Keen Smart Vent

Can you tell me what your Zigbee channel you use perhaps? I am not to familiar with Zigbee (veraPlus/settings) and how to tweek it/etc.

Mine stop pairing/including after 6 vents, so please beware (if your getting more than 6 or so. I have a total of 16 of these vents, and would love to just use Vera, but forced to use Wink because of this limitation.

If you have any news on this, that would be great.

I asked Vera support to see what they could do to help, unfortunately they mentioned they donā€™t officially support this device, and pointed me to this forum. :frowning:

Unfortunate that Smartthings and Wink and Iris support this device fully, but not Vera thus far (without limitation).

Cheers!

Well I added my 9th Zigbee device tonight and it appears to work just fine so I am not seeing any limitations. I also have 6 keen vents and did add a 7th one at some point I did not see any problem at that time as I was thinking the limitation was at 8.

Thank you for your feedback. I donā€™t believe the limitation is with other zigbee devices. So you can have several other devices paired/included. The limitation is on these vents. I believe my limitation was 6, only because I had 2 other Keen vents paired/included before, but had issues with them, so I excluded them. I am guessing, those 2 still have residual in my Vera controller (even if excluded), hence that I only have 6 included. :frowning:

I will try to perhaps exclude them all and try again from scratch. I am afraid that if I exclude them, I wonā€™t be able to add anymore (from above analysis). This just boggles my mind, why/how a limitation would even be such a thing on a controller (unless lack of memory on unit/etc).

Any other help here, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again!

Just added two new Keen vents and things were a little different this time around. My previous five vents behaved as described in the first post on this thread. But new vents are now defaulting to a Stelpro STZB402+ ZigBee Thermostat device type. This has two interesting side effects.

First, Vera now creates a companion temperature device in addition to the thermostat. Second, I know have to change the device_type schema as well or the device wonā€™t save or configure properly. After a bunch of trail and error, hereā€™s the revised steps that now work for me (copying an abridged version of Nutornā€™s more through steps):

From Veraā€™s main screen go to ā€˜Devicesā€™
Select ā€˜Add Deviceā€™
Select ā€˜Generic ZigBeeā€™ and begin Veraā€™s three step process
Step 1: Select Your Device
Click ā€˜nextā€™ to get started.
Step 2: Pair Your Device
Pull the teal battery strip to power the vent
Click ā€˜nextā€™ to begin the pairing process
Once the device is discovered and added you will be prompted to name the device and assign it to a room.
Step 3: Give it a name and assign it to a room.
Step 4: Refresh browser window

Step 5: Access the devicesā€™ ā€˜settingsā€™ and select the ā€˜Advancedā€™ tab. Locate and change the following to match these entries:

 device_type = urn:schemas-micasaverde-com:device:WindowCovering:1
 device_file = D_WindowCovering1.xml
 device_json = D_WindowCovering1.json

You must click outside the fieldā€™s input box for the changes to be sent to the controller. I also had to change the following to match the values shown below:

 category_num = 8
 subcategory_num = 1

Once done, click the ā€˜Backā€™ button and select ā€˜Save Changesā€™. You should now see the deviceā€™s icon has changed to the Window Covering icon and you will have full control of your vent using the ā€˜Openā€™, ā€˜Closeā€™ buttons as well as the percentage slider.

Step 6: Delete the phantom temperature sensor device that was created along with the initial thermostat device. Doing so before you make the other changes seems to make the vent disappear from the Vera UI. This was a big chunk of the trial and error I encountered.

Iā€™m not sure if this change in initial device type is due to some new firmware on later Keen vents, or a change in Vera firmware since then (Iā€™m currently running Version 1.7.3232 on my VeraPlus) but both of my last two vents (received due to a wrong part being sent by Keen) behaved the same way. Hopefully this will save someone else some grief down the road.

it sure would be nice if these vents could be supported as first class devices some day, but these hacks seem to work for now.

Nice how-to. Thanks.

These instructions are no longer working and I donā€™t know since when. I am on 1.7.26 and found a mountain of problems with the very buggy vera plus.
The main issue is if you try to follow these instructions, at the first refresh of the browser the device disappears. It is now disappearing because it is invalid since it is missing the device_json attribute. If you try to run the edits, before you get to them a luup reload will occur and wipe out the device completely (not just invisible anymore) and will go into infinite luup reload with a reload every 20s preventing you from saving any of the parameters before they get reset again. MCV, your autoconfigure scripts are creating invalid devices!! The device also never shows up as a door sensor or a thermostat any more. It shows up as generic zigbee device which again is invalid.

I have been troubleshooting the problem and found the solution, you will need to have ALTUI installed because ALTUI displays invalid and hidden devices which UI7 ignores.

New instructions:

  1. Add the generic device to the vera.
  2. Once Vera sees the device and does its first reload (watch the vera plus LEDs, they will be all lit up) remove the batteries from the vent. Why? because the vent sends data to the vera and causes it to reload because the vera does not know what to do with it. The vera code definitely abuses luup reloads I found most to be unjustified. Taking the battery out will enable us to configure the device manually before syncing them.
  3. Go into the device under settings and set the device to not autoconfigure (auto configure to no instead of use default behavior). You will see under advanced/attributes of the device that the device_json field is missing. At this step, it is very likely that the device disappeared, especially if you reloaded the browser page. This is when I switch to ALTUI.
  4. note the device number you just created and go into app/lua test code on the vera or ALTUI.
local devnum = **your device number**
luup.attr_set ("device_json","D_WindowCovering1.json",devnum)
luup.attr_set ("device_file","D_WindowCovering1.xml", devnum)
luup.attr_set ("device_type","urn:schemas-micasaverde-com:device:WindowCovering:1", devnum)
luup.attr_set ("category_num","8", devnum)
luup.attr_set ("subcategory_num","1", devnum)

I personally created my own device_json to show vent icons instead of window covering but for the sake of just fixing the problem, this is what is needed for now.

  1. Now the device should show that it is waiting for the device to wake up to configure. Do a luup reload first (you can go to App/Serial Port Configuration and hit save, you can also go under settings/zwave/advanced/reload engine). Then go back to the device and verify that the attributes have been created and set. It is likely that the name you previously set got wipped so you will have to rename it and it should now show again on UI7 if it had disappeared before.
  2. Now insert the batteries back into the device. The UI will show ā€œconfiguringā€ and the vera will do another luup reload when complete. The vent should now be functioning.
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I just somehow managed to make the device report its battery level to the vera. It seems like the initial inclusion was buggy (after all not officially supported) and some fixes were accidentally made in the latest firmware version on the zigbee battery reporting endpoint.
For those who do not want to exclude and reinclude their devices, here is the luup code to make the battery report correctly

local devnum = **your keen device id**
luup.variable_set("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:ZigbeeDevice1", "SupportedOutClusters", "0019", devnum)
luup.variable_set("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:ZigbeeDevice1", "PowerSourceLevel", "100", devnum)
luup.variable_set("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:ZigbeeDevice1", "ReportAttrib", "0001:4c00=1;0006:0000=0;0008:0000=1;0402:0000=0", devnum)
luup.variable_set("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:ZigbeeDevice1", "VoltageRate", 25, devnum)
luup.variable_set("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HaDevice1", "BatteryLevel", "", devnum)
luup.variable_set("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HaDevice1", "BatteryDate", "", devnum)

This is a great find rafale77. Thank you for sharing.

My Keen vents always get disconnected with Vera ā€œCanā€™t find Deviceā€ as they either have battery drain quick in these vents, or I lose Zigbee connection, or ā€œbattery compartmentā€ on these vents are not the best. Not sure if you have this same issue. Any help/experiences/tips/tricks with these vents, would be much appreciated!!!

When you say firmware was updated, is that on the Vera controller side, or do we have to update the firmware on these vents itself. If so on the vents, is there a howto perhaps you can enlighten us with?

Thanks again!

The disconnections in my experience were due to a poor zigbee mesh. The range and reliability of zigbee is easily compromised if you do not pick the right channel for your environment. It functions on the overly crowded 2.4GHz band. I ultimately made it 100% reliable byā€¦ adding relays in the form of zigbee outlet plugs.

@rafale77: Can you send me the link of the Zigbee relays you got to make it 100% reliable? I have a lot of these vents, but I presume Zigbee doesnā€™t act like a repeater as the Zwave Mesh does. Any suggestions on the channel to use for Zigbee to not interfere as much with 2.4Ghz crowded signal. I read up on channel 26 is best, but Vera doesnā€™t support this channel. I believe I have it on channel 16. I have a mesh router for Wifi, so I canā€™t control the channels as I used to with an Apple router. Any other recommendations/tips/tricks would be greatly appreciated!!!

Lastly, regarding battery, I followed your lua code to put it in dev - test code. It worked! The only thing I notice is every device is reporting 100% battery. Does that update? I presume the Zigbee device updates the Power level of battery, then updates the Vera variable/etc???

Thank you again!!!

I am using some centralite square plugs which originally were also not supported by vera, but since they are simple plugs, they included without trouble. I used these because they were on fire sale at some point last year.
Like zwave though, zigbee does mesh but not for battery operated devices and both the vera and the keen have smallish antennae. Even a single plug made a huge difference for me. The value of the battery does change. Mine which are at least a year old are starting to show some different values. That value is what the keen vent is reporting. Not something the vera is processing. Note that my code sets that value as emptyā€¦ so the 100 came from the vent.

@rafale77: Thank you once again! I have purchased a few of these. I am hoping they are as successful as in your setup. I will keep this forum posted.

Appreciate your help!!!

Sorry I was replying with my phone so I forgot to answer one of the questions. This link shows the overlap of the different channels:

I geeked myself out and actually got myself a spectrum analyzer to identify 2.4GHz network problems. My sonos system for example occupies a lot of bandwidth when it is playing. The microwave in the kitchen can cause complete havoc. Channel 26 for zigbee is rather unusual. I have Hue in my setup as well which is also on Zigbee but on a proprietary protocolā€¦ It is just a very crowded band. I personally have mine on 25. You would have to see what channel your mesh wifi occupiesā€¦

Having decided to get rid of the ecobee, to go all local processsing, got me thinking about how to create the perfect HVAC automation and make better use of these vents.
I am already automating these vents by shutting them off upon opening of windows and varying their opening by housemode and thermostat mode (whether heating or cooling).
I am thinking about moving them further by using the various temperature sensors in the house as inputs to tune these ventsā€¦ Iā€™ve just started to build the logic on paper. Could make things interestingā€¦

@rafale77: I have already wrote some Lua to automate these vents to open and close, depending on the temperature in each room. Let me know if you are interested in my ideas/code that I have implemented already for these temperature sensors/thermostats/etc.

Cheers!

Thank you. I was thinking about doing this with scenes which would have gotten fairly complex but am now looking at using Rigpapaā€™s AVT plugin with some enhancements to make it more scalable and shareableā€¦

@rafale77: I was looking at AVT plugin as well, but didnā€™t like how you couldnā€™t actually pick a heating source, you needed an on/off device, so I just did scenes and made my own virtual thermostats to utilize ā€œAutoā€, ā€œHeatā€, and ā€œCoolā€

I agree about making it shareable on a larger scale, but didnā€™t have the time for a plugin creation yet and perhaps the expertise quite yet. Should be straight forward though, once I get the Lua code solidified. Any support or assistance would be appreciated. Let me know if you ever want me to share some of the lua as you tinker with this!!!

Cheers!

I would have no problem modifying the plugin to make it work with a thermostat rather than an on/off load. I donā€™t think this would be very difficult to doā€¦ I may not be very fast at doing these but I am pretty comfortable writing these codes these days. Will work with rigpapa on it though when we both get back. Stay tunedā€¦

Havenā€™t seen any updates on the smart vent since this reply. Just thought Iā€™d refresh that I was able to add a smart vent following the instructions in post 44 with no modifications.

The first time I attempted to add it however, the vent started doing cyclical open, halfway, close loop, and I couldnā€™t stop it. I removed the device, reset, and then tried again. It worked fine.

I didnā€™t delete the new temp sensor that was added also - I think I need it for the scene Iā€™m planning - It will be an intake receiver for outside air (poor engineering of initial HVAC install), but I donā€™t want it to be open when the temps are too cold or hot.

My Keen vents are always disconnecting from my VeraPlus, like several of yours. I know that the battery operating devices could cause issues and I have made some adaptations on my Keen vents to replace the batteries with 3 VDC power pack and Itā€™s working very well with always a 100% power, without having to replace batteries. However, when Itā€™s disconnecting, I just have to disconnect the power pack for about 10 seconds and reconnect it. After that, The Veraplus controller is able to talk again with the device. So, the disconnecting issue seems to be on the device side, and may be that changer the value on one of the parameter could have positive effect on this issue.

What do you think about that ? Any ideas ?

I will try to change the PollEnabled value from 0 to 180, but I donā€™t know if it might change somethingā€¦ I will let you know.