Z-WAVE question

You bring up an interesting point, Dennis. We recently completed an installation where the customer (retired senior airline pilot) wanted a good deal more "bang" for his "buck". He wanted to know status of practically everything in his house. This entailed wiring relays in parallel to a number of lighting circuits controlled by X-10 switches. This gives him accurate and up to the minute status on a specific partition display on his alarm system keypads, as well as on custom graphic displays located in his bedroom and office. You could very easily adapt this to any partitionable hybrid (combination wired/wireless) security system out there. We installed GRI PB-2020's in the door frames to monitor the status of all the dead-bolts as well. It was a very interesting project, all-in-all.

Frank Olson

The correct email address is: snipped-for-privacy@z-wave.com. Perhaps they can assist you with the other question.

I believe the better method might have been Insteon!

I am biased, as I sell Insteon...

I believe that when you change a switch's state, that information is broadcast across the Insteon network.

As such the Elk M1 will be able to hear this, and react - as programmed, etc.

I've asked Elk to help me write a set of rules, for their M1 control, to take advantage of this very communication. Here is what I have in mind:

=================== An Insteon (on/off) switch is installed on a bathroom fan...

You're leaving the room...

Let's say you press the fan's on once. It is locally connected to the load, so the fan'll come on. Nothing special.

The signal IS sent across the Insteon network that this switch is now in the ON position...

M1 hears it, and sets a counter...

Now say you were to press ON a second time within 5 seconds...

I want the M1 to adjust it's counter, and say "Five minutes"...

Press again, within the allowed period and it ups the timer and announces "10..."

Again: "20", "30", "45", "60", "Normal"

If at any time OFF is pressed, the fan goes off... The whole process is reset...

So if it's just a little stinky, 5 or 10 minutes oughta do it... Take a steamy shower, and maybe you want an hour... ====================

This would not be possible without Insteon's network communications.

Note: At this time whenever an Insteon switch is dimmed locally, that status is not communicated. On and Off are, however.

As an early adopter of Insteon I know I'll have to wait for some new products to do everything I'll want, but these things are coming. Some very soon. I expect half a dozen new Insteon products in the next six months, the first will probably arrive in three...

And unlike X10 the more Insteon devices you have, the getter the network. Every device acts as a repeater.

I hope this helps!

Jack :)

Frank Ols> You bring up an interesting point, Dennis. We recently completed an

Frank,

I believe the better method might have been Insteon!

I am biased, as I sell Insteon...

I believe that when you change a switch's state, that information is broadcast across the Insteon network.

As such the Elk M1 will be able to hear this, and react - as programmed, etc.

I've asked Elk to help me write a set of rules, for their M1 control, to take advantage of this very communication. Here is what I have in mind:

=================== An Insteon (on/off) switch is installed on a bathroom fan...

You're leaving the room...

Let's say you press the fan's on once. It is locally connected to the load, so the fan'll come on. Nothing special.

The signal IS sent across the Insteon network that this switch is now in the ON position...

M1 hears it, and sets a counter...

Now say you were to press ON a second time within 5 seconds...

I want the M1 to adjust it's counter, and say "Five minutes"...

Press again, within the allowed period and it ups the timer and announces "10..."

Again: "20", "30", "45", "60", "Normal"

If at any time OFF is pressed, the fan goes off... The whole process is reset...

So if it's just a little stinky, 5 or 10 minutes oughta do it... Take a steamy shower, and maybe you want an hour...

When the time period expires, the M1 will send an OFF command to the fan's switch. ====================

This would not be possible without Insteon's network communications.

Note: At this time whenever an Insteon switch is dimmed locally, that status is not communicated. On and Off are, however.

As an early adopter of Insteon I know I'll have to wait for some new products to do everything I'll want, but these things are coming. Some very soon. I expect half a dozen new Insteon products in the next six months, the first will probably arrive in three...

And unlike X10 the more Insteon devices you have, the better the network. Every device acts as a repeater.

I hope this helps!

Jack :)

Note:

Insteon offers a switch which has it's own built-in timer already. The above is just an example of how Insteon's communication could be used.

Frank Ols>

I've been hearing/reading that Insteon is having some of the same comms problems that X10 did, fewer, but still present. What is the current reading on that? Is UPB any better?

Thanks

What are the caveats to wiring two alarm systems in parallel to the same sensor? (This is different that what you describe above if I understand correctly.)

My situation is that I have a complete, satisfactory Napco security system for which the wiring was professionally installed long ago with the usual mix of smokes, contacts, motion detectors, beams etc.

When I set up the HA system in this house 7 or so years ago, I tried to use the built-in 'lighting vector' (aka "lighting path") feature of my CyberHouse HA software. This uses multip[e sensors to determine the location and direction of travel of a detected person to turn lights on and off as the person walks through a space. But the Napco firmware is slow in reporting out through the RS-232 port to the HA computer. I've also tried using Napco relays to follow the sensors but this was also too slow. So I now I plan to use a different faster controller to create the lighting path function and so would like to 'double up' on some of the motion detectors.

TIA ... Marc Marc_F_Hult

Are these on-off, or dimmed lights? If dimmed, how is the threshold between on and off determined? If on-off, why bother to use X-10 at all given that you are running control wiring anyway? Or do I misunderstand something?

Marc Marc_F_Hult

You can't. You would either have to install another switch adjacent to the first (if your alarm installer ran 22/4 to each door/window, this shouldn't be a problem). Otherwise, you'd need contacts with double pole switches. GRI manufactures them which I've used on occasion

It may be possible to accomplish what you want on the PIR's as well (as long as the negatives of both systems are common to the zone "common" terminals and you connect *both* systems aux power negative together. I can diagram this for you if you like.

Straight "on-off".

You didn't misunderstand. He wanted his lighting circuits to reliably interface with the alarm system to provide simple status. A lot of these circuits were also controlled by the panel (timed "on/off" functions, "on" or "flash" in alarm, "on" on arrival or when activated through the telephone interface to the panel).

I'm not all that "up" on home automation, which is why I'm so interested in what you all have to say. I've learned a whole lot. It's also an interesting way to keep up with developments.

I've steered several clients to BruceR's website so they can see what a properly terminated home-made HA wire centre should really look like. You guys rock! :-)

One issue is the potential for unintended current flow between two systems. The advantage of some partitionable systems is that one sensor can act upon two partitions (as it appears the OP has implemented this).

There is another option which, depending on your controller, might do the job for you. If your HA controller has voltage- or relay-follow-input functionality you could wire the sensors directly to the HA controller and thence to the Napco P9600.

Also, it may be possible to accomplish your goals using a combo controller like the ELK-MIG. The unit has enough I/O to replace the Napco easily. You'd need to look at the total specs though to determine if it's HA functionality is sufficient to handle your requirements. ELK has timers which can be triggered by a zone input. You may be able to use these to watch for a second zone trip for x number of seconds to determine movement and direction.

Full specs on the M1G are here:

Oops! I forgot to include the following URL for lots of M1 docs:

All but a few of the newest Z-Wave modules don't send any type of notifications at all, they must be polled. Obviously more than one controller can poll them, but the bandwidth of Z-Wave would make that not so great a thing to do, particularly if you want any kind of reasonably low latency (which requires faster polling.) It would be optimal to only have one thing in the system doing that polling.

I don't know how the Elk deals with Z-Wave, I control my Z-Wave system via CQC. But they could certainly poll the network if they wanted to. CQC does this, though if you have more than 10'ish modules then the latency will start going up (or if any of the modules are having trouble communicating that will also.) I have 6 modules currently, and the average latency is a second or so, worst case is a few seconds (to see a change in a module state.) CQC's Z-Wave driver keeps a few outstanding polling operations at a time going, to reduce latency. This may or may not be optimal, but Zen-Sys doesn't provide any guidance on these things, at least they don't to us, despite numerous requests for such information.

Some of the newer devices, like the thermostat and some of the upcoming motion sensors and such, will send out a notification when changed, which will help. You still have to poll, to make sure that the modules are still there and responding, but you can do it a lot slower since it's just a sanity check and not used to maintain module status.

------------------------------------- Dean Roddey Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems

Jack,

I wasn't aware that ELK even supported Insteon. I don't see any reference to it in their documentation. Since you sell it, maybe you can clarify a point. The description indicates it is a dual approach system, in that all signals are sent via both RF and PL paths, thus providing much greater reliability. I have read reports since, that indicate only the signal bridge between the two phases of the power line is done via RF, and that the actual commands within each of these phases is done only via the PL signal. True?

Thanks Dennis

Jack Ed> I believe the better method might have been Insteon!

Insteon calls it a "mesh network" of PLC and RF. In fact, the RF is between bridges only. The idea is that you can add a bridge to a "trouble area" to deliver the signal from a point closer to the module if necessary. It works!

I agree, but at this point in time such communications require interfacing between two (and often more) different manufacturers. We investigated a number of different available technologies and since this customer placed a greater emphasis on reliability, we opted for the solution I described. I am keeping a close watch on developments with companies like Elk.

ELK does support Insteon. There's a firmware release for the M1XSP to use with Insteon.

Robert,

"There's a firmware release for the M1XSP to use"

What is the M1XSP? I didn't see it on the ELK site, just the M1 GOLD and the M1EZ8.

P.S. I also sent another note to " snipped-for-privacy@z-wave.com" and it also came back as not responding after 5 hours, like the other one. How about Giving it a try and see what happens.

Thanks

Dennis

Robert L Bass wrote:

That's an add-on for the ELK M1G system. ELK-M1XSP Lighting/Thermostat Interface, Serial Port Expander

Hmm. Perhaps this will be more useful: snipped-for-privacy@zen-sys.com