Jostein is correct. All main powered zwave devices will act as a relay. According to chris, the main zwave binding developer, zwave repeaters are kind of pointless. If you put in any mains powered device in the same location then it will do the same job of a repeater, and then you will also have another outlet or sensor or whatever you can do something useful with.
Ok - the items have arrived. I have added the aeotec z-stick gen5 to OH and it’s found it ok. After a little bit of watching youtube I paired the door sensor which is an Aeotec Door/Window Sensor Gen5 to the z-wave controller. Once plugged back into the PI it found the sensor but does not seem to know what exactly it is.
I have attached a screen dump of the device information. I think I’m going to need a little hand holding to figure out how to get OH to recognise it as a Sensor.
If I press the anti tamper spring on the back of the sensor (not attached to door yet) I see this appearing in the log
2018-09-28 15:42:16.607 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveSerialController_StartFrames changed from 44 to 45
2018-09-28 15:42:17.428 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveSerialController_StartFrames changed from 45 to 46
2018-09-28 15:42:21.913 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveSerialController_StartFrames changed from 46 to 47
2018-09-28 15:42:22.227 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveSerialController_StartFrames changed from 47 to 48
2018-09-28 15:42:27.755 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveSerialController_StartFrames changed from 48 to 49
2018-09-28 15:42:28.020 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveSerialController_StartFrames changed from 49 to 50
OK, so I’m assuming this is a battery powered device. The manual should mention something about waking it up. Often waking it up is the same process as pairing it. Often it is pressing a button or a combination of buttons triggering the actuator or something like that.
Battery powered devices need to be woken up multiple time to give the binding a chance to figure out what it is.
It is unlikely, but this might be a really new Aeotec device and it may not be in the database yet. Given the text in the screenshot, if that were the case you would see a valid manufacturer ID and Device ID. But it is probably worth having a look. Go to
https://www.cd-jackson.com/index.php/zwave/zwave-device-database/zwave-device-list
and search for the model number of the device. If you find it then it’s a known device.
18 DW Sensor Gen5 ES.pdf (186.7 KB)
I found this on the web - the user guide just described how to pair it and fix to door. The uploaded pdf seems to have some decent technical information however.
I’ve found this thread which seems to apply to the same version of the device.
Well - the box has this written on the bottom but I had to peel off another label which obscured it - the top label just had a “NEW” word printed on it with a barcode X000V4RB7X.
Assuming it is a ZW120-C what do I need to do in order to get OH to recognise it. Do I need to delete it an add again ? You mentioned that OH may take a while to determine what it is - did I add it in too quickly ?
Dave
Found this in the log as well.
2018-09-28 18:08:03.448 [WARN ] [wave.discovery.ZWaveDiscoveryService] - NODE 2: Device discovery could not resolve to a thingType! 7FFFFFFF:7FFFFFFF:7FFFFFFF::0.0
What version of OH are you running?
If you are running 2.3 then it is likely that you need to upgrade to the Milestone 4 release. This will be the easiest way to get the updated database.
When you do upgrade, look at ZWave binding updates for some extra steps you will need to take because of changes to the binding between 2.3 and 2.4 milestone 4.
Yes - openHAB 2.3.0-1 (Release Build) on a Raspberry Pi
How would I upgrade to Milestone 4 ?
If you are running openHABian, execute sudo openhabian-config and go to 40 openHAB related and select openHAB testing under 41.
Otherwise switch to the Testing release repo and run sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade.
See https://www.openhab.org/docs/installation/linux.html#installation
Ok - will give it a try. Sorry for asking so many questions. I am learning.
I updated as you recommended without any issues. I then removed all my z-wave things and even the binding, did a reboot - added back the binding and it found the z-wave stick immediatly. It seemed easier than adding it previously as it also detected and added the serial thing.
It found the sensor but this time I let it have reasonable amount of time to analyse it. I triggered the sensor a few times.
It still does not recognise it but the page of information seems a little more complete. Do you think this is progress should I look for a different brand of sensor. I went with the same make as the z-wave controller as it seemed the easy way to avoid incompatibilities.
That’s a new feature.
If it bears the zwave logo then it should be fully compatible with all other zwave devices.
Do you still see the “could not resolve to a thing Type” message in the logs?
I did another reboot and watched the logs. Now it appears to be working. Phew.
I need to change its name but this is what I see in the logs.
2018-09-28 19:54:04.381 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveNode002_DoorSensor changed from CLOSED to OPEN
2018-09-28 19:54:06.299 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveNode002_DoorSensor changed from OPEN to CLOSED
2018-09-28 19:54:07.200 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveNode002_DoorSensor changed from CLOSED to OPEN
2018-09-28 19:54:08.025 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveNode002_DoorSensor changed from OPEN to CLOSED
2018-09-28 19:54:08.680 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveNode002_DoorSensor changed from CLOSED to OPEN
2018-09-28 19:54:09.260 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveNode002_DoorSensor changed from OPEN to CLOSED
2018-09-28 19:54:10.088 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - ZWaveNode002_DoorSensor changed from CLOSED to OPEN
Thats probably all I can do today as it’s getting late. Tomorrow I will fix the sensor to the door and then I will need to look at rules and determine the best way to get alerted to the door being open, be that Google Home announcement (preferred) or iPhone app.
Look at Design Pattern: Motion Sensor Timer for how to deal with how to time the alert only when the door has been open for a certain amount of time. In this case the door sensor is the motion sensor.
I can’t help with the Google Home but suspect you will need to look at the Chromecast binding. I think a GH shows up as a Chromecast.
For the iPhone app, you will need to set up myopenhab.org and the openHAB cloud connector binding. As an added bonus, you will also be able to access your OH UIs remotely safely.
Progress update.
As I’m not sure how I use the code sample in the link (maybe i need visual studio or eclipse) I have created 2 simple rules using the web rules front end. One turns on the room lights when the sensor changes from closed to open, and the second turns the light off for the opposite condition. Happy with that.
With respect to some kind of audible alarm there seems to be 2 approaches. Either get a z-wave enabled siren or use a cheap buzzer which will come on whenever a socket/outlet is turned on/off by OH.
I think the deciding factor will be the support for a z-wave enabled siren. If nothing exists at the moment then it will be plan B.
I did notice that today when I looked at the switch from control panel it reported its battery life correctly so I’m guessing OH has been probing the device and learning about its capabilities,
I know they make zwave sirens. I’ve no experience with them though so you may need to do some searching to figure out what model fits best with what you want.
Note that the web rules is called “Experimental” for a reason. If it works for you great. But there is no documentation or users on the forum that will be able to help you much if/when you run into problems or can’t figure out how to make it do what you want.
The device reports once a day or so it’s current battery state.
I think i am the “Testing” build. Will I eventually be able to upgrade to a newer release from that ?
I have to admit that although OH is good I must have re-installed about 10 times for various reasons to do with SSD disks, releases, complete screw ups on my part. I guess this is where the robust nature of a less capable smartThings hub has an advantage.
Once it’s working and I have made multiple backup cards I won’t be so nervous. The good side of it is that I’m a past master at the setup that I’ve learned so far.
Can you explain the difference between the web gui rules and the "java script code"approach. Does the web gui create code that I can look at and learn from ?
Dave
Should I be feeding back any experiences regarding the testing build to someone ? for example immediately after installing the testing build and z-wave binding you get a message Error 500 - but it seems to go away after a while.