Living With Vera - Tip Of The Day

[betabob]

+1 on the lock battery, don't forget to monitor the motion sensor batteries if you use those

[nullx8]

actually what (percentage) is considered dangerously low ?

my z-wave lock has even 2 alerts defined.

1 Battery low
and a "battery VERY low" .... no idea

[RichardTSchaefer]

Depends on the Battery type .. they have different decline curves.
Plus the accuracy of these devices is not exact. You should monitor them before failure.
Then you will see where they fail ... replace with the same type of battery if you want to use the same value.
Or be on the safe side and always replace them at 25%.

[nullx8]

Or be on the safe side and always replace them at 25%.

thanks for the tipps .. yes i do monitor them, on my in-wall tablet i display the battery values next to the label .. so i see it every time i watch them.
the values seems (like you say) not very accurate ... i put in new batteries (because i had no recharge ones left over)
and the display did start at 23% ... but holds this since 1 month or so ..
this morning it was by 13% .. and a few hours later back to 19 ... so this numbers are indeed very much useless.

i will leave them inside and wait when they will fail .. then change batteries to rechargeable .. and do the same test again ...

damm science 

[RichardTSchaefer]

That's why I indicated that the technology of the batteries will effect the number range.
Put real batteries in and see the difference.

[Piwtorak]

My tip, sorry, is not the tip I would like give...

do not realize the heal process, because you can damage your zwave network and have many devices stopped to work.

if someone have good experience with this, please say for us when and how use this feature of vera, for me not working and make the things crazy.

thanks...

[nullx8]

if someone have good experience with this

its not exactly well documented feature, i personally do "manage the neighbours manually" which worked quite good so far.

[mikewop]

if someone have good experience with this

its not exactly well documented feature, i personally do "manage the neighbours manually" which worked quite good so far.

Hi nullx8, that sounds interesting, could you comment on that a little bit more? I.e. how do you manage the network manually?
Thanks.

[nullx8]

Each device have a "neighbors" field in advanced tab,

Since you are the one installed the hardware, you also know best which one may have issues and wich one not.

I do edit the neighbors field with nodeId's i know they solid and as best reachable by the edited device as possible.

As example. I have one inline smart switch installed in my breaker box.
The vera is about 20cm away from there in plain sight, and another switch is also in sight (trough a gipsum wall)

The network cleanup did add about 15 "neigbors" including some battery powered devices, which did make zero sense to me.

So i removed all and added just node 1 (the vera itself) and the switch nextto it
The speed of this switch did increase dramatically, so i have startet to do this with all devices i use.

Much less "mash" but very very fast responses.

Remember you need to put the Node-ids in this field and NOT the device ids!!

Also if too many devices irectly talk to the vera instead of using the mesh, vera starts to resend commands and wait for ack. So having all devices talk directly to the vera is also not super-smart.
But that is something youwill see on normal operation, if some devices lag or the vera keeps saying "waiting for ack"
 

[Z-Waver]

@nullx8 - While it seems that you know what you're doing, this is a really advanced topic and manually altering the neighbor list on a device could easily lead to a broken network.

The neighbor list is used for route calculation purposes. That means not only how the device talks to Vera, but also how Vera talks to other devices and how other devices talk to each other. When you removed neighbors from the list, you basically told Vera and the other devices that the switch could not see those(any) neighbors, so Vera will not try to create routes through the switch to more distant nodes. This kills the mesh likely having a detrimental impact on range/reachability.

I would recommend against editing the neighbors list. I might choose to use manual routes to force a particular route for a single device. But changing the neighbors field impacts routing for many, possibly all, devices.

[nullx8]

.... When you removed neighbors from the list, you basically told Vera and the other devices that the switch could not see those(any) neighbors, so Vera will not try to create routes through the switch ....

thats the whole idea about what i wrote above!

of course you are right, if too excessive manual changes remove a device completely from all neighbours, this would disable the device completely.
one do this changes need to keep in mind the current network structure to avoid this from happening.

[Piwtorak]

My vrcs2-mrz suddenly again stop works.

He is inserted in my network and i have 4 scenes to turn on and off the local loads associated the scenes to each scene button of the device.

Suddenly the local button stops works. Only turn on or off the light by homewave or vera using the device of the direct load.

In second step stops to work complete.

Some report i can collect to analysis and identify the problem ?

I have an evolve switch more distant from my vera than that leviton and works fine. I thought was the distance.

I want try before take off the device and change for a evolve or ge switch. Some tips about ?

Thanks.

[parkerc]

Hi all

While there's been some interesting side discussions going on, the goal of this thread was ultimately to create a list of hints and tips to help a newbie out. So if possible please could we return to sharing  those useful nuggets of wisdom on Vera, it's devices or the Z-wave protocol etc.

Please do spin your posts off (via a link) to a more focused thread within this forum if one exists, especially if it relates to the topic and can handle any further discussions. (If one does not exist create one to help others)

A big thank you for what you've shared so far, it's already helping my friend (and I'm sure others) a lot.

[Fryswatter]

  Always show your Vera you love her and kiss here goodnite before bedtime. Just no tongue, electrical shock is a hazard.

[stappy]

When Vera is not cooperating, give it some time alone. Walk away, go get a beverage, maybe take in a movie or a good night's sleep. Very often when you come back Vera will have sorted itself out and responded to whatever you were trying to do.