Elk + Vizia - When?

[pgray007]

I am starting to commit to Vizia after some very limited testing. Lighting automation has huge WAF for us since my wife hates coming home to a dark house. Ideally I'd like to get full 2-way capability integrated with Elk, but I can't discern if the Elk solution is weeks away, or more like months. If it's the later, I'd go with a temporary ZWave solution of some sort. If the former, I'll wait it out.

Seems like it's just around the corner, is anyone willing to provide a more specific timeframe? I don't need an exact date, just whether we'll see it before or after a March-ish timeframe.

 

[HighTest]

Read towards the end of this thread, http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=9051. Looks like what you read about there, plus other threads if you search, is that a possible beta firmware possibly exists and that an application for the PC setup might be all that remains. Possibly Johnnynine's work is going to be that application?

In any case, I've found over the years that Beta's from various companies typically have some kind of non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Don't know if that's the case here, but I suspect that could be the case, in that light it'll be very difficult to have someone post entire details in a thread. More than likely, you'd need to go directly to the source, Elk Products, and ask that if there is such a beta or pilot if you could participate.

Start the search and good luck! Hope you find the info you need. If you learn anything more than what you've found posted here, make sure to check with Elk before posting in light of any possible NDA.

 

[Spanky]

We need some feedback from testers using the M1XSP Vizia software to the Leviton RZCOP module and Johnnynine's software. How are things working?

I sometimes I feel like a mushroom!!

 

[shenandoah75]

I feel like an ignored mushroom

I've offered multiple times to be a beta-tester dating back several months (i believe i can proudly claim to be one of the first elk/viziarf winey babies)... And if you can provide it - i promise to test ASAP namely this weekend and have feedback to you by monday. I think i've got a pretty decent sized setup and i've got a spare serial expander, the rzcop and johnny's program to dump the xml...


Plus - if you provide it before the weekend, i'll even give Elk a christmas present: a slightly used M1XZW for any use of your choice (elk pays shipping)

thx
-brad

 

[pgray007]

I'd be more than happy to test as well. I'm new to the HA scene but have helped large companies test huge enterprise systems, so I know "a thing or two" about testing. If the beta program is closed, can you give a ballpark as to when this stuff will be available, even if it's something as wide a 1-6 months versus 12-18 months.

 

[Spanky]

PM me with your email and I will contact you about the beta test program.

ELK engineering is closed the week of Christmas until after Jan 1st.

Shenandoah75: Maybe someone else can use the M1XZW!!

I am gone for Christmas.

Everyone have a Merry Christmas or whatever to be politically correct.

 

[ph0n33z]

What? Someone is giving away a free Z-Wave Elk Adaptor??

*batts his eyes*

 

[pgray007]

I finally got my Elk + Serial Expander FW 20.0.1 + Vizia setup going last night, and can report three initial problems:

1) The "All off" lighting function does not appear to work. I've tried triggering an "All lights" and "All units" off when arming the system, and neither seems to do anything. I tried the same event turning a single light on and off, which does work, so I don't think it's my code.

2) I too get the "bouncing light" effect others have described. I set a light to turn on an off with the arm state for testing. When I disarmed the system the light came on as expected. When I manually turned the light off at the switch, it dimmed down, then instantly dimmed right back up. I've never seen this happen before so I can only attribute it to the Elk piece of the puzzle.

3) I wrote a rule to activate a light for 10 minutes when a zone is open and the "It's dark outside" condition is true. The light triggered like a champ when I opened the door, but had not turned off approximately 30 minutes later after closing the door.

On a minor aside, I can't figure out how to setup "groups/zones/scenes" or however Elk refers to the two things:

a) What I would call a group - A bunch of devices I can turn on or off with one command
What I would call a scene - Preset on/off/dim levels for a set of devices that can be invoked by a single command

Glad to see things are coming together though! I would love to see Johnny9's code integrated so Elk would auto-discover the network.

 

[Spanky]

Try checking the FUTURE selection in the Light setup. This stops the light bounce when using the ISY26 and Insteon and may help here.

 

[politics123]

Try checking the FUTURE selection in the Light setup. This stops the light bounce when using the ISY26 and Insteon and may help here.

Spanky --

Thanks for the idea. I reprogrammed and will see whether the bounce goes away.

 

[shenandoah75]

I tried "future" as per Spanky/Don's prior suggestion (as did Johnny9 i think) and it still didn't resolve... In addition to that (which is the main reason my RZCOP sits unplugged right now), this was the other feedback i had given:



- As noted above, neither All Lights On / All Lights Off / All Units Off commands work. Per the protocol, it looks like they support broadcast messages (although only All On is given as an example. Could these be implemented?

- As John has pointed out as well, it seems to be no initial polling upon M1 startup which is sortof a bummer as you can't see light levels until they are changed after the M1 boots.

- Enhancement Request:
Any chance Elk would consider one of two options"
a) allotting half of the latter 128 banks current used for Groups for Scenes.
- Or -
perhaps allow a jumper setting to allow user to determine if they want to use groups or scenes. Since scenes appear the only way to use custom fade rates over the RZCOP, this would be a nice to have.


-brad

 

[pgray007]

A few more notes from my experience in the last 24 hours:

- I too have "Future" set as I recall reading about it somewhere in here, and that does not help the bounce.

- I've also noticed the Elk seems to ignore the timer portion of the "Turn light on, then turn off in XX minutes" command. When it turns a light on, it never turns it off.

- Switch updates do not seem to be reflected in the Elk. When I manually turn a light on or off, and then look through the lighting on the automation menu on a keypad, it does not accurately reflect the status of the switches about 80% of the time. This generally happens when a switch is manually changed.

- On the all off/on command, as mentioned it does not work. What is interseting is that the device status in the automation menu will show all devices in a group (i.e. all "A" devices if I sent housecode A with the all off) as being off, even though their physical status has not changed. It almost seems like the Elk is not confirming the commands it sends, and just assuming things will happen. Perhaps a leftover from X10 days where there was not confirmation and status reporting?

It would be really nice to abandon some of what seem X10-centric functionality. Implementing groups and/or scenes would be an obvious winner for any lighting protocol, and perhaps adding Johnny 9's network discovery code would be a boon for Vizia users.

I will continue to report what I learn.

 

[politics123]

A few more notes from my experience in the last 24 hours:

- I too have "Future" set as I recall reading about it somewhere in here, and that does not help the bounce.

- I've also noticed the Elk seems to ignore the timer portion of the "Turn light on, then turn off in XX minutes" command. When it turns a light on, it never turns it off.

- Switch updates do not seem to be reflected in the Elk. When I manually turn a light on or off, and then look through the lighting on the automation menu on a keypad, it does not accurately reflect the status of the switches about 80% of the time. This generally happens when a switch is manually changed.

- On the all off/on command, as mentioned it does not work. What is interseting is that the device status in the automation menu will show all devices in a group (i.e. all "A" devices if I sent housecode A with the all off) as being off, even though their physical status has not changed. It almost seems like the Elk is not confirming the commands it sends, and just assuming things will happen. Perhaps a leftover from X10 days where there was not confirmation and status reporting?

It would be really nice to abandon some of what seem X10-centric functionality. Implementing groups and/or scenes would be an obvious winner for any lighting protocol, and perhaps adding Johnny 9's network discovery code would be a boon for Vizia users.

I will continue to report what I learn.

I can confirm that "future" doesn't help with the light bounce. Further testing indicates that the easiest way to recreate "bounce" is to adjust the dimming of lights. While it doesn't happen all the time, the lights "bounce" much more than when I just turn them on/off.

Spanky -- Have the engineers been able reproduce this in the lab?

 

[Spanky]

Information from the Vizia Guru:

1.) All Lights On/Off are not supported (in the M1 that’s an X10 function only). You will need to configure a “Group” to include the lights, in order to accomplish this.

2.) The Vizia Beta firmware doesn’t do any polling on initial power-up or otherwise. That’s always been the question “Do we want to offer an option for polling?”



Enhancement Requests

Groups should work; the upper 128 are already configured to send the Group commands. As far as Scenes are concerned, it looks like the RZC0P requires that the scene to be associated with the node. Without the M1 telling the M1XSP what scene to send to what node, I don’t know how to do it.

 

[mimitche]

- I've also noticed the Elk seems to ignore the timer portion of the "Turn light on, then turn off in XX minutes" command. When it turns a light on, it never turns it off.

I have the same problem with my M1 and Insteon when polling is enabled. When I set the jumper S3 on the XSP to disable polling it works fine. Any chance a similar config is used for zwave control?