How-To - Aeotec MultiSensor 6

DaneeDeKruyff

Edit 25-06-2016

After the update to 0.8.39 no more data was logged to Insights anymore. Doing a reset with erase and starting all over again did not fix this for me. I'm not putting anymore time in this.

In this post I will describe how to add and configure the Aeotec MultiSensor 6

This post is written at firmware version 0.8.32 and where needed changed for firmware version 0.8.34 and 0.8.35

Steps to add the sensor

• The MultiSensor 6 can be added non-secure and secure to your homey. For now it is best to add it non-secure, when added secure the motion and generic alarm will not work (0.8.32, 0.8.34 and 0.8.35)
• On 0.8.35 Generic Alarm is not available, neither secure nor non-secure.
  

Click on the big plus in the zone you want to add the device, and select Z-Wave in the Select your device type... dialog. When the Follow the instructions... dialog is displayed you have to click the Action Button on the bottom of the sensor. After you press the Action Button homey will interview the device. When the interview is done homey will ask you What type of device is this? and if all went well the devicetype sensor should be shown. In this dialog you can also change the name of the device.

When you click next you will be back in the Zones & Devices screen. When you hover your mouse over the device you just created two icons will show in the top left corner.

If you click the first one (name?) you will see what sensors are available for the device:

• When the sensor is first added it's very likely that the Generic Alarm is on, when adding the device it was most likely activated so that state was added.
• When the sensor is added secure the Motion Alarm and Generic Alarm are visible but will not be triggered.

When you click the second icon, the wrench, the settings dialog will open:

When the Multi Sensor is added to a Z-Wave network containing a SIS (Static ID Server) or SUC (Static Update Controller), it will be associated to the SIS or SUC automaticly. Homey has the SIS role so the Z-wave Associotion for Group 1 will automaticly be set to 1 which is the device number of your Homey.

Configuring your Multi Sensor

When just added the data field is empty, in order to get the basic functionalities of the Multi Sensor working you will have to add 5,1,2. This will tell the sensor that it has to send Sensor Binary Report CC instead of Basic Set CC which is required by homey. After adding that click on the Save settings button and close the dialog.

• When the Sensor is battery powered, you have to wakeup the device in order for it to receive the new settings.
• Due to a bug on 0.8.32 parameters that are longer then 1 byte are saved wrong and hardly usable, this is fixed from 0.8.34
• When on firmware 0.8.34 saving settings on the settings dialog does not work due to a bug, this is fixed from 0.8.35. You will have to use a flow to set parameters, make a flow with any when condition, place the Set Configuration Parameter card in the then column, add the desired parameters and press the Test button to save the changes. (More info)

Reported information in Insights

Information from the Multi Sensor or the Multi Sensor itself will not show up in Insights untill data is sent to homey. So, to make it available in Insights, agitate the sensor so that the Tamper- and Motion Alarm is triggered.
For the other sensors to show up into Insights you will have to wait until they're reported, default 3600 seconds (1 hour)

• The Motion Alarm will only be triggered after the sensor received the 5,1,2 settings and a minimum of 4 minutes have passed since the last motion was detected. 
• When the sensor is added secure the Motion Alarm and Generic alarm will not be available in Insights

The Tamper, Motion and Generic Alarm are shown as the verticle bars.

• Note that an actual detected movement is shown as a single verticale line at the time of the detected movement. At the same time the Generic Alarm is triggered which stays on for 4 minutes after the last movement is detected. When the Generic Alarm is triggered, now new Motion Alarm will be triggered!

The Humidity, Luminance, Temperature and Battery are shown as the lines, when you hover your mouse over a particular line the value at that point will be shown.

Using the Multi Sensor in flows

The Multi Sensor can be used in flows in the when column as a trigger or in the then column to take an action on it. It can not be used in the and column. A work around for that is to use a different flow to save the value of any sensor to a variable and use that in the and column.

Triggers

The following triggers are available to use in the when column:

These are the triggers that offer a value to be used in a flow:

These are the cards that can be used to take an action on the Multi Sensor in the then column.:

Additional information:

http://aeotec.com/z-wave-sensor
http://www.pepper1.net/zwavedb/device/741
https://aeotec.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/folders/6000149641
http://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/1403/embedconfigs

Engineering sheet (PDF)

TedTolboom

@DaneeDeKruyff Nice how-to! 
Looking forward to you experience in optimizing the settings to increase the report interval (without changing the wakeup interval)... With the Fibaro motion sensor this is not possible at this moment.

DaneeDeKruyff

Thanks.
I can tell you that increasing the report interval without changing the wake-up interval will not work. That is mentioned in the engineering sheet and I've tested that.
What should be possible is to change the 'delta' threshold at which a report is sent regardless of the interval, though I've not been able yet to accomplish that.

robertbusscher

@Emile ;
Maybe it's a idea to make a category with Devices and there configuration settings? Like this?

Emile

In the nearby future, Apps will do this as they 'preconfigure' zwave devices. 

TedTolboom

@Emile good to hear... what is the timing for these apps to become available?

These apps are not on the Public timeline... whereas I know it raise a lot of votes in no time (potentially even beating the iOS app)...

Depending on the timing, the community might need to setup their own overview of Devices and configuration settings.

mruiter

Seems like its working now on .32 . Nice howto. Kudos

Only problem i now seem to have is that generic alarm is Always on on all of my 4 motion sensors.

Did a complete zwave reset to be sure and again i have a constant generic alarm.
Motion and tamper get trigger nicely by the main status of the sensor is Always blinking alarm because of the generic alarm.

It does not go away. Dont have this on other zwave platforms. Any ideas ? Or am i the only one , or is this still te its added with alarm on and homey does not handle that right so from now on its Always on

DaneeDeKruyff

Yeah, if the Motion Alarm was triggered when you pressed the Action Button (which is very likely) than the Generic Alarm in the sensor was on during the interview. This Generic Alarm will clear after there is not motion detected for 4 minutes (default). Make sure you absolutelu don't trigger the sensor for some time. Also, when the Generic Alarm is active and there is motion detected, the sensor's led will NOT light up. So it's probably best to put the sensor in a closet or another room for a while.

DaneeDeKruyff

Just an observation; Not related to homey, but good to know.

When USB power is used on the sensor, the temperature seems to be 4.2 degrees higher than on a battery powered sensor.

(edited image to include the temperatures)

The red line is the sensor that was USB powered, the orange battery powered. I switched that at approximatly 7:20 and at the next report the temperature difference had switched. 

(I have 2 more sensors with batteries, both show the same temperature as the (initialy) orange one, all 4 sensors are in the same spot.)

mruiter

it took a few hours but now suddenly the generic alarm is off. Now is also works as expected. Alrm triggerd and generic stays on for a few minutes and the. turns of again.

Yeeeeee

ericjanvanputten

So just ordered one from amazone.de and now at a friend with a Homey and this sensor and we are baffled (and hoping to be wrong ) that we cannot use the lux value as the 'and' value making a very 'common' and useful flow like:

WHEN motion sensored (trigger) AND (logic) lux value is between x and x (or below/above x) THEN Turn light x on + set brightness to x %

So what are we doing wrong or would be a potential fix?

bvdbos

Just read the lux-value to a variable every minute and test the variable?

ericjanvanputten

BasVanDenBosch said:

Just read the lux-value to a variable every minute and test the variable?

so how can we get the lux variable into the 'and' logic app part? As the trigger (when) would NOT be the lux change, it would/should be motion or something. 

bvdbos

Create a variable "lichtint". Whenever lux changes, store the value in lichtint:

Then test for motion with a lux less then 100:

ericjanvanputten

BasVanDenBosch said:

Create a variable "lichtint". Whenever lux changes, store the value in lichtint:

Then test for motion with a lux less then 100:

holy crap - cool i will ask my friend to try! thanks!

ericjanvanputten

Cool got from the friend that it is def. going in the right direction!
great thanks @BasVanDenBosch!

So... one other thing we struggled with is the speed of which the sensor data gets updated. it now seems that it takes an hour for the non-motion values to get updated. although we tried the default 3600 data value and polling, but no change. anyone any idea on that  

thanks all!

bvdbos

Don't know about the Aeotec but for the Fibaro only 1800 works as an alternative (though people seems to have gotten 600 to work too). Why would you care? As long as the sensor sends  a new value when there's a change... If the temperature is a constant 20 degrees why would you have to be notified every minute? If you need the temperature for your flows, you can create a variable like I did with luminance above...

ericjanvanputten

Well im thinking of using the motion with a lux value for the hallway at home. so the moment i walk downstairs (living is on 1st floor) towards the halway i think it would be good the lux measure is not older then say 15 minutes? this so it can decide to add 10-20-30%-etc light  
Which can heavily be influenced by time, weather, door open or closed in hallway. 

bvdbos

I think you can't set a timer in the parameters. You can set parameter 40 to 1 so you enable sending reports when changes in temperature, humidity, luminance and battery. Don't know for polling...

Enable/disable the selective reporting only when measurements reach a certain threshold or percentage set in 41-44 below. This is used to reduce network traffic. (0 == disable, 1 == enable)

JeroenVinke

Hi!
Here some input from the friend  
Thanks for the instructions @BasVanDenBosch ! But i cannot seem to get the lux value to update when it registers change. It only updates once per hour.... I tested this by setting up the sensor in a box to get a value below 100 lx. Triggered the motion sensor and it works.

Now i have put a bright light (10watt LED) above the sensor in the box and the lux value did not change. It looks like the value that is set by betterlogic is the one the multisensor puts out every hour. (btw i have waited till the Generic Alarm was off before triggering the motion sensor)

The Insight screenshot in the first post also shows that the luminance value is very unpredictable. The sensor doesn't send a new value when there's a change.

Is there a way to force a value update upon triggering the motion sensor?

DaneeDeKruyff

Parameter 111,4,1800 and setting the Z-wave wakeup interval at 1800 will make the sensor report every half hour (1800 seconds) 
No polling required for this sensor.
The problem I seem to run into that reporting (or handling the reports) somehow stops after a while. Can't yet find a pattern so not sure what or why it happens.
The 3 other sensors for which I didn't change that parameter show regular reports every hour. When I reboot homey the sensorsdata will be reported every half hour again for some time...

bvdbos

Parameter 40 would be better for this case...

DaneeDeKruyff

I guess my post crossed JeroenVinkes post, I replied to ericjanvanputten regarding the update interval.
Getting the sensor to report when threshold are crossed is something I'm experimenting with, haven't seen it working yet

bvdbos

If you have Zwave wakeup at 1800 then you shouldn't have to set parameter 111? What happens if you set parameter 111 and wakup at 3600? 

DaneeDeKruyff

Yes, they need to be set both. If 111 is at 1800 and wakeup at 3600 it will still be an hour and also if it's the other way around. 

Jon

I still don't get the sensor any further than an on/off device. It is sooo frustrating...
@DaneeDeKruyff would you be so kind to create a short youtube movie on how you add the sensor properly to Homey?

RikF

Me only manage to connect Luminance and temperature and general alarm . How can I get the rest of it?

DaneeDeKruyff

Probably by waiting.
What firmware are you on?
Did you add it secure or non-secure?
Did you add extra parameters?
Did you agitate the sensor after adding it?

RikF

When i put the sensor near by the homey i get all the functions but the alarm stays on continu.
Last update today 0.8.32.
I add it non-secure.
parameters 5.2.1
What means "agitate the sensor"?

thanks for the comment Danee.

DaneeDeKruyff

By agitate I mean tapping on it, moving it, shaking it. (Maw. De sensor 'pesten') That way you'll trigger the tamper alarm.
The fact the Generic Alarm is on after adding it is understandable, when you pressed the Action Button on the sensor it is very likely that at that time the movement sensor had detected movement. After a movement is detected the Generic Alarm stays in triggered state for 4 minutes after the last movement was detected. This can be 'cleared' by rebooting homey, but make sure that the sensor is not in an alarm state when you do that! (Hide it in a drawer and wait at least 4 minutes before rebooting)

I also found out that having patience is a must, these sensors report once an hour in default settings. So after saving a setting you will have to wait at max one hour before the setting is send to the sensor and another hour before the results of the setting can be seen. Sometime a report is missed and you'll have to wait 2 hours!
(Yes, you can press the Action Button to wake-up the sensor and have it report, but I'm not convinced that the report is the same as when the sensor wakes up on its own interval and reports)

RikF

Thanks Danee for the good explanation.!