There has been lots of discussion of switches that do or don’t support “instant status”, but when I peruse this and other forums, I get inconsistent answers on how exactly instant status is implemented. As far as I can tell this is not a defined Zwave feature in the protocol. Rather it is the switch vendor announcing there is some way to do get instant status and this has to be combined with the controller to make it work. I would appreciate any corrections and feedback on this to understand it better.
I’ve seen the following methods mentioned:
HAIL: some switches can send the HAIL, the controller sees this, then requests the status of the switch. This is set up with an association using group 255. The switch is sending a message to the controller, but not the state. Some cons to this are that this increases the network traffic as the switch says it has changed state, but then the controller has to poll the switch to see what it did. And in the case of dimmers, it might be ramping and choose not to respond immediately to the query and reply with a try again later message.
Group 1 association: the switch is associated with the controller using group 1. When the switch is toggled, the state value is sent as well. This is more efficient than HAIL as the controller does not have to poll. What does a ramping dimmer send in this case? The value it is currently at? The value it will be set to?
NIF: some switches send out a Node Information Frame when the switch is toggled. There are programs that can detect this and then poll the switch for its state. In addition to the cons of the HAIL, it’s not clear if this is single hop or can be routed to the controller (can anyone clarify?), and controller support is spotty. I believe Vera will take advantage of this, but it would be good to get confirmation.
I would like some clarification on the associations of group 1 and 255 - these are fully routable, correct? I had heard that associations can only be single hop, but that can’t be the case for these. Maybe only direct association is single hop?
Looks like you have a pretty solid grasp on what you’ve described. Instant Status is a positive notification of the device state to the controller.
The hail method is a way to fake Instant Status implementations up until recently. It’s not true Instant Status, which sends an unsolicited report of the device state.
NIFs are local broadcast, the broadcasts will not route between nodes(hops). This may be different with Z-Wave Plus(Gen 5) which supports network wide inclusion(NWI) but I have not verified this.
Group associations are routed up to the full maximum Z-Wave hop count of four nodes. Actually group associations are nothing more than a list, internal to the device(switch), of which nodes to send commands or updates to. Whether the group(list) number is 1, 2, or 255 is specific to the device(switch) and varies from one vendor to the next.
So your switch is programmed with the group 255 which is a list of nodes. The switch then sends commands/reports to those nodes in list 255. The commands are routed through the network like any other command. It’s not really anything to do with Vera. Although list 255 might contain Vera’s node number, in which case, the switch will send the state change to Vera. “Direct” associations are just commands going from switch to switch, rather than through Vera. They are simply associations.
Though I hate to add confusion, there seems to be a new Instant Status delivery method provided by Z-Wave Plus(Gen 5) that isn’t yet supported by Vera, yet. COMMAND_CLASS_CENTRAL_SCENE is being used by the Homeseer switch as a channel or conduit for Instant Status updates, but Vera doesn’t yet listen for Instant Status updates on this command class.
Here is a practical list of switches that I know of that support instant status and how to get them working (just works means no special config needed):
Leviton (only the more expensive Vizia RF models not the Leviton Decora models):
Just works, supports hops
Cooper :
Just works, supports hops.
Set Parameter 10 to 1 to keep dimmer levels in sync with aux switched or associated devices, and to trigger on/off from scenes to the associated devices.
Aeon Micro Switches:
Doesn’t work by default, you need to set parameter 80 to 1, supports hops
Fibaro relays:
Just works
Set parameter 18 to 1 on dimmers to sync dimmer commands with associated devices (in addition to on/off)
Though has bug on Switch 2 on VeraPlus (S2 may not work)
Note for above 4 switches:
If you have any secondary controllers on the network like Minimotes, they sometimes suck up the Instant Status notification if the switch is in scenes associated with the remote. You may need to add a Group 1 or Group 255 association back to the Vera ZWave device (listed as Unassigned device) for the above 4 devices. For the Fibaro, if it is a double relay and you are using switch 2 that you also need to associate group 2 back to the vera for switch 2 if Group 255 doesn’t do it.
GE/Jasco - Nif only which means they only support instant status if they can send the Nif package directly to Vera (so only works if they are within radio range of the Vera)
Not sure how you have your Leviton switches setup, but instant status on my switches are hit and miss, sometime it reports and sometimes it does not. Opened ticket with support. the came backing saying I should create a scene to poll my leviton switches every 10 seconds. So I ask support what instant status is, never heard back.
[quote=“shallowearth, post:3, topic:194418”]Here is a practical list of switches that I know of that support instant status and how to get them working (just works means no special config needed):
Leviton (only the more expensive Vizia RF models not the Leviton Decora models):
Just works, supports hops
Cooper :
Just works, supports hops.
Set Parameter 10 to 1 to keep dimmer levels in sync with aux switched or associated devices, and to trigger on/off from scenes to the associated devices.
Aeon Micro Switches:
Doesn’t work by default, you need to set parameter 80 to 1, supports hops
Fibaro relays:
Just works
Set parameter 18 to 1 on dimmers to sync dimmer commands with associated devices (in addition to on/off)
Though has bug on Switch 2 on VeraPlus (S2 may not work)
Note for above 4 switches:
If you have any secondary controllers on the network like Minimotes, they sometimes suck up the Instant Status notification if the switch is in scenes associated with the remote. You may need to add a Group 1 or Group 255 association back to the Vera ZWave device (listed as Unassigned device) for the above 4 devices. For the Fibaro, if it is a double relay and you are using switch 2 that you also need to associate group 2 back to the vera for switch 2 if Group 255 doesn’t do it.
GE/Jasco - Nif only which means they only support instant status if they can send the Nif package directly to Vera (so only works if they are within radio range of the Vera)[/quote]
If your mesh is a little unstable, or you have secondary controllers it can be unrealizable. Add an association in Group 1 back to the Vera Z-wave (under unassigned), should increase your reliability.
@shallowearth Have tried the Group 1 association, did not help. I would prefer that it works like it supposed to rather than just increase reliability. Fingers crossed that they will fix it soon.
@legend maybe you have a bad device? It is pretty unusual to hear that instant status not working on the Leviton . Usually folks only fork out the extra bucks for the Leviton if they want instant status, so would be complaining if it wasn’t working.
Same problem with all my leviton switches about 20 of them. Support know about the problem and has suggested that I setup a scene to monitor all my Leviton switches every 10 seconds so that I could have a semi Instant Status, I said that is not a fix, have not heard back from them since. Not sure what is going on with support.
I have seven Leviton dimmers and one Leviton wall switch in my network. They all work with instant status without any special setup. I’ve been using them for 3+ years without issue. Not sure why you are having issues but it isn’t a problem on my system thus I doubt its an epidemic issue.