Newbie - everything was fine all week now no respnose to commands

Community Playground Getting Started & Initial Setup
1

well, i got my veralite 2 this week and set everything up. i added a kwikset lock and a light switch. i added everything got it setup and have been using it perfectly all week.

now today, things were working fine in the morning. come this afternoon and now neither the lock or the light switch will respond to commands. doesn’t matter if i’m logged in locally via ip or trying to use the app on my phone. my vera is discovered and everything seems fine. i unplugged the vera and plugged it back in. at this point i’m not sure what to try or do as the vera still has my devices listed and shows them in the dashboard.

any idea what the problem could be or what to try?

edit - ok the light is actually working somewhat ok but it is slower to respond than in the past it seems. still absolutely nothing with the deadbolt kwikset lock

2

This sounds like a communication problem.

Try moving the Vera closer to the devices and see if it works better. If it does work better, that tell you that it is a signal quality issue. If the new closer location is inconvenient, then you might need to add another Z-Wave node in between Vera and the distant nodes to improve signal coverage.

3

yeah i don’t see how it could be a distance issue. the front door is less than 20 feet from the veralite. that being said, i just subtracted and re-added the lock to the vera and it seems to be ok now.

one thing i did notice since i had never used the vera setup locally on the pc to send commands is that i am getting message that the lock is not fully deployed when locking - even though it is locking just fine it seems. not sure what to do to fix that…

4

Could you please be more specific?

5

yeah, same thing today. man this is frustrating. the stupid lock will work just fine for like a day then refuse to respond to any zwave commands. if i go and delete all settings in the device and re-add it to the zwave network i’m sure it will be just fine again and then stop in like a day.

this device is less than 20 feet from the verde 2. my lights still work fine but this stupid lock continues to work for awhile then completely stop accepting commands.

i get the error - cannot send command to node. any ideas as to why i get this when it worked fine a few hours ago.

6

Is the vera in direct view of the lock or is there a wall between. I bet it’s a distance issue. 99 percent of communication issues especially with battery powered devices lead to distance issues and can be solved by adding additional devices.

  • Garrett
7

Sounds like something I experienced a couple of months ago, I have Vera 3’s.

My Schlage door lock battery hit 33% battery available and seemed to kinda stall my entire system. I replaced the batteries with “REAL GOOD” alkaline batteries and I did a full “Heal” overnight and it corrected the situation.

Also, I experienced a similar problem, not a door lock battery issue, and I did a restore from a “Good” backup. 10 minutes later everything worked perfect.

Hope this may help.

MWP

8

[quote=“garrettwp, post:6, topic:175594”]Is the vera in direct view of the lock or is there a wall between. I bet it’s a distance issue. 99 percent of communication issues especially with battery powered devices lead to distance issues and can be solved by adding additional devices.

  • Garrett[/quote]

i’ve searched and searched the forum and read so many of your posts helping people that i tried some things you said in other posts with changing a few settings we’ll see if it helps.

that being said, i would be surprised if it is a distance issue. i have a split level house and the verda is in the laundry room less than 20 feet from the front door lock. the laundry room door is never closed if there is a distance issue then i have no idea how anyone’s system works. also, the one light switch i have is less than 6 feet from the verde as well.

i’m not sure if the lock is just going to sleep and not waking up with the vera tries to communicate or what the problem is. i pulled the batteries in the lock last night and put them back in and it worked again so we’ll see if it continues. the batteries are brand new energizer with 80% left since i started.

basically, i’m just looking for tips or what i can try to stabilize this so i don’t have to worry about it not working daily. having used it for about a week now i love it, but i’m trying to learn and read as much as possible to figure out why this isn’t working sometimes.