I am in the process of setting up my home automation using the Veralite. So far I have installed Z-Wave Outlets, dimmable light switches, GE Advanced remotes and two Kwikset deadbolts. I have a total of 8 outlets, Intermatic HA01C, (7) GE/Jasco, (1 not sure of the model right now), 3 Intermatic CA600 dimmable light switches, 2 GE 45601 Deluxe remote controls and 2 Kwikset SmartCode Z Wave deadbolts.
So now that I have installed quite a few Z Wave devices I decided to start over. I excluded all the devices I had paired with the Vera, (2 outlets and a deadbolt) and last night I started adding them all to the network. I did this by taking the Vera around the house and including the various outlets and wall switches. The only things that I had trouble with were the dead bolts, which I solved by taking the back of the lock off the door and up to my office and pairing each one with the Vera, while it was connected to the computer so I could watch its progress.
Now for the issue I?m seeing. The performance of the locks once I put them back on the doors is lousy, if I tell Vera to poll the lock it usually fails and forget about telling it to configure the node. So I did some reading on the forum and determined that I need Z Wave devices that are capable of beaming to work with the encryption technology of the locks. So this brings me to several questions:
Do the Z Wave devices just need to have beaming capabilities for the initial pairing or do you have to have beam capable devices between Vera and the lock for the lock to work properly? Can Vera pass signals to the locks over non beaming devices so long as the lock has already been paired with Vera?
If I have to have beaming capable devices from the lock all the way back to Vera what is their range? If I have a lock on the garage door and Vera is upstairs on the other side of the house do I need x number of beam capable devices between the lock and Vera, like one every x feet etc?
How do I tell what if any devices I have are Beam capable? I read in the forum about checking the device firmware and that if the firmware is xxx.xx or above then one can assume they are capable of beaming. Is this correct?
I noticed under the settings for each device there is a section entitled capabilities with a bunch of numbers separated by commas. Is there a guide, document etc that defines lists these codes and what capability each represents? I?m guessing one of them would indicate if the device has beaming functionality.
Other than adding beaming devices is there anything I can do to improve the functionality of the locks, like a plug in signal repeater etc?
I am not an expert. But I have been using Zwave for a few months now so I’ll explain it the way I understand it.
The “Beaming” feature is simply the ability for a node to receive or repeat and encrypted zwave packet.
If a Node does not support Beaming it will not hear or rebroadcast Encrypted packets.
The Zwave locks all use Beaming. (for obvious reasons)
The average range of any one zwave device is around 30’. (can be up to 120’ line-of-sight)
Each packet can only be repeated up to 4 times. That’s 3 hops.
The default Zwave protocol does not support Routing. The Vera does if you use “Vera Routing”
Routing in wireless is where you tell only certain nodes to repeat a packet.
The Vera knows what nodes can “see” each other and which are closest.
That way, with routing, it can pick the optimal path.
Once you have all your devices in place be sure to run a Repair on the zwave network.
It is a long process but helps a lot. Let it run overnight.
I’m sure I will be corrected if i have anything wrong
I may be repeating most of what cowboy said but thought I’d answer if it helps.
1. Do the Z Wave devices just need to have beaming capabilities for the initial pairing or do you have to have beam capable devices between Vera and the lock for the lock to work properly? Can Vera pass signals to the locks over non beaming devices so long as the lock has already been paired with Vera?
If I have to have beaming capable devices from the lock all the way back to Vera what is their range? If I have a lock on the garage door and Vera is upstairs on the other side of the house do I need x number of beam capable devices between the lock and Vera, like one every x feet etc?
How do I tell what if any devices I have are Beam capable? I read in the forum about checking the device firmware and that if the firmware is xxx.xx or above then one can assume they are capable of beaming. Is this correct?
I noticed under the settings for each device there is a section entitled capabilities with a bunch of numbers separated by commas. Is there a guide, document etc that defines lists these codes and what capability each represents? I?m guessing one of them would indicate if the device has beaming functionality.
Other than adding beaming devices is there anything I can do to improve the functionality of the locks, like a plug in signal repeater etc?
You need a continuous route via beam capable devices between vera and the lock. If you don’t have a path using beaming capable devices, no luck.
Cowboy answered this. Range is the same as other zwave devices in my experience.
Best bet is to look up the individual devices online. The manufacturer will most likely list beaming as a feature. I don’t know the firmware versions.
Don’t know. Valuable information to have. It would be a good thing to have in the wiki.
You can get a plug in outlet device that supports beaming. By definition every zwave device is a signal repeater and you will get a new lamp to turn on/off.
I agree with Cowboy regarding a heal. Actually I think this is required after adding locks. I don’t know if it is a bug but when I heal the entire network it reports the signal and nothing (no stars). So I heal devices individually starting with the closest device to vera. This way shows the signal strength. Where it says wait 60 minutes for battery devices, just put that to 0, and uncheck reconfigure all devices. If there are any weak signal after you get done, redo the device with the weak signal. It normally brings that back to full signal. Like I said the display may just be a bug but it seems to work well.
As I understand it beaming is a technique where a very small portion of hardware of a battery operated devices runs continually and listens for a “Beam” from another device. It does this either every second or every 1/4 second. If it detects a beam it wakes up the rest of (ie the majority of) the hardware completely and starts responding to the beam. It allows battery operated devices to run for along time (ie on a battery) but still respond if requested in a certain time frame.
Some devices can send the beam and some devices can receive the beam by checking for it periodically and I believe some devices can do both - not sure on the later. Older devices may do none of this. As the Z-Wave stuff is proprietary it’s hard to be definitive. Thus site has info on a lot of devices: http://www.pepper1.net/zwavedb/ and the capabilities you mentioned can be read about here: http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/ZWave_Command_Classes That web page will not tell you about whether you device can beam or not. However I’m working on extending my plugin that will decode all this stuff and present it in a more understandable format.
Battery-operated Z-Wave devices are typically asleep to extend battery life. This means the controller (i.e. Vera) and thus the user cannot talk to the device on demand. That is not all that useful for locks, where you want to be able to lock/unlock at any time. The beaming technology, as @a-lurker said, still keeps the device asleep most of the time, but does allow for it be woken up on demand, without the battery drain of a device that is permanently awake. (Lever locks can easily go 6 months to a year on a set of batteries (obviously also dependent on usage).)
Encryption is a capability of the end nodes (e.g. Vera and a lock) to communicate sensitive data in a secure fashion. The Z-Wave locks happen to be a good example of a device that uses both the beaming and encryption technologies that were added to Z-Wave (but they are distinct technologies).
The last node before the lock would need to support beaming, so it can wake up the lock. So typical advice is to have a beaming capable device near (i.e. in between Vera and) the lock. Keep in mind that Vera herself supports beaming and may talk to the lock directly, without going through intermediate devices. (Vera probably talks to most devices in your home directly, or through a single intermediate node.)
Newer Z-Wave firmware (5.02/4.52 with serial API version 2.48 or higher) support beaming. Typically the serial API version is listed in the [tt]Version[/tt] string. As @owensct suspected, the beaming capability is also encoded in the capability bytes. Vera appears to already partially decode them and adds letters to the [tt]Capabilities[/tt] string. Look for the letter [tt]B[/tt] in that string. (The codes before the | character are the ‘capabilities’, the codes after it are the ‘command classes’, as referenced by @a-lurker.)
(@owensct, taking a guess at the equipment listed, the GE/Jasco gear likely supports beaming and the Intermatic gear does not.)
There are prior threads on this. I may update this post with some pointers.
Thanks guys great information. I’m bummed about the answer though, but it was what I was afraid of. Drat!! :-[
From what I can gather the devices that are well known to support beaming are the Evolve and GE/Jasco. I have a GE Outlet and a wall switch, (wall switch not installed yet). The outlet is around the corner from the garage door lock, so I am betting it is communicating with the lock, but that the outlet is too far away from the Vera to pass the signal to it, so rarely does the garage door lock show successful communication with the lock, as there are no other beam capable device between the outlet and the Vera to the best of my knowledge. The front door lock seems to communicate better with only intermittent failures, in that case though the lock is almost directly under the lock, (it’s located in the office upstairs).
I have a couple of questions that will hopefully help me in placing the remaining GE switch to best effect for communicating with the lock.
I have read on the forum that there is someplace in the Vera UI where you can see what the signal strength is between the Vera and various devices. Can someone explain to me where to find this at in the VeraLite UI?
As was suggested I plan to do a network heal, but can someone tell me where to find it at, I have gone through the GUI a screen at a time and can’t seem to locate it. Too many stupid pills lately I guess.
I have a GE Advanced remote in the living room right next to the front door. Does anyone know if it is capable of beaming? Right now it is just setup as a Z Wave device, but if I understand what I have read, it can be configured as a secondary controller, which I am assuming that is theory would mean that is should be capable of beaming to Vera.
Also, I will take a look at the plugin. That should be great.
well I installed a second GE/Jasco outlet a few feet from the front door lock and did a heal of the network and also an individual heal of the locks, (front door and garage) and both are showing four stars in the heal report and I was able to poll both locks successfully. I will keep a eye on them and see if they continue to remain in communication with Vera, so far so good.
Other than running a heal is there some place in the Vera UI that I can see the signal strength for individual devices back to the Vera?
Also, I looked under settings for a device and saw two entries that appear to relate to the route used Node Info and AutoRoute.
Can anyone clarify which of these shows the actual route being used? Also, if it is AutoRoute I’m not sure I understand the data in the field. In the case of the garage door lock it has the following 23-112x,0-114x,13.23-124x,15.23-124x. The beam capable outlet near the garage lock is device id 23, so it looks like it is interacting with device 23 but what the 112x, 124x 13.23-124x means I have no idea ???
Any help in decrypting this cryptic code is much appreciated, sometimes it suck when you have the kind of thinking that wants to understand the nuts and bolts of a process, lol
[tt]NodeInfo[/tt] is not related to routing. [tt]AutoRoute[/tt] is.
There can be up to 4 route entries, separated by commas. Each intermediate node is listed, separated by dots. Following the route is a dash, then a ‘score’, then possibly an ‘x’ which indicates the route failed when it was last used.
So in your example there are 4 routes (23 - 112 x , 0 - 114 x , 13.23 - 124 x , 15.23 - 124 x) :
