Hello,
I have a question concerning “Wake up” and “Polling” for battery-operated devices.
I can’t find a clear response on this forum (nor on Google).
Are there some advised values ?
Thanks
It’s going to depend on the device function and possibly other factors. You want to keep the device quiet for battery savings, but you may want it to wake up periodically to receive possible configuration changes such as parameter settings or routes from network heals.
A motion sensor may not need to wake up for hours or even perhaps days. it will wake up and send a notification if it is tripped. On the other hand, a door lock with programmable PIN codes might need to wake up more often to receive new PIN configurations. As well as this, the Z-Wave controller software may have some need to at least know of the device’s health periodically. So, depending on the need, a wake up interval of 10 minutes may be desirable or an interval of 24 hours may be chosen.
I’m not sure if Vera’s default wake up intervals are decided by Vera Ltd. or if they are advised by the device manufacturers. However, I don’t see any need to change the defaults, except for very rare or specific circumstances.
I would probably use 30 minutes(1800 seconds) as a starting point for a device like a lock or temperature sensing motion sensor. For a totally passive motion sensor, I’d probably aim at increasing battery life by increasing the interval to an hour or three. Just be aware that this will increase your heal time and the time for configuration changes significantly.
The default value for “Wake up”, for the Fibaro motion sensor is 7200 (I’m not sure that the Vera uses this value).
(I’ve tried 86400… but the healing process was a bit long 
)
I’m not sure that motion wakes up the device, because when I change a setting, I have to wake up it by hand (click on the association button). Waving the hand isn’t enough.
So this value is just for auto re-configuration.
What about “Polling” ? I do not really understand the notion.
For plugged devices, they respond as soon as they’re asked.
In this case “Polling” is done to watch the network’s health.
For battery-operated devices, how makes the Vera to poll exactly when the device is waked ?
And doesn’t have the “Wake up”, in this case, the same effect than the “Polling” ?
So shouldn’t the “Polling” be set to “0” ?
Your motion sensor, when tripped, wakes up, sends a notification to Vera and then goes back to sleep. As you have seen it does not stay awake for anything else.
The wake up interval established awakening is used for configuration changes, polling and so forth.
Polling is used to see if the device is still present on the network and to determine it’s present state(tripped/untripped). For example, it is possible for Vera to miss an untripped notification. Vera would never know if the device was untripped, if it wasn’t for the polling. Once the device is polled, Vera learns that it is untripped.
How Vera synchronizes polling with wake ups will vary, depending on the device. For instance FLiRS and Beaming devices may queue a polling request. While others are entirely dependent on Vera polling the device directly while the device is awake.
The obvious strategy that Vera uses for polling is by keeping track of the device’s last wake up time. Vera can then calculate when next it expects the device to be wake and poll the device at that time. But, notice that Vera’s polling interval is a relative time. The device is polled not more frequently than the interval specified. The polling interval is a maximum frequency, not a minimum period. So, the polling interval is not an absolute time. Vera may skip the present wake up interval and delay polling until the next wake up which could be far longer that the configured polling interval maximum frequency.
Setting polling to 0 means never poll. This is appropriate for some devices, for instance, hand held remotes that Vera never needs to know about. But, as already described, if Vera misses a sensor’s untrip event (perhaps Vera is off or reloading) then Vera will not have an accurate state for that device. In this scenario, polling would be very desirable.
Yep, I zero out the polling on my Minimotes because there is just no reason for Vera to be poling those (not to mention they don’t stay in one place so I don’t need it trying to update neighbors and the like either).
My other Battery devices, I just leave with the default.
Thanks for these explanations.
So, when a device wakes up, it sends a signal to the controller, but not its state ? That’s why a polling is however necessary ?
I will try a “Wake up” of “7200”, but for the “Polling”, should I use blank value (default) or “Wake up” / 2 ?
Another thing
In “Settings → Z-Wave Settings”, there are two values :
- Unless specified otherwise, poll each node at most once every “60” seconds. (I think it’s the “blank” value)
- Poll a node every “30” seconds.
So what’s the default value ? 30 or 60 secondes ? Or does it mean, if you have a lot of Z-Wave devices, they are not polled at the desired frequency but are in a sort of queue of polling ?
[quote=“vosmont, post:6, topic:188099”]So, when a device wakes up, it sends a signal to the controller, but not its state ? That’s why a polling is however necessary ?[/quote]When the device wakes up, I don’t think that it sends a signal to Vera, unless it has something to report. The device simply wakes up and is available to participate in the network, should the need arise. If Vera or another controller take no action, the device will eventually go back to sleep without “uttering a word”. But this rarely happens as Vera usually polls the device when it wakes.
I will try a "Wake up" of "7200", but for the "Polling", should I use blank value (default) or "Wake up" / 2 ?I don't know what device you are talking about, nor do I know your needs. Therefore, I can't advise on what wake up interval to use beyond my previous recommendation to use Vera's default settings. The Polling field that you are referring to is an individual device override value. If you leave it blank, the polling interval will be the global default of not more than every 60 seconds. However, Vera will be aware that the device is not awake at that time and will not poll it until the polling loop is active during the wake up window, as it would be pointless and would cause Vera to pause and wait for a response to polls of a sleeping device.
In "Settings -> Z-Wave Settings", there are two values : - Unless specified otherwise, poll each node at most once every "60" seconds. (I think it's the "blank" value) - Poll a node every "30" seconds.These are the global settings that I referred to earlier. They instruct Vera to start its polling loop every 30 seconds and it is intended to not delay the initialization of the polling loop for too long. But the 60 seconds limit stops Vera from polling any device more than once every 60 seconds. On a small network, for instance, the polling loop will start twice per minute, but one of those times Vera might not actually poll a device because the 60 second limiter has not expired.So what’s the default value ? 30 or 60 secondes ? Or does it mean, if you have a lot of Z-Wave devices, they are not polled at the desired frequency but are in a sort of queue of polling ?
Here’s another possible polling scenario. Suppose that there is a network with five devices. On one polling cycle Vera polls a single device and 30 seconds later, Vera polls three devices. Another 30 seconds later, Vera polls the fifth device and the first. It just took 90 seconds to poll the entire network of only five devices. This scenario is an exaggeration, but it is possible and becomes increasingly likely as the network grows or suffers communication issues.
As you see in my previous example, you’re exactly right about the polling queue. As more devices are added, the length of the polling loop increases and the polling interval increases with it. A Z-Wave network with ~70 or more devices may actually poll each node every two or three minutes, perhaps even longer. The settings are to initiate the loop and to prevent it from continually polling all devices and saturating the network.
Many people think that they need to poll the device all the time, some trying to get Vera to poll a switch every 30 seconds. They’re thinking that the faster they poll, the more responsive and accurate their automation is. But, what happens is that they overload Vera and the Z-Wave network and make their HA system feel much less responsive.
Thanks again for your explanations. It’s more clear now.
I think my confusion comes from these default setting from the Vera. They are not the same from a battery-operated device to the other one.
And sometimes, they are different on the same type of device according to the date of inclusion (surely some internal updates in the Vera) (same thing for “Polling”).
As I have played a lot with these settings, how can I revert to the default value of “Wake up” ?
And another thing ;D : if during its wake up, the battery-operated device just waits for something, what’s happening in a big Z-Wave network ? As there’s a queue for polling, the Vera rans the risk of missing the wake up, and then how does the Vera know the last wake up time ?
[quote=“vosmont, post:8, topic:188099”]As I have played a lot with these settings, how can I revert to the default value of “Wake up” ?[/quote]You can set the value that you desire, manually wake up the device, and then “Configure node right now”. Or you can exclude and include the device. This resets the physical device as well as Vera’s default values.
And another thing ;D : if during its wake up, the battery-operated device just waits for something, what's happening in a big Z-Wave network ? As there's a queue for polling, the Vera rans the risk of missing the wake up, and then how does the Vera know the last wake up time ?I've never had need for this information, so I've never investigated it. It is possible that the device is sending something when it wakes up.
But, even if the device doesn’t send anything Vera has a record of a last wake up time when last Vera spoke with the device, even if it wasn’t really the last wake up(perhaps Vera was off at the time), and Vera knows the wake up interval. So, Vera can easily calculate what the next wake up time should be.
Just to add to the excellent advice above: On some releases, Vera was setting the default polling interval incorrectly (to often) on some battery devices.
Specifically, door locks were being set to polling every 120 seconds. Users with this default setting were complaining about the lock’s battery exhausting in less than a month. Setting it to three or more hours (I actually turn mine off, which has not had a negative effect) will allow the battery to last a much more reasonable time.
I almost understood! ;D
Perhaps do you want to say “Wake up” instead of “Polling” ?
If you remember I previously mentioned FLiRS(Frequently Listening Routing Slaves) and beaming devices. Many door locks are FLiRS devices. They do a partial wake up every few seconds to see if anyone wants to talk to them. Beaming devices queue messages for FLiRS devices so, even though a lock might be battery operated, an improperly configured Vera could wind up polling it every few minutes like a powered device, too frequently for the battery.
Thanks !!!
It’s really more clear now
@ Z-Waver
Your explanation of polling and wakeup on vera is excellent and was very helpfull for me.
I was aware of polling and wakeup in common. But I didn’t understand the interaction of both especially on vera - and so I puzzeled over the misterious figures in my wakeup- and polling log.
I would appreciate that MIOS take this explanations in their documentation!
Many thanks!