[quote=“tt55du, post:1, topic:166803”]Weird problem here, been using free SQ until my puck arrived, very impressed even though I was only able to control one type of device, being lights.
Installed the Puck, all features unlocked, setting up puck now. btw, it works great but the UI config is very tedious but extremely customizable
So I setup other devices like fans and awnings, still works great until I get to scenes
I can set up scenes just fine, but when I activate a scene nothing happens, even more weird, SQ disconnects from vera for about 15 - 30 seconds
Tried making new test scenes with no luck.
anyone see this?
btw, running UI2 996[/quote]
If you put in a ticket to SQ support system: squareconnect.com. We will take a look at this.
I have never heard of this issue, and we have been testing this stuff with Scenes for quite a while. Would love to find out what is happening.
I know we had a lot of issues with 996. I do not know of any issues downgrading will cause. Or what people feel about the UI4 firmware versions… I can tell you that the deeper SQ Blaster/Vera integration is going to be on the UI4 versions and I doubt it will be retro fitted. So if you are going to be looking at being able to integrate SQ Blaster devices from Vera Scenes, then biting the bullet at some point will probably be needed.
dropped to 995, still nervous with UI4 in beta and my vera1 which I will cling on to for as long as possible.
995 seems to work well with both the puck and vera. Only issue is when the ipod touch comes back from being a sleep it takes a little tinkering to get it to work again. It’s usually a combination of
closing and starting SQ app out of memory
rebooting the whole ipod touch
resetting the puck
I got a few things I want to try before opening a ticket.
Alright, I think I figured it out. At first I thought it was the Bluetooth, but it was addressed with SQ 2.1 and having it off made no difference. Then I realized that the DHCP leases were really short and perhaps when the ipod and/or puck comes back from any power save mode it loses it ip address lease and a new random one and then has to resolve a new addresse for the puck and vera.
I just had the dhcp assign a static address to the puck and ipod based on their mac address
this is pretty easy using the web UI for wrt under network advanced settings unless you have UI4, which I hear has this disabled. Very annoying and one more reason fro me to stick to UI2.
you could always modify the /etc/ethers file though
then i set the puck settings to the static ip address in the SQ app so it did not have to resolve by name.
Anyway, did it last night and when I got up this morning to try it out it seemed to work just fine. I’ll report back if this doesn’t fix it
So far the static IP addresses has worked well, but a new weird problem has arisen, it has happened twice now when I check the remote in the morning. I’ll continue to monitor each morning.
The Puck Config I have has it sitting in a closet with:
an IR signal splitter
an IR blaster
and a 3 head IR emitter
I wired the IR blaster through the closet wall to be in line of sight of my TV while the 3 head emitter controls my components within the closet.
So when I try the remote in the morning I am able to only to turn the TV on, then I get no further signals coming from the IR blaster, strangely, the 3 head emitter still works fine. I would suspect the ir blaster was bad, but upon reboot of the puck everything is peachy again. I’ve reset the cables and switched the connections on the splitter with no luck. I’m stumped to what would be causing this, aren’t the wires just passive conduits? Is the Puck somehow able to distinguish what signals it pushes through each wire (I would think the same signal goes out each and every time out of all emitters? Why is rebooting the puck sending a signal to both wires again? I’ll continue to monitor.
You are right… there should be no difference here…Front and external are on the same line essentially.
When you try this first thing - can you observe the IR blaster LEDs using the viewfinder of a digital camera.? You will be able to see if it is blasting.
Weird - having a similar problem here. I have a 5-way splitter plugged into my blaster. Two of the ports have 2-head emitters plugged in. One of them works fine all the time. The other seems to stop working after a while - failed the same “morning” test every day this week. I’ve tried swapping ports, and the same 2-head emitter drops out after awhile, so it’s not the splitter. The 2-head emitter was working fine when plugged into my harmony extender. Haven’t tried pressing the buttons on the bottom, but the way i get it working again is unplugging and plugging in the emitter. I have a different emitter plugged in now and we’ll see what it does in the morning. BTW, the other 3 ports on the 5-way splitter have single-head emitters and they work fine.
Just out of curiosity, tt55du, is your splitter stereo or mono - you should be able to tell by the number of bands on the plug. Mine is stereo, so I’m wondering if that has anything to do with it, although it shouldn’t.
Good point John… totally didn’t think about pulling out the digital camera to see the IR…
ok, wife got home today after a long period of inactivity on the ipod touch and same thing happened, was able to turn on the tv then it stopped working.
After pressing the “B” button all is good again very weird
btw my splitter is a stereo splitter (two lines). It’s the one that SQ sells. all of my cables are from SQ, I didn’t want to take any chances with such a new product.
I’ll try the digital camera in the morning and report back.
I also have another thought, the length on the SQ splitter is quite long and the signal may be degrading (but still in operating tolerances) to a point where it is strong enough for the 3 head emitter channel, but not strong enough for the ir blaster. I have a short splitter in which I’ll try after my predicted “morning” after failure.
So as predicted I got the same problem this morning. TV turned on via the blaster then nothing (the 3 head emitter was still working). Pulled out the digital camera and it showed the blaster WAS emitting to the TV. So my first assumption is there is not enough power, distance should not be an issue since the IR blaster is only 3-4 feet away. I unplugged the splitter and plugged in only the the blaster and it works.
Put everything back together, did a reset and everything is good again. Checked the emitter with the camera and it was slightly brighter. So I’m guessing that the power to the emitter is diminishing over time.
I removed the SQ supplied splitter and tried one of mine that is much shorter and it actually worked worse, but it was a crappy one and way thinner than the SQ one. I have another one I’ll try tonight. Would a mono splitter help?
Did some more testing and I’m finding that with the splitter in place I’m seeing about half the brightness coming from all the emitters. It might explain why some of my TV macros sometimes flake out occasionally
Can I boost the power somehow? I’ll try another splitter too. Maybe try a new USB power source? Maybe a future firmware fix would help. It’s obviously capable of handling two channels in my setup, I just need to know why the signal degrades.
So it looks like I figured out the problem so my question to the SQ team is what should I do next? Should I open up ticket?
This is a very interesting observation. Thanks for going to the trouble of trying this all out and documenting it. We will review the hardware internally to see if there is any reason for this happening, and as you say find a way to prevent this happening via firmware.
Please go ahead and raise a ticket, so that it is "officially documented.
@tt55du, did you try unplugging your emitter from the splitter and plugging it back in to the splitter… rather than hitting the reset button? That was what fixed mine every morning.
I’ve been racking my brain on this one, and any way I think about the stereo splitter, that can’t be the problem. So last night I decided to move the emitter wiring away from any AC power cabling… re-routed just that emitter… this morning it works fine - no reset, no unplugging…
Tonight, I’m going to check again, and if it is still working, I’ll try to reproduce the problem… I’ll wrap the emitter cable around the power cord to the UPS and see if that reproduces… I’m wondering if it’s an induced voltage thing… or it could just be a bad wire in the cable… although when unplugging and plugging the several mornings over the last week, I was very careful not to move the cable, in case the wire was broken anywhere - tried to eliminate that as a variable…
I did and it works, but only if I solely plug in either the blaster or 3 head emitter. The splitter degrades the signal bit, but I think the signal is degrading even further over time to a point that it’s not working. I have a ticket open with SQ and they are diligently working the problem.
I also have all of the cables wrapped as well, may be causing interference
OK guys that is a great hint… I have been running a test here and cannot get it to degrade at all. Are you wrapping around the mains AC or the USB or both?
I will try and reproduce the exact setup you have.
Hey, I’ve been working on the issue with SQ, but I think I’ve been able to consistently fix the problem. Are you ready for this? Try waiting ~5minutes without touching anything. This has worked 3 times in a row for me now. btw, my cables are still tightly bundled, am not rebooting or touching any cables at all. Not sure why yet, but I’ll continue to try and also understand the issue with SQ.