Slow responsiveness

AppelFlap321

Hi,

(sorry, the links are in Dutch)

I recently recieved my Homey, and am happily poking around with it. To keep the initital costs low, I purchased a few KlikAanKlikUit modules for switching; among other things:
KAKU awst-8800 (wallbutton)
KAKU awmr-300 (switch in the ceiling)

The idea being obvious of course. Before I recieved my Homey, I connected those two directly to each other. There was a very slight delay, but nothing too bad. When recieved my Homey, I connected both devices to it. To my dissapointment (or better, my toddler's dissapointment) the delay for switching is (I think) about 0,7 seconds. (at least more than half a second). My toddler obviously can't wait that long before the light turns on, and so she starts pressing buttons, which does not help in general :-)

I was wondering if anyone has an idea on why this problem exists. Is this a Homey-thing, or is it a limitation of KAKU stuff?

I also got a KAKU awst-8802 for the livingroom where I control two Philips Hue Ambiance bulbs (without a Hue bridge, using the Philips Hue Zigbee app). The left button turns the light on and off, the right one changes the brightness (and by clicking the lights-on again, when they are lit, the right ones change to colortempurature)

This also isn't very fast, though it is less noticable due to how the Hue bulbs light up slowly.

If it is due to the KAKU stuff I purchased,  is it possible that AeonLabs Wallmote may be a better idea?


Any suggestions are most welcome.

bvdbos

But 0.7 seconds isn't that bad, is it? The signal has to go to Homey, it has to be processed and then send. You could keep your orignial setup with KaKu (which also have a delay when controlling directly btw) and still control KaKu through Homey. If you use zwave-stuff you can create direct associations, so maybe faster but also more expensive...

Nattelip

i dont  think that zwave events are handled quicker as other events in homey , on my loaded Homey with apps and devices  , sometimes it takes 5 seconds or longer before homey reacts 

lubbertkramer

Nattelip said:

i dont  think that zwave events are handled quicker as other events in homey , on my loaded Homey with apps and devices  , sometimes it takes 5 seconds or longer before homey reacts 

70+ zigbee but when opening door with contact sensor xiaomi with flow turn light ikea mostly it's almost instant, no long delays. It's maybe not quicker but Homey gets a respons back and with Kaku it goes screaming for x time repeat over a x time to get the message to the device in the hope it reaches it so when it misses the first time it takes longer when it only hits the second or at a later time 

AppelFlap321

bvdbos said:

But 0.7 seconds isn't that bad, is it? The signal has to go to Homey, it has to be processed and then send. You could keep your orignial setup with KaKu (which also have a delay when controlling directly btw) and still control KaKu through Homey. If you use zwave-stuff you can create direct associations, so maybe faster but also more expensive...

To be honest I find 700ms rediculously long for what it is doing. It's an RF-signal (>330m/s), so a transmission of 5 meter (it's less in my case) back and forth takes about 2x15ms, if the Homey software needs more than 500ms to parse and action the request it is a VERY poor implementation given the hardware specifications (1GHz CPU and 512MB Ram)
For this reason I hope it's inherent to the KAKU solution.

I posted the initial post at the office, but I am testing at home now. When I control the few things I have from my phone, the Hue lamps respond 'instantly' (it's hard to see the delay as they 'dim' when they go 'off'). The KAKU modules respond slow, but not as slow as when I use the wall-switches, so I THINK it's the KAKU parts. I'm hoping someone has the same experience before I'm going to buy more expensive switches to replace the KAKU switches.

GeurtDijker

So you did some research  about the speed .... How did you measure the ~700 ms response time?

but ~330 m/sec is sound in dry air and that's real slow!
And yes, correct Radio waves are faster, 
Radio waves is almost speed of light or ~ 300000 km /second ;-)

But I guess you missed it isn't an elctro impulse that switches it. is is a short code of pulses. 
Read fe https://blog.athom.com/making-rf-work-433-868-mhz-homey/ 
Specially ( Homeys implementation of 433MHz and 868Mhz communication )
compare it to a a short melody to distinguish different codes.
But you can only know it is for you if you hear the complete melody to the end, if one tone misses or is different it could be for another switch. ( Actually it are several different pulses, no tones ;-) )

And because the cheap KAKU radios there is no guarantee that someone else is talking or singing  thru your song... 
So how do you know the receiver has heard and understand the correct melody?  

It doesn't know! KAKU 's sender just repeats the melody is a couple of times. 
Anytime the Socket hears the correct  melody it will switch on (or OFF)
(maybe several times on one press, but who cares?)

Homeys microcontrollers are a little bit smart and wait some time to hear no others a transmitting. 
(I am not sure they fully implement a sort of collision detection)

So if we look at the Radio graphs: 


I set up a AYCT-102 paied with Homey, 
a ACD-1000 paired with Homey
One Flow that detects the Button 1 one from the AYCT and sends a On to the ACD

not really exact, but lets say the 2 seconds timestamp interval was ~150 pixels. (The graph scrolls down)
75  pixels for each second of recording. 
if the short button is pressed i get  27 pixels signal, that is ~ 360 ms.
Homey Processes and reponds.... (maye already on first signal)
Homey waits and checks the frequency to be free. this Pause is 18 pixels or ~240 ms.
Then Homey transmits, for my KAKU it transmitted I Guess the default of 10 repetitions with a interval of 5ms.
(KAKU App is closed so we don't know exactly.)
Timings and duration of signal can differ for various types of KAKU or other brands switches and remotes. 

So yes, it will take at least more than half a second before the first signal is received by your socket if you switch over Homey. 
Did you look at the Z-wave Logs of Homey?
That is where you find sometimes different log entries within a couple of milliseconds!

The Slowness you experience is first the Single band Radio communication, that misses an acknowledge that something is received....  and therefor just all company's of cheap  products schout to get heard on this free and unlicensed  433 .92 Mhz frequency.

If you really care about delays:
- Try Z-wave or Zigbee, it could be a little bit better,
- Direct communications are always better.
- the best is a wired switch...... it has almost the speed of light! 

But I have to say your ~700 ms timing is probably very close!

AppelFlap321

GeurtDijker said:

So you did some research  about the speed .... How did you measure the ~700 ms response time?

I didn't actually measure. It was on 'feeling'. (from the click of the transmittor to the click of the lights was clearly longer than half a second, but not a full second, so somewhere in between)

but ~330 m/sec is sound in dry air and that's real slow!

And yes, correct Radio waves are faster, 
Radio waves is almost speed of light or ~ 300000 km /second ;-)

Of course... silly me But that emphasizes my issue even more. (though the 2x 15ms aren't the show-stopper in this case)
---

Thank you very much for your detailed analysis (I hope you didn't put too much time in it, unless it's a hobby for you of course). I haven't really looked into it technically to be honest. Even though I am a Linux Engineer and I could also have spent (about) the same amount of money on a raspberry pi and a few USB-adapters and using domoticz (or something else), but I wanted to just buy "a device" for my purpose.

If you really care about delays:

- Try Z-wave or Zigbee, it could be a little bit better,
- Direct communications are always better.
- the best is a wired switch...... it has almost the speed of light!

Unfortunately, the wired stuff is not possible in my situation. I was hoping other people could confirm that the Z-wave / Zigbee modules are faster. I'll do some more investigating on this.

Also, I just found the 'developer site' of Homey. A whole world has opened up for me I'll be sure to look into this somewhere this week.

Thanks again for your time and effort!!