HAI by Leviton

[etc6849]

How is Leviton not DIY? You can buy a lot of their stuff at Home Depot for crying out loud. They also have free online training about Z-Wave that anyone can register for, free professional software anyone can download, and they also make one of the only RS232 Z-Wave controllers with a published protocol (that's right it's actually on their website for anyone to download unlike Elk who hides their manuals until you buy their product!?!).

I'm not really for or against Leviton, but they seem pretty open to DIY'ers. In fact, one of their engineers helped me with a firmware fix on their VRC0Pv3 right when it came out. He was very nice and courteous and actually used a Z-Wave module several of us wrote for Premise in his testing, extending a lot of effort until everything worked perfect. If anything Leviton is as DIY or more than Elk.

 

[drvnbysound]

I am curious to see what this does to their Lighting offerings... specifically if they continue to sell both (HAI) UPB and (Leviton Vizia RF+) Zwave devices?

Agreed that Leviton is definitely DIY in terms of physically being able to purchase their products. That said, I have never had an issue with installing a product and don't know how receptive they are in terms of technical support...

 

[pbeaulieu]

Well in the past I have called Leviton support for zwave, vrcopv3 and warranty on a regular switch. I always received very good support and the support staff was friendly.

 

[jdk972003]

Okaaaaayyyy everyone! I get it! My one time experience was not indicative of the company! :horse:

How about that weather! h34r:

 

[etc6849]

I'd like to see a zigbee VRC0P. If Leviton designed the protocol correctly, they could engineer a VRC0P for zigbee that would still be compatible with the Elk M1G and others. Z-Wave is great, but it's a little slow if you turn off 20 devices one after another. I'd like to see them use a faster wireless technology (if one exists).

 

[drvnbysound]

I'd like to see a zigbee VRC0P. If Leviton designed the protocol correctly, they could engineer a VRC0P for zigbee that would still be compatible with the Elk M1G and others. Z-Wave is great, but it's a little slow if you turn off 20 devices one after another. I'd like to see them use a faster wireless technology (if one exists).

I was curious and just did a little Google searching... I know that's not necessarily thorough but what I found was both Zigbee and Z-Wave are capable of 250kbps.

 

[etc6849]

Capable of 250kbps, probably. But what z-wave device uses 250kbps? Even the Leviton USB stick has only 40 kbps marked on it. There's also further questions like packet overhead and which technology has the least etc...

Perhaps it is the VRC0P that is slow, but I know when I turn off a switch manually, the update takes a second or so to show up on my serial port. Turning on 20 lights instantly at the same time can be done with scenes or groups. However, it takes a while for the status update packets to show up on the VRC0P's port. None of this prevented me from choosing Z-Wave for my locks, lights, etc... But I do think the technology could be improved, probably at the expense of standby power consumption.

The technology is reliable, just slow sometimes. If a packet does fail, Premise will automatically resend it up to a variable number of times (default is three).