I have two Dome sirens that I use as door chimes whenever any of the 3 doors are opened. Each door has a 2GIG recessed door sensor, and I use a Reactor Sensor to trigger the door chime. Using reactor to create a 60 second delay on the condition.
More often now, one or both of the chimes will sound 2-4 times instead of once. I have contacted Dome, they have never encountered this and offered no help and Vera support just points the finger back to the device. I have tried using just one Dome siren, Vera scenes instead of reactor, remove and re-include the alarms and still have this issue.
If Vera doesnāt get an acknowledge from the siren, it seems to send the chime command again. I found that fresh batteries in the chime fix the problem. You might also see if moving the chime to a different location gives better signal strength.
I will admit I did not replace the batteries. Vera shows a 93% status so I ruled it out- I may put a power supply on it if that is the cause. Thank you.
Another question for you- I have been searching the threads recently about general latency of the Vera controller and saw that you have replied. I get frustrated every once in awhile with my sensor triggered events. Usually it is my motion sensors turning lights on (which are all aeotec multisensors that are plugged in). The only sensors that utilize batteries are the door sensors.
Iām wondering if I am putting to much on my controller. It is a VeraSecure. I have 55 z-wave devices (44 are light switches), 11 virtual switches, 18 reactor sensors, 2 cameras, 8 delay light timers, a virtual thermostat, and 14 scenes. Granted, most of the RS and scenes are simply timer events, still Iām wondering if getting a second controller would reduce my lag. Most of the threads on bridging controllers have been removed.
I assume you are running the latest Vera firmware? Many of the latency problems have been reduced or eliminated, at least for my Vera Plus system, which is even more extensive than yours.
Battery levels are meaningless (in my experience) as a guide to whether a given battery device has enough power to operate correctly. I have some devices that become flakey when reporting ~90%, and others that will operate for a week after the reported battery level is 0%. I have set battery level notifications for each device based on my experience, and change out the batteries āit helps.
I have a number of the Aeotec Multisensors 6s running on battery power. They seem to trigger a bit more slowly than my Ecolink units. I have some new Dome motion and light sensors that are quite responsive, but both of them are used with @rigpapaās DelayLight or Reactor plugins, which are quite fast and donāt involve Vera scenes.
If you are seeing delays that suddenly run to many seconds, that usually means a Z-Wave communication issue. Search the logs for ātardyāāthis may help you see whatās going on.
Understood about the batteries, Iāll swap those out in the chimes and let you know how I make out. Hopefully I donāt have to move them closer to the controller.
I am running the current firmware, 1.7.4454.
I agree that the delay I see if a Z-wave communication issue. If Iām paying attention, Iāll see the green led on the multi sensor light immediately, then there will be the 2-5 second delay before DelayLight turns the lights on. The question is would it help to alleviate the Z-wave network if I had another controller helping? Or am I being to picky with this?
When you say search the logs, I assume you are referring to my controllers logs. I havenāt put a thumb drive on it yet. I had plans to get a large drive and use DataMine and Ergy (I still havenāt set up my amp clamps) but I feared that it would slow the controller down even more.
It does give me peace of mind though that you have a much more intensive system without problems.
The question is, how long does the Aeotec sensor take from lighting the green light to sending the Z-Wave to Vera? Thatās not easy to determine in my experience. I have three brands of motion sensor and they all perform differently.
Let me suggest avoiding Ergyāitās a mess and is a major contributor to instability. You might search to forum for alternatives that use external resources for graphing.
You can look at the logs by putting this string into a browser address bar: http://your_vera_ip/cgi-bin/cmh/log.sh?Device=LuaUPnP and using the CTRL-F search in the browser. If youāre not using ALTUI, let me suggest that you give it a try. Itās the Swiss Army knife for Vera and can help you find and fix problems. It has extensive tolls for log analysis.
An update: I changed the batteries in the sirens and it wasnāt the solve all solution. I even moved them in a clear line of sight to the controller.
At one point the siren rang 4-6 times. I noticed that it continued to sound until a DelayLight activity finally fired. So I am seeing the delay in the z-wave communication. The question is why is it ringing while it is in ābusyā mode.
Iām going to install ALTUI and start logging data.
Hey Derekkirsch,
I have one of those in the Office and found i had the same sort of issue.
Parameter 3 is the Culprit as by default the device is meant to chime for 1 Minute, and even with the auto off command we had it set for would sometimes never turn it off.
If you Set Parameter 3 to 1 byte Hex with the Value of FF the chime will never turn off, however you can interrupt it mid chime and at the end of a chime by having an auto off.
I donāt follow you with Parameter 3. I did look into the settings to see if there was something I could change, but I assumed I was right with it set to 1.
3: This parameter defines the number of times the Chime/Secondary Notification will play.
00 (Chime Will Not Play)
01~FE (1~254 Cycles)
FF (Does Not Stop)
Obviously having it set to 1, I would expect only 1 cycle or chime sound.
I have no idea how to set up an auto off. That is the setting you are using? Having FF or unlimited cycles with an auto off?
Ahh sorry for the confusion there Derek, i might have used some of my office jargon
Ill tell you the exact set-up i have in the office, we use it as an Entry bell because for some reason people dont see the big sign saying āPlease Ring the Bellā.
Also just quickly, according to the manual i have Parameter 3ās duration is not cycles but Minutes, so according to my manual having it set to 1 will make it go for one Minute.
I have the Dome Siren Set in Chime Mode, with Parameter 3 set to 1 byte Hex with the value of FF or āChime Does Not Stopā for some reason my chime mutes on Value 00 which is why i have mine set to FF.
I then Have a scene set up so when the Office door opens it turns on the Chime/Siren, then it has another event with a delay that after 7 seconds the Siren turns off, For me this makes the Chime go though two Cycles.
Attached is an Image of what the scene looks like on the Basic UI7, No Lua is needed.
You are using the binary switch āalarmā as your bell or chime. Which means you have parameter 7 set to 02, correct?
I had always used the chime function in the scene building. Same with using Reactor, I used luup.call_action(āurn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:ZWaveNetwork1ā,āSendDataā,{Node=ā92ā,Data=āx87 1 1ā},1) as the activity.
I am going to try the set up you have, Iāll let you know how I make out.
6: If Parameter 7 is set to 02, the Siren will play a secondary chime sound instead of the main alarm. The Siren offers ten different sounds to use as the Chime (secondary) notification. This parameter sets the Chime (secondary) notification sound. 01 ~ 0A (Sound Index Number)
7: This Parameter toggles between the Primary and Secondary notification sound to be played when the Siren receives a BINARY_SWITCH_SET(FF) command. 01 (Primary Notification Will Play) 02 (Secondary Notification Will Play)
Yeah i installed the office one before Vera Made a Template for the device, so i dont have the Door Chime buttons like you do.
@korttoma I do know the there is a company called Neo CoolCam sells the identical siren, If you do have the CoolCam siren you can get the chime functions by adding it using the Dome Siren Templates, thats how i got mine to pop up.
@TechPigeon yes I do have the CoolCam and I did try adding it as a Dome but I stil did not get the chime function, this is why Iām asking about the values of the advanced attributes so I can manually change it.
I switched the chime to utilize the alarm as the event rather than the chime. It seems to perform better, but I have ran into much bigger problems with my controller.
The Vera Secure will lose connection randomly and stay offline until I do a hard reset underneath the back cover. During this time, no Z-wave commands/rules run at all. All of the status lights are on solid when it does this. Iām getting very impatient with this.
@derekkirsch you are right the advanced attributes are the same as I already have so now I do not know how to fool the system that my siren is a Dome. Guess I need to try again to include it using the Dome wizardā¦
unless I could manually create the chime panel, then I would need lots of information from the chime panel attributes.
Found the Dome Chime panel plugin from the apps store but even with this installed I can not manually create the chime panel.
There must be some attribute for the Dome Siren that identifies it as a Dome siren so that the chime panel can be created. Would you mind taking some screen dumps of all the attributes under the Siren and the chime panel devices?
I need to try and exclude/include when I get home to see what happens.
@korttoma I would think that the Dome Plugin only works with a dome chime, not a different siren/chime all together. I may have a couple to sell if you want them.
Update on my multiple chimes: Nothing good. Whenever there is a lag in the Z-wave communication the chime will continue to sound. It drives you insane.
At this point Iām going to test a couple Aeotech Doorbell 6ās to see if I have the same issue. Iāve been a fan of Aeotecās multisensors, plus I like that they have the ability to plug in.
Well as many may know if youāve looked up Aeotecās Doorbell 6 in these forums, it is not yet supported by Vera, so the test did not go well. Ended up sticking with the Dome Chimes. I am using the on/off to send the chime, similar to how @TechPigeon described.
No matter how I chose to send the signal to sound the chime, whenever there was a lag in the Z-wave system, from polling the status of the chime, it would continue to sound. This is the only way Iāve found that I consistently get one chime out of an action. There are times that they donāt even sound although one of the two almost always rings, still that was better than ringing 5-6 times.
Using Reactor, I first tell the alarm to go off to āwake it upā then make the sound.
