Intermatic controller issue

[kmckinney]

Ok,
So i have a simple network 2 wall switches (one a dimmer the other not) and the starter kit controller.

My lights are running off of button set 1 and the fan off of the 2nd button set.

My issue is that in the last 2-3 months the lights switch on the remote doesn't always seem to work right, i press it and sometimes it will and won't work, may take 3 tries may take 10. Now I have noticed that if after the first failure i hit the off for my fan then try to turn the lights off it usually works. Can anyone give me an idea of what the heck i should do to resolve this. Thanks in advance for the advice

 

[IVB]

Sounds like a mesh density issue for me. How far apart are your switches? I had massive issues with network reliability initially, 2 things helped me:

1) I added more switches in. It took nearly 12 in my massively RF-unfriendly house to hit a decent density.
2) CQC had to add a lot of "robustness" into the driver to retry on failure. Using the remote wouldn't always work as it didn't retry appropriately, but now with CQC it all works pretty well.

 

[kmckinney]

I have the issue if i am standing 5 feet away looking at the switch holding the controller. Now my 2 switches are in the same wall box. This worked great for a while then it just slowly started to get worse with time.

 

[Squintz]

I am with IVB on this one. It seems that you are having communication problems. What hardware are you using? What remote control? What manufacture of devices? How old are the devices?

I have experience this issue my self but my network is much larger. I have nearly 25 devices in my small townhome. The problem I experience is when I start adding and removing devices. The routing tables get messed up and signals are being routed through devices that don't exist. Have you replaced a device recently? This would happen even with two devices. Do you happen to have a wall module also that you unplugged?

If you think that may be the issue then you are probably going to need to:

1. Remove all devices from your network using the reset option of your remote
2. Reset the remote to erase any network information
3. Re-Learn your devices

There are other options such as using an intermatic USB stick as your primary controller and this will allow you to use some advance features such as Rediscover of routing tables and removing devices from the network when they are not powered. Take a look at ControlThinks ThinkEssentials software. I use this software a lot for diagnosing my network issues. Some other tools would be HomeSeers solutions but I don't know much about them. I know they have a tool that allows you to visually see the routing for your network but it may require that you own HomeSeer.

If you are a programmer you may also want to look into ControlThinks PC SDK. I am slowing working on How-To tutorials at http://www.zwaveworld.com/forum. I hope to have a few code samples up by this weekend. The PC SDK does not currently allow you to view your routing but it will very soon according to Chris of ControlThink.