Fibaro association

RowanWeiffenbach

Hiya, is association (or grouping) of Fibaro switches/dimmers possible? Like depicted here:
http://materialy.fibaro.com/technical presentations/HC2_A1_Dimmer_Association.pdf

I have a ton of double switches, so I have to rely on this solution.

Emile

You'd solve that in the flow editor: 'when {button} is pressed, turn on lights {a,b,c}'

MarcoF

Me like the array option!

Will this also work:

when {button1,button2} is pressed, turn on lights {a,b,c}

Emile

You'd create two seperate flows for that scenario. (Maybe we'll add an `or` option in the future)

MarcoF

nice!

I vote for the "or" option in the first update after the official release

(what do you guys think about some sort of voting system for releasing new features?)

Fire69

+1

remcoploeg

+1 for or!

MarcoF

when {button1|button2|button3} is pressed, turn on lights {a,b,c}

?

Athomey

+1

Emile

The hardest part with or is, what do we do with tokens (those draggable 'variables', such as 'who' entered the house or 'which track' is now playing) that are used in the conditions or actions columns, but are not available, because another trigger has fired? Disable them? Check for conflicts and prevent the user from saving? Those are all not really elegant solutions, so this needs some thought

Athomey

@RowanWeiffenbach 's question is not answered. The correct anders is: No, Homey does NOT support zwave association, according to all the video's/demo's and answers Emile provided. I'll gladly stand corrected, cause it would be nicer to have this support. :-)

You cán combine multiple targets with one scene in Homey, as Emile explained, with somewhat the same result. However, what Emile shows can also be done in Fibaro, using the UI there to create a scenario which combines the devices. The question however is about zwave association, not about combining devices. So the question is about apples, and the answer is about oranges. Emile's explanation/example has two big differences however:

#1 - Only running through a scene is always slower than with direct zwave association added. My Vera Edge supports configuring this association. With this enabled, response time is ~100-200ms. With this disabled and the Vera doing ALL and ONLY the work, like Emile's example with Homey, it is lots of times SECONDS of response time. This is really annoying. With Homey I don't know if the delay will be noticable or not sigificant.

#2 - True zwave association also works when your domotica controller like Homey is switched off/down for some reason. So switches and lights/groups still keep functioning even when the controller is off. This is the case with Fibaro and Vera e.g., but as I understand it, not possible to configure with Homey. Again, I gladly stand corrected.

((Last week my Vera Edge got a firmware update and this failed. It lost it's configuration and I had to do a factory reset. We did not have working lights in our house for 2 days cause I was away for business and could not fix it remotely. I don't use the option of zwave association, cause I want to emulate the (im)possibilities of Homey as much as possible for a domotica R&D proof of concept in my house, with the purpose for broader commercial deployment.))

[Edited typos]

RowanWeiffenbach

Thank you Athomey. That kind of delay without association is not acceptable in my opinion. Emile, you have the Fibaro devices to try and implement this feature -- which I can't imagine would be a huge setback in dev time.

Seconds of delay when turning on multiple lights in my living room? That's a no no... Or a disco... Either way, not really pleased!

Athomey

Correct. With the Vera without zwave association my living room is sometimes a disco. I've got a few regular lights on Fibaro switches, and also Philips Hue's in my living room. Many times half of them respond, and the other half seconds later...curiously, sometimes the Hue's are first to respond, then the Fibaro switches. I'd expect the other way around, cause the Hue's have an extra hub in between. Again: Maybe Homey will be so fast in repsonse that it will perform well in these use cases, leaving only the negative aspect of not working when the controller is down. For me, that would be acceptable. For my clients...maybe not so, I cannot have clients calling me they have NO lights at all when the central system (Homey) is down. Will be experimenting with that a lot when receiving Homey. My R&D house has 30+ Philips Hue's already and many Fibaro switches, and 10-20 sensors in place, ready for extensive testing. Would love to hear from Emile his point of view.

Emile

Honestly I wonder why your devices respond so slow with a vera. We haven't had any issues with Homey, so maybe it is a processing power issue.

Athomey

@Emile: I think (hope) your conclusion is spot on. The web-UI of the Vera is also VERY slow. Changing and saving a scene also can take up to 6 seconds! That might be the same delay. It seems the Vera is 'busy' doing something, but God knows what or why. Have you tested controlling 30+ devices in a single scene in Homey? This makes things worse with the Vera, but also 1 or 2 devices can exhibit this behaviour. But zwave association is something competitors provide, also to be more robuste, not only maar speedy. :-)

Does anyone have measurements with Fibaro and not using zwave association?

RowanWeiffenbach

Very interested in that measurement as well. Perhaps with a flowchart with when {light1} turns on, turn on {light2,light3}. I think I'll be using that in my living room.

Rebtor

I'm a Vera (lite) user to and as many have said the bad hardware realy hurts Vera, it sometimes gets flooded if it needs to do a lot of things at once, second the software is just no good in the 3 years i have been using it it has never run 100% stable. On the other hand its flexible and supports almost any device on the marktet today.

My hope was that the more powerfull homey could replace my Vera but without support for the basic classes like association its prety mutch useless for Zwave. The most used Zwave device for building in to walls on the market now for example is the Fibaro 500w dimmer, it has this nice feature to associate a second group of devices that respond on the second switch you connect to the dimmer. You can't use the second switch without association. (see: http://materialy.fibaro.com/instrukcje/dimmer FGD211 v14 - v18 ENG.pdf). If a basic zwave class as association is't supported it makes me wonder what else is missing. Can you set the device parameters at all from the homey controler (if not you can't even switch from bi stable tot stable switching)?

Personaly i use association a lot, zwave is controling all my lighting in my house, if it goes down half of my lights can't be controled because they don't have a switch connected.
It worries me that i read on one of the facebook pages that homey uses a cloud service to process the voice commands, i don't know at this point what other functionalities require an active internet connection but this makes it for me even more important that my home is still controlable without a functioning homey. I can't explain to my wife that she can't turn on the lights because you do maintence on your cloud service or my internet is down..

Supporting zwave is more then just connecting to other zwave devices, its not an klik aan klik uit of philips hue crap device that you connect and can turn on or off. The controler needs to be able to configure the modules and needs to support association or it simply won't be an option for zwave users to make the switch.

I love the idea of homey and love dutch startups like this so i don't regret the preorder but i hope its a usefull product for me. Don't think to lightly about zwave support. Just saying its supported because there is a zwave sticker on the back of an device is way to easy....

Athomey

@Rebtor: Without voicecommands/Internet, you can still control Homey locally through the web-UI and app. However, voice won't work. Zwave association is not supported out fo the box, I raised the same concerns as you. I want to use Homey in commercially big projects in luxury houses, but need it much more reliable than Vera and also more responsive.

RowanWeiffenbach

I still think it's a major miss to not support it...

Emile

We'll probably support it later on. For the time being, you can use your current Z-Wave controller to maintain the associations

RowanWeiffenbach

That's the point, I don't have any

Rebtor

Hey Emile,

I understand that i can use my current controler (vera) to setup the zwave devices. However that means that i wil have a vera and a homey, so 2 controllers in one Zwave network. With multiple vera you can import the devices from one vera to an other (so that the device id's keep in line and to solve the problem that you can't include a module in 2 Zwave networks (2 gateways)). http://docs5.mios.com/doc.php?language=1&platform=3Lite&page=multiple_units

How does this work with homey if you include the homey to the existing zwave network (Vera) will it see all the devices in it. Because if i remember correctly you first have to exclude a zwave module before you can include it to another network and at least with the controlers i have seen so far the only way you can add a device to the controler / gateway is true inclusion or an import like i wrote above..

Or will this mean that you first have to configure the module with the current controler, remove it from the zwave network (and i think wiping the associations, because there is no link anymore with the other modules and hope it will keep its other settings) and then join it in to the homey zwave network and see what happens? How does this work with more homey's in one zwave network?

I don't look forward having to include all the devices to a new network because that is realy a pain to do with those wall modules. So keeping Vera active a little bit longer is no problem, i think even that it can be a good thing to have a fallback while homey gets more stable and more features but i doubt it wil work unless you have done something to make it work.

Taco

I think this should answer your question.

A Z-Wave network always needs at least one controller but can have multiple. You can create a new Z-Wave network with Homey or should be able to include it in a existing network (were working on that).
I'll have to look up if you can set up switches to report to dimmers with Homey, by head I think this is possible. If not at launch definitely later on. Z-Wave is a complex protocol so including all the functionality we wan't, can't be done instantly but were working very hard

Homey will support all basic functions of Z-Wave devices, specific parameters will depend on the manufacturer.

RowanWeiffenbach

Taco, I understand you're a dev @ Athom. As far as I'm concerned 'association' is a must have for many users as I'm sure I'm not the only user with double lightswitches. Basic functionality such as this should be implemented from the start

Athomey

@Taco: For me Zwave association is should-have, especially when automating luxuary homes in the NL. When Homey is down, most basic functions should keep working in my opinion. Must-have however for me is to be able to set/get parameters/variables with zwave devices. Is this possible with Homey? For example: Configuring Fibaro dimmers/roller/shutters, where you must calibratie % with open/close states, or when you must configure modules for bistable versus monostable switches, and timers for dimmers. Taco, could you confirm that Homey does support this (in my eyes) basic but most necessary Zwave must-have function?

Taco

Homey supports basic get/set commands to all Z-Wave devices in the network.

Athomey

Nice! From within the GUI, without scripting?

Rebtor

Thanks Taca for the reensurence that homey will work in existing networks that makes the tranfer a lot easyer.

I know verry well you can't offer the full possibilities from zwave from the start, it would not be fair the expect that because fibaro en vera are working on exclusively on zwave for years and have problems supporting it still.
Also, Klik aan Klik uit like devices are mutch easyer to get and to implement then zwave devices so you can cover more grounds on those techniques. (on the other hand keeping track of the status of a devices is more easy with zwave because you can poll them). Combine that with all the manufacturers that don't keep the standards like the living connect crap from danfoss and you have your hands full on supporting zwave. So i totaly get that the more advanced zwave functions come later.

As for the Basic get and Set commands are those just the set device ON and OFF commands (COMMAND_CLASS_BASIC 0x20). Or does that also include the COMMAND_CLASS_CONFIGURATION 0x70. (Because that is the one i think fibaro uses for setting up there devices.) Association is covered in commandclass COMMAND_CLASS_ASSOCIATION 0x85.

If you look at vera they have implemented those advanced settings (COMMAND_CLASS_CONFIGURATION 0x70)in a very basic way just give the settingID, set hex or Decimal and the value. Its a verry crude way of supporting it but it will alow you to set almost any device.
At a later point in time you could offer a nice gui with slider bars ect depending on the type / brand of the device to make it more dummy proof but i can understand that would be something that nobody minds if it comes later on.

Seeing your passion for this device i have all the confidence that you will implement the remaining classes later on.

I can't wait for you to launch the homey's..

Athomey

+1

Taco

Last couple of days (and nights) I've been busy with Z-Wave associations and basic support will be available! I can't put a date on full support yet.

Fire69

Awesome! o

I really can't wait anymore to get my Homey! My Almond+ (and especially the lack of support for devices ) is pissing me off more and more each day!