When a device button such as the on-off control for a z-wave binary light is activated the Vera shows the busy mouse icon for a few seconds. What event actually causes the icon to return to normal? I maintain the RFXtrx plugin and actuating some devices it controls caused that busy icon to be on too long. I think the plugin may not be responding in the correct way.
Hello @tinman
Thank you for contacting eZLO Smarter Home Control’s support.
Can you share with us more details and screenshots, please?
We will be attentive to your response.
Regards,
Jonathan Botero.
Customer Care Tier 1 Support.
My question is only about how the Vera Plus web page (UI7) operates. It’s not an issue about any problem with the way it’s working now - and has always worked. I’m only asking about the difference I see in the UI when I compare its response to activating a z-wave device (controlled completely by the Vera Plus firmware) and its response when a 433.92 mhz device is activated through my plugin controlling an RFXtrx transceiver. When a zwave device is activated the UI is busy for less than 2 seconds. When my plugin activates a device the UI is busy for more than 7 seconds.
I’d like to understand why this is. I know my plugin responds very quickly (within 1 second) and updates the UI displayed for the device activated. I’m curious about why the UI remains busy for so long after that. I think the answer to my question requires a complete understanding of how the Vera Plus firmware and UI7 function.
Hello @tinman
The response of the UI is different because the controller has to execute minor processes when not used with the RFXtrx transceiver. The integrated Z-Wave chip receives and sends commands directly to Z-Wave devices, and since the RFXtrx transceiver requires the use of a 3rd party plugin to be able to communicate with it, which needs to create a bridge the following way: Controller > Plugin > Transceiver > Device, is expected a delay since there are more commands being executed at the background. The communication with the RFXtrx transceiver is also limited by the serial USB bus speeds. That being said, a delay is expected and it’s a normal behavior.
We will be attentive to your comments.
I guess I thought that foe zwave communication, since it’s command/response, that when the response is received the UI would no longer be busy. But I’d expect that to not take even a second and the UI shows busy a bit longer than that. In the case of my plugin, 433mhz devices don’t usually send a response to a command. However, the transceiver does send an acknowledgement (ACK) which the plugin expects. At that point it would make sense for me to send some kind of event to the Vera Plus indicating the command succeeded.
Are you telling me that the firmware expects a delay and so the long delay is part of the firmware and is consistent regardless of any action from the plugin?
Hello @tinman,
No, the response of the UI is different because the integrated Z-Wave chip is directly communicated, it receives the commands and requests directly, the external plugin and interface need to run more processes between the engine - plugin and send the signal through the USB 2.0 interface and data bus, so is normal lag.
We will be attentive to your comments.
Well it doesn’t take 7 seconds for the plugin to act on the command and update the UI for the device. That takes about one second according to what I see in the log and what is visible in the UI. So I don’t understand why the UI is busy for that long.
The reason I’m asking about this is that I’m working on improving the operation of Venetian blinds. The usual remote had buttons for up, down and stop. It’s important that the stop button respond quickly while the blind is in motion. But that’s no possible with that more than 7 second delay after activating an up or down command. If there’s nothing a plugin can do to shortcut this delay then this looks like an inherent shortcoming of the Vera Plus firmware.