I saw a couple of blurbs that said you could do it with just the XEP.
As Jetstream is an RF solution I don't know how that could be possible. Perhaps there was some confusion with one of their hardwired systems? Their bridge is RS-232 to RF / RF to RS-232.
- What's the best way to interface this? I'd prefer to not have to buy another serial expander.
The expander provides the the ELK with the proper command structure for Jetstream. There is specific Firmware from ELK for the XSP to communicate with Jetstream systems.
- How good is the integration with the M1?
While I have seen slight delays in load status updates to my RMS devices, they have been accurate. Each device reports status after a change either locally or by command. Then the bridge needs to convert that to a string for the ELK, which then needs to update RMS. So when a scene with multiple devices reporting is executed is when I see the largest delay between the first to last load update. However I've not seen incorrect load status reported.
Scenes are a different story. Say you activate scene 1, then you activate scene 2 which uses the same loads. While the devices respond to the scene 2 commands, scene 1 will still be considered "on" by the ELK, as it was never turned "off". While you can write rules forcing scene 1 "off" when scene 2 is activated, the result is less than pleasing as rather than a smooth transition the loads will dim to off, then up to the new scene's setting. Since even when a scene is shown as "on" in RMS, touching "on" again or using a rule does correctly activate it so I don't reset the scenes to off, instead opting for the aesthetically pleasing (read WAF) transition.
Bottom line both are playing nicely together and so far I have no complaints.
