I, like most people, have seen the “Controlled via” parameter on the Advanced tab for devices, and never understood what it does. I always just leave it at it’s default value, which seems to be “ZWave []” for Z-Wave devices, and “No parent” for other things.
I was recently browsing the micasaverde documentation for my Aeon labs multisensor (which is better than the aeon labs documentation);
http://support.micasaverde.com/customer/portal/articles/1140688--aeon-labs-controlling-the-4-in-1-multisensor-from-the-dashboard
In there it talks about setting a switch to be the controller for the sensor, so it only senses motion when the switch is on. However, it doesn’t elaborate on that, and when I go to set it in my vera, it says “Changing the parent of a device may brick your Vera. Are you sure you want to continue”, which did a pretty good job of putting me off.
So, my question is, does anyone have proper information on what that field does? It looks potentially powerful, but also comes with a scary warning.
Thanks
Martin
It’s called Advanced for a reason … This is set by the appropriate software (Vera) or a Plugin and should NOT be touched.
In general you should not CHANGE things in the Advanced tab unless you TRUST the person or information that tells you to do so. There are things in this forum that you should NOT trust.
If you do NOT trust me … then change things to your heart’s content. Recovering your Vera is always a learning experience.
In there it talks about setting a switch to be the controller for the sensor, so it only senses motion when the switch is on.
I believe this is a reference to the [b]Arm/Bypass[/b] switch on the GUI. There is one on the parent device and a separate one on the motion sensor. You can control these with scenes, Lua or PLEG actions.
if you change the controlled by… it will not work anymore as designed.
changing the controlled by z-wave results in the z-wave device not function anymore.
changing the controlled by to another parent device makes it also not function anymore as the newly set parent doesnt get the variables from the child.
most of the time this would not brick ur vera or z-wave. it will only brick if you set the childdevice controlled by to z-wave or some other device that is not supposed to be controlled by z-wave.
pretty sure the reference was for the stuff rexbeckett points out. arm/bypass the motionsensor.
Thanks everyone. The micasaverde documentation states the following;
To choose a device in your system that will control your multisensor’s motion sensing, hover your mouse on the top right of the blue bar and click the wrench icon, then select the “Advanced” menu. You’ll see a drop-down menu of all your smart devices, and can choose which of them controls the activity of your 4-in-1’s motion sensing, and any notifications you may have set for it.
However, the motion sensor isn’t a child device, it’s the parent device, so unlike the light, humidity and temperature parts of the sensor, the motion sensor has ZWave as the default parent.
Anyway, the lack of clear documentation means I’m leaving it well alone!
Thanks everyone for their info
Martin
yup i wouldn’t touch it. the stuff you want is probably to find in the groups stuff. i.e. you can make on the device in vera a group (find in the manual of the device the group it can control. like for fibaro duo-switch there is group 1 for the 1st switch and group 2 for the second switch on the device itself… S1 & S2)
and put there the other z-wave device you want to control.
[quote=“RichardTSchaefer, post:2, topic:177581”]It’s called Advanced for a reason … This is set by the appropriate software (Vera) or a Plugin and should NOT be touched.
In general you should not CHANGE things in the Advanced tab unless you TRUST the person or information that tells you to do so. There are things in this forum that you should NOT trust.
If you do NOT trust me … then change things to your heart’s content. Recovering your Vera is always a learning experience.[/quote]
Can MCV’s own documentation be trusted?
http://support.micasaverde.com/customer/portal/articles/1140688--aeon-labs-controlling-the-4-in-1-multisensor-from-the-dashboard
Can MCV's own documentation be trusted?
MCV quote:
In the "Controlled Via" field that you find in the "Advanced" menu of every device in your Dashboard, you can make this selection. "Z-Wave" is the default controller, and we recommend leaving this default, unless you're an experienced user and looking for more advanced options.
The majority of use Vera Users are NOT experienced users. They really should have said advanced developer.
Hi,
May be re-opening an old wound, but as I am just waiting for an Aeon Multisense to arrive, I am trying to found out how make best use of it.
The MVC post mentioned above clearly states that I can set the Humidity sensor to be controlled via a Weather App. http://support.micasaverde.com/customer/portal/articles/1140688--aeon-labs-controlling-the-4-in-1-multisensor-from-the-dashboard .
But what does “Controlled via” do in this case: does the App enable the local sensor, if so under what conditions… does it override the local sensor - in which case why would I want to?
I have had a reply from Vera Tech Support -
“It seems that the information is not fully right, you cannot select the humidity sensor to be controller via the World Weather, but you should be able to receive notifications when the humidity goes above or below a certain value.”
“not fully right” means “totally wrong” in this case, not sure why someone at MVC went to the trouble of writing a tech note and capturing screens that is so confusing, and I notice that it has not been corrected or removed. ::).
Hi ho
Very surprising MCV post indeed. There should be no need to change the ‘controlled via’ parameter. (You can possibly have a ‘virtual’ humidity sensor driven by some external app, but I would always create a separate humidity device for that, an not attempt to override one that was created as part of a Z-Wave (multi-)sensor.)