Steinel IS 140-2 Zwave Lux sensor - how to restore a single device

Vera Controllers, Services & Devices General Vera Discussions
#1

Hi All,

I hope you can help me, a somewhat strange topic name maybe, but I have two questions that could be related.

A while ago I upgraded my Vera Lite from U15 to U17 with the help of Vera support, That went quite well, and I was happy with the result. I could now use my RFXtrx XL for my Somfy screens, and finally got my AEOtec ZW100C working.

Never touch a working system, but I wanted one last improvement, the AEOtec has a lux sensor, but is not for outdoor.

So I decided to upgrade my 15 year old Steinel outdoor Sensor, to a new one, with Zwave. The IS 140-2.

Unfortunately, the steinel is not present as a device in the Vera Lite wizard, so I had to choose a Generic Zwave device.
A bit difficult to pair the Steinel, you have to turn the small wheel on the steinel, which is of course somewhere high mounted on the wall, but eventualy I got a message on my Vera that a new device was detected.

Thats where things went wrong, i think. It seems that my Aeotec and the Steinel got mixed up? don’t know really what happened, but my AEOtec had STeinel as name. and I got a message that the Luup Engine takes longer to load.

My Vera was quite unstable, and I had to do a restore.

I removed the AEOtec, and paired the Steinel again, I now got 1 device, and 2 child devices, I can even control the sensor bij clicking On or OFF, but can not find the Light intensity (Lux) on a device.

The system remains very unstable, and I want to clean things up, but not realy sure what is the best way to do.

My questions:

Has anyone got the Steinel Lux sensor working on vera?
Is there a way to completely whipe the vera (everything also Zwave) and only restore a few devices? I don’t want to restore the problems and old files etc,

Regards,

Rob

Steinel Z-Wave Lights
#2

I once considered Steinel z-wave.
(Steinel is high quality and there are so little devices for outdoor)
But I found their specifications very complicated, they are new in the z-wave-field.
Hopefully they will have a look at it again.
Their products deserve better.
(and more of their products deserve z-wave, steinel-L1 for example)

Not much of a help, though. (I’m still waiting for outdoor z-wave. And happy my Vera is stable while my earlier other make device was not)

Can Steinel supply information to you ?? They could learn from it…

#3

Hi,
I agree, my old Steinel still worked fine after 15 year.

I must say, the new one seems to be much more sensible, I get a lot of false warnings, or maybe there is a bird flying by… :slight_smile:

I have asked Steinel support for their support, but have not got a reaction so far.

Rob

#4

And did you (again) consult Vera support?

By the way, making possible the communication of a new device with a vera controller seems to be the work of specialists, because of missing a manual to do so, given that the API of the device is available. Maybe Steinel should supply an API for Vera to analyse? (Wondering how many hours it will cost Vera support to figure it out)

#5

I got an answer from Steinel, that they can not help me, but that their product is Zwave certified.
I did get a pdf with specifications.

Z-WAVE_module_Specification_05_2017.pdf (503.3 KB)
Anyone who knows his way in Zwave, that can shine a light on this?

I will sent this documentation also to Vera Support, that is a good idea, lets see if they can help.

Rob

#6

Hopefully Vera needs to copy only the specifications of the right ‘generic device’ and adapt a few parameters. It helps for them that you are able to test it.

(And I wonder how they cope with all those other devices in the marketplace. But Steinel is a name they shouldn’t ignore.)

#7

An update:

My Vera system is stable again, I have removed the Steinel, and had to do a restore.
As soon as I add the Steinel again, the whole Vera system gets very unstable and in the end nothing works anymore.
The Steinel apparently needs a firmware update.

I Have asked Steinel support for a good solution, wil keep you posted…

KInd regards,

Robbie

#8

Did you get help from Vera support for this? Or did you find out all by yourself (might be a lot of work)?

#9

Hello Again,

Oke, It has been 8 month, and I just purchased a new Vera Plus.
To be short, I seem to have the same problems with the Vera Plus, as I had with my old Vera Lite.

After including the Steinel, the controller becomes unstable, and now other switches don’t react anymore.
I could See the Steinel in Vera, could even see motion being detected, but no LUX value.

Did anyone get this Steinel working?

Kind regards,

#10

To make the final conclusion:
I had a long investigation with Vera Support a while ago.

Vera Support even tried to configure the Steinel manually, but they could not get it to work.
After investigating the logs, Vera Support noticed that the Steinel “flooded” the Zwave chip, and more or less broke the system. Only a factory default helped.

I will not use the Steinel anymore in my Zwave network.

Kind regards,

Rob

#11

Hello Robbie, have the same sensor. with the same troubles. it’s a not a good solution obviously. Had the some ‘flooding’ troubles, and I think but not sure it can be eleminated by changing parameter 9 (slave mode). but anyhow, I could not get it working normally, and on top of that cannot remove it neither. remains in the configuration, even after delete device commands send. I’m wondering which european zwave chip enabled sensor can be a worthy replacement (outdoor)
best regards, Olivier