Hey everyone, finally got my Veralite in the mail today and love it so far. Compared to the ISY994 it definitely is more user friendly. I’m using the native Insteon plugin and added 2 dimmers a wall switch, and then 2 z wave wall switches. I’m using the Vera android app and also Imperihome.
If I turn a light on or off in the app, both Insteon and Z Wave responds right away, with Insteon being a touch slower sometimes. However if I then say turn a light off using the switch, I notice the apps don’t do anything and still say “On”. I try to refresh or reload but its the same thing. Sometimes it’s a couple minutes before the status finally updates. I’m coming from Insteon where every app I used for it that I can remember would update instantly.
Saw in another tread that z wave doesn’t update instantly which is fine if true, just wanted to make sure it’s not just me, and see if there’s a way to find how often it updates. Thanks!
[quote=“416to305, post:1, topic:183567”]Hey everyone, finally got my Veralite in the mail today and love it so far. Compared to the ISY994 it definitely is more user friendly. I’m using the native Insteon plugin and added 2 dimmers a wall switch, and then 2 z wave wall switches. I’m using the Vera android app and also Imperihome.
If I turn a light on or off in the app, both Insteon and Z Wave responds right away, with Insteon being a touch slower sometimes. However if I then say turn a light off using the switch, I notice the apps don’t do anything and still say “On”. I try to refresh or reload but its the same thing. Sometimes it’s a couple minutes before the status finally updates. I’m coming from Insteon where every app I used for it that I can remember would update instantly.
Saw in another tread that z wave doesn’t update instantly which is fine if true, just wanted to make sure it’s not just me, and see if there’s a way to find how often it updates. Thanks![/quote]
Z-wave It works by Polling. The more expensive switches have “Instant status”. If your switch supports “Instant status” You’ll see the update fast. If not VERA sends a command to each device going around in circle polling each device to check their current status. In each device you can set the min. time to poll a device. On battery devices you don’t want it to poll to offten as it will drain batteries. Other devices might be factory set to poll no more then every minute. but if you have several devices that “NO MORE THEN A MIN.” can be more like 2-5 min. More devices long it takes to go around the circle.
Thanks that’s what I figured. If I only have say 6 or 7 Z-Wave devices all wired, are there any recommendations on poll time? It’s 60 seconds in the settings right now, which isn’t a huge deal but would changing it to 10 or 30 cause problems?
60 sec is normally defualt for non battery devices.
To answer your question Right now changing the settings shouldn’t hurt anything. Will it help… Also probley not. I have and would recommend to not mess with them, but feel free to try it out if you want. At this point you might get polling a little faster with only a few devices. Later on you’ll never get each device polled every 10 sec anyways. You can always change back.
You shouldn’t see much of a delay. and when your away on mobile networks you will get more of a delay due to 3g network and such then anything. But not talking minutes.
Do you have 3-way lights? Some times like with GE dimming 3-way the slave switches have issues updating the VERA if the slave or non master switch is used to dim the lights. Other lights shouldn’t have much of a delay.
Reducing the poll interval can destabilize Vera. Do not change default values drastically,
Also the poll interval is a min time with a single device, if you have many devices the actual poll time will be much larger.
If you really want quick feedback you should replace the appropriate devices with those that support instant status. This feature adds cost to the Zwave device, but is required for certain automation tasks.
Nothing in the specs say anything about update time so not sure what to look for. Are prices drastically different though, as Insteon is $49 or so for a dimmer switch with instant updates, so wouldn’t really want to spend more than that just for Z Wave. I’m also not really sure how important it is as right now they are mostly just being used so that I can turn them off from my phone if I go to bed and forget or things like that. One of them at the front door though turns on when the door opens (did that using my Insteon hidden door sensor which shows up as a motion sensor just backwards. When motion “Stops” the light goes on, and when motion “Starts” as in the door is closed, it waits 15 minutes and turns the light off). When I open the door it seems instant, although after changing the scene settings there was a 3-4 second delay, but after that it was instant to the point you don’t even realize the light turned on and wasn’t already on.
I won’t change it for now since it’s not a huge deal now that I know it can take up to a minute to update. Are the Schlage and Yale door locks the same? In that someone could unlock the door, but if I have an android tablet in the bedroom on the wall, it might not show front door as unlocked for a whole minute after it actually is? (As in someone entering the house that knows the code could potentially be standing beside me by the time I know the door is unlocked?) Thanks!
Nothing in the specs say anything about update time so not sure what to look for. Are prices drastically different though, as Insteon is $49 or so for a dimmer switch with instant updates, so wouldn’t really want to spend more than that just for Z Wave. I’m also not really sure how important it is as right now they are mostly just being used so that I can turn them off from my phone if I go to bed and forget or things like that. One of them at the front door though turns on when the door opens (did that using my Insteon hidden door sensor which shows up as a motion sensor just backwards. When motion “Stops” the light goes on, and when motion “Starts” as in the door is closed, it waits 15 minutes and turns the light off). When I open the door it seems instant, although after changing the scene settings there was a 3-4 second delay, but after that it was instant to the point you don’t even realize the light turned on and wasn’t already on.
I won’t change it for now since it’s not a huge deal now that I know it can take up to a minute to update. Are the Schlage and Yale door locks the same? In that someone could unlock the door, but if I have an android tablet in the bedroom on the wall, it might not show front door as unlocked for a whole minute after it actually is? (As in someone entering the house that knows the code could potentially be standing beside me by the time I know the door is unlocked?) Thanks![/quote]
Those are not instant status. Bottom line is if they don’t cost 60-70 or more they probley don’t have instant status. Update time on a non instant status is not related to a switch so the switch will not tell you. It’s all on the polling time it takes to go around to all your devices. Polling is defaulted to no sooner then 1 min each. If you have several devices it will take longer then that. If the device you just changed happens to be next on the polling list it can update almost instantly if you device was just polled then you change it it could take a few min. to come back around the circle to that device again. It’s all based on timing and amount of devices.
Thanks all, I definitely knew this one didn’t support instant status based on the low price of it so that’s fine. What about Insteon though if I’m using my Insteon devices using the native Vera Insteon control? Not really a huge deal more just curious thanks!
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