage project ) - WDHA-12R Wireless Gateway and Wayne Dalton 3BTM-0372C 3-button remote. Only alarm part was missing and I ordered Fortrezz SSA- Siren/Strobe Alarm Module.

Unfortunately, there is no Z-wave dialer available out there, so we ordered one of the automatic dialers available on the market:

http://www.amazon.com/Avair-AMA-100-Emergency-Wireless-Transmitter/dp/B002AS9WAO

I still needed to set something temporarily for the next few days, so I decided to use a bright lamp in our bedroom controlled by the RZP03-1LW. At first everything went smoothly, I added WDHA-12R as a second controller, paired controller with the panic pendant, created a test scene using 2-way dimmable light switch in the foyer and added event to the scene (fired on pressing panic button assigned to the first scene on the controller.

Things changed when I added new RZP03-1LW. The event didn’t fire! I was able to turn my alarm lamp through the Vera interface and/or executing scene from the dashboard, but not from the pendant.

I changed command in the event to turn foyer lights again, it worked. Then tested with outside Christmas lights, it worked again! Ok, I changed command back to the alarm lamp module, nothing…

After a couple of hours of tweaking I finally gave up and just pulled outside lamp module from the patio and connected it to the alarm lamp. It worked, and so far was never activated by my mother-in-law.

Why this particular RZP03-1LW module didn’t work with the events fired by the secondary controller still remains a mystery.

2

IHMO, I wouldn’t use Z-Wave/Vera for use cases where a failure - in the worst case - can cause any harm to people (or property) - there are just too many SPOF.

3

You definitely made the point but I don’t think that many advertised medical emergency services are more reliable. Almost all of them use dialers connected to the landline. But landline can be busy, phone bell can be off the hook etc.

More advanced system can be connected to your router and interact with some sort of the control center, but reliability would be also in question. Needless to say, none of the advertised emergency services will provide you with the failure rate and/or false alarms statistics.

In my case two systems will be deployed:

  1. Vera controlled emergency siren. This system will be primarily used when we are at home. Emergency scene will activate siren, open Schlage locks across the house and send Emails.

  2. Automated dialer that can be programmed to dial up to 9 numbers and play prerecorded message. Prerecorded message will provide name, address and emergency lock code to enter into the house.

We also have a small wireless PBX with cordless phones in every room.

Also, despite her age my mother-in-law is computer savvy, she can send Email or communicate with friends using Skype.

All together won’t make a perfect emergency system but who does?