Everspring door/window sensor not behaving - event problem?

[mythtified]

no polling involved, it sends a report to the associated node in group 1 (that should be your dongle)..

br Hari

I thought that zwave devices were polled.  So they can send data without being asked for it first?  I have to do some reading.

[purps]

No joy.

mythtified, I've tested the sensor as you've described, and the LED indicates that it is working.

I have tried the sensor with a VERY powerful magnet, and it still does not sound the alarm.

I've reset and re-added everything several times, but still the same problem on every occasion; only the tamper switch sets off the alarm.

Does anybody have any other suggestions please? I simply cannot think of anything else to try.

[hari]

no polling involved, it sends a report to the associated node in group 1 (that should be your dongle)..

br Hari

I thought that zwave devices were polled.  So they can send data without being asked for it first?  I have to do some reading.

yes. This is  why you usually set proper associations. You cannot poll a sleeping device (battery powered). Polling is only used to update the status of light switches.

br Hari

[mythtified]

I did some reading yesterday and found out about the battery operated sleeping device cannot be used as a repeater.  So when an event occurs the sleeping device wakes up and sends information to the associated device(dongle)?  With polling going on is it some kind of pseudo interrupt driven mechanism to catch the attention of the dongle?  I saw something about collision avoidance but have not had a chance to read it thoroughly yet.  I found an article on Dr Dobbs site and found a pdf that was marked as confidential.  It is too bad zwave is closed source.  So lmce is using the open source version of the zwave protocol?  Sorry about all the questions.

[hari]

I did some reading yesterday and found out about the battery operated sleeping device cannot be used as a repeater.  So when an event occurs the sleeping device wakes up and sends information to the associated device(dongle)? 

correct

With polling going on is it some kind of pseudo interrupt driven mechanism to catch the attention of the dongle?  I saw something about collision avoidance but have not had a chance to read it thoroughly yet.  I found an article on Dr Dobbs site and found a pdf that was marked as confidential.  It is too bad zwave is closed source.  So LinuxMCE is using the open source version of the zwave protocol?

i don't understand your question.

Br Hari

[mythtified]

I was wondering how the dongle knows that a device is sending data?  In a polling situation the controller would talk to each device in turn and the devices would not talk to the controller unless they are queried. A process in a computer would use a hardware or software interrupt to gain the attention of the cpu. In the situation where the device is sleeping and wakes up after an event how does the device get the attention of the controller without being stepped on during the polling process? 

[purps]

Sorry gents, without wanting to sound like a complete arse, would you two mind having this conversation on another thread please? I'm concerned that people are going to miss my posts regarding the problem I'm having with my door/window sensor (only the tamper switch activates the alarm; moving the magnet away does not).

I appreciate the advice I've been given so far. If you or anybody else has any other thoughts I would be glad to hear them.

Cheers,
Matt.

[hari]

@Matt: if you did setup the associations properly after inclusion I'd suspect that your unit might be broken.

br Hari

[purps]

Define "properly"

This is what I did...

Removed the dongle. Placed next to sensor. Pressed the button on the dongle to make the light flash. Pressed tamper switch on sensor three times (dongle blinks more rapidly, then goes back to blinking like normal). Put dongle back in core. Wizard starts, click on cancel. Asked to reload router - yes. Go into webadmin, find generic sensor (child of "z-wave security interface", child of "Zwave"). Change name to "DoorTest", specified a room, and chose the door icon. Have then gone into "Active Sensors" and selected "Security" in dropdown menu for DoorTest under "armed - away".

Then, if I arm the alarm, moving the magnet away from the main part of the sensor does not give a security breach, but as I said before, the tamper switch DOES give a security breach (pretty much instantly), when the sensor is picked up from the table.

Is any more than this required from the point of view of setting up the associations? I would have thought that if the tamper switch is setting off the alarm, then it must be setup correctly?

Cheers,
Matt.

[hari]

you need to put the dongle's node id into the association group 1 of the everspring sensor.  From the manual:
"The Door/Window Detector supports one association group with five nodes. This has the effect that when the Detector trigger, all devices associated with Detector will be operated."

so please RTFM: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Everspring_SP103#Association
then send a "Set Association" command to the ZWave device, with the following parameters:
#239 - the node ID of your everspring sensor (can be seen in the port/channel field)
#249 - group number, this is 1 for this device
#250 - the node id of your dongle, probably 1 when you are using the crap dongle with the inclusion button

Hari

[mythtified]

#250 - the node id of your dongle, probably 1 when you are using the crap dongle with the inclusion button

Hari

Hari, I get the distinct impression that you do not like this dongle.  Could you give me the reason why and your preferences in a private message so as to not to give the appearance of hijacking this thread?

Thx
Larry

[purps]

#250 - the node id of your dongle, probably 1 when you are using the crap dongle with the inclusion button

Hari

Hari, I get the distinct impression that you do not like this dongle.  Could you give me the reason why and your preferences in a private message so as to not to give the appearance of hijacking this thread?

Thx
Larry

I believe it is because it lacks SIS mode (whatever that is!) which means these associations have to be done manually. Apparently the antenna design is inferior to the Seluxit also.

Thank you for the advice Hari, I have been having trouble grasping the node/group business, but your post does make it a bit clearer. Should've bought the Seluxit Trouble is one can RTFM, but still have no idea what is relevant! Will report back, thanks again.

Cheers,
Purps.

[hari]

I believe it is because it lacks SIS mode (whatever that is!) which means these associations have to be done manually. Apparently the antenna design is inferior to the Seluxit also.

correct.

SIS mode is very nice, as you are doing the inclusion of a new node with an inclusion controller. The dongle stays connected to the core that way. The inclusion controller will ask the node id server (read; our core with the connected dongle and LinuxMCE running) for a new node id and will do the inclusion on behalf of the node id server (SIS). The really cool thing with that is that we'll receive a network change information frame on the LinuxMCE side as soon as the device is included. Even battery powered devices are powered up while the inclusion takes place. So this is just the right point in time to do basic configuration (like the wake up configuration for the wake up command class used by nearly all battery powered devices). Some devices like the Danfoss RA-PLUS-w thermostat even requires SIS mode.
That dongle with the inclusion button is nice when you only want to add a few simple devices like lamps. But things get hard when you want to use more advanced z-wave stuff.

br Hari

[mythtified]

So the Seluxit is your recommendation for a controller then or do you like something else?

[hari]

So the Seluxit is your recommendation for a controller then or do you like something else?

I use a seluxit as static controller on the lmce core and really recommend it.

br Hari