HC2 Loads of issues

[Big-Foot 0]

This is my last a tempt to fix this with the Fibaro stuff we have in our office.

 

Al started in good fun. But it has been a nightmare and a lot of frustration.

 

With the latest being that al of the 5 motion-eyes since a few days al are stuck on motion.

 

Information:

15 devices total in the Z-wave network

Al devices have line of sight with the HC2

Motion Eye's al have new battery's

 

Exclusion of the network not working.

Reset of the motion-eyes have worked on one side but now the HC2 doesn't see any new devices. So that's a dead end.

 

Some can't be removed from the HC2 and wil stay stuck on motion.

 

Software version 4.090

 

tried to restore a backup nothing changed

 

Since the latest version there are firmware updates for devices

 

Some did update others didn't and even dimmers failed with a very stupid reason: Status: Fail - Battery level too low to perform the update. Replace the battery and try again. on a device that's connected to 230volt is the dumbest i have ever heard.

 

Is there something I'm missing

Maybe it is just that Fibaro looks nice but in reality it is the biggest peace of crap people can buy.

 

Hoping people here come up with an answer or it wil see the shredder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sankotronic 2,370]

Fibaro is good system, and they provide basic instructions that should be enough for users to at least get basic test of z-wave network and possibly find what is gone wrong. Of course they are always late with instructions for new options after firmware update, like this last 4.090 which bring us possibility to upgrade firmware on some of the devices.

 

For example, dimmers failed firmware update with status battery level too low. Solution is to do SOFT reconfiguration of dimmer and after that you will be able to update them. 

 

For motion sensors you have to manually wake them up at least three times during firmware update, first time immediately after starting update, then second time during the update, and then third time after update is finished and motion sensor rebooted to move new firmware to proper memory and for that you get notification on the top of the web interface. Only after that you will get information if it is properly updated. 

 

Of course to do successful firmware update it is best to bring them near HC on one meter distance even it can sometimes be done on longer distances if they can connect to HC directly. If sensor or module can connect to HC directly can also be checked with B button and that part is explained how on instructions leaflet that came with it, or can be downloaded from

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. If after checking connection of device with HC you don't get green colour which means that there is direct communication to HC then you have to bring that device near to HC to make successful firmware update.

 

I don't understand what do you mean by exclusion of the network not working? Usually when sensors are unresponsive that means that z-wave module on HC is overwhelmed by something, can be sensor which is sending too many data, or sensor with battery almost depleted (and be warned, reporting of low battery levels does not working properly on Fibaro yet), or some scene which is triggered too often and sending commands to some device, or learning mode not properly finished (usually there is blue led on front panel of HC that is flashing, fourth from right) etc.

 

So instead of restoring backup and trying to exclude/include unresponsive devices try first to find which of devices is making trouble with z-wave network. We don't have much tools to do that, but testing connectivity can be helpful, or just manually waking up battery powered devices can sometimes help. And if you find one of motion sensors that when you wake it up is lit blue for long time (no communication to HC), then first replace battery even you are completely sure that is new one because it can help. Excluding unresponsive devices cannot be done successfully and can end up with orphaned devices that cannot be removed from the system yet.

 

And yes, we, users, are often missing something because we either don't read carefully instructions provided but more often detailed instructions missing so there is nothing to read! The best example is timer based scenes that stop running. Since Advanced user Guide 1.06 is not updated for a very long time and it is not even available on

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there is no explanation except some very basic stuff about scenes. So how possibly would user know that timer based scenes that loops and checks if time is right to do something must have checked option that breached ALARM don't stop them?!!? Or now new introduced options for scenes  Automatic, Manual and Hidden, where is explanation what those even mean and do, what is the difference????

 

Sorry for the long reply, but I hope that I give you at least some of the solutions and I hope other members will come up with more who had same problems like you.

[Big-Foot 0]

The main thing is that non of the motion eyes are working correctly anymore. Adding devices just wont work, Removing of devices wont work.

A colleague has taken these eye's with him and added to his HC2 and that one works without issues. Ours just doesn't work anymore.

Even using the button on the back of the HC2 we could not get anything to happen.

 

Dimmers can be controlled sometimes. But most of the times it just doesn't respond.

 

I have removed al the scenes because that didn't work anymore. So for me it is just a power consuming brick in a corner.

 

And even without these problems. The software side is just a good looking but terrible part of the system.

[Sankotronic 2,370]

I have HC2 on 4.090 with 66 devices included to z-wave network (297 devices in total), 66 scenes all in LUA and 25 rooms and all working ok. I do have problems with one window sensor that even with new battery always shows battery low level and I will have to check why. Also after sometimes e-mail and push messages stop working so I have to reboot HC2 (this problem started with 4.090). After reboot sometimes it deletes some devices from network so then I have to do backup restore... So it is not all honey and milk, but in general it is working. Software side HC2 is very powerful with ability to program in LUA code and I believe that there is no match among competition.

 

Block scenes are there only for newbies and is clearly stated in Advanced user guide, quote: "There are two ways to create the scenes in Home Centre 2 interface. First option is to make scene based on graphical, block interface. Such scenes are more intuitive to build but it cannot possible to implement all functionalities in such algorithms. The second option is create the scene based on LUA engine. Such scene require basic programming skills but it has not limited possibilities."

 

From your writing it seems to me that you already make up your mind regarding Fibar group home centre, because you are not giving any helpful info so that somebody can help you solve the problem, but it seems that you are here just to cry and nag before you sell

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/emoticons/default_wink.png" alt=";)" srcset="https://forum.fibaro.com/uploads/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

[Big-Foot 0]

Right. And what would you like to here other than the devices aren't working, And my examples of the issues i have with these devices.

 

Where did i talk about any block scene's at all? Or anything stating that it has anything to do with scenes.

 

Be very happy that it seems te work for you. I see a lot of users with a lot of complaints on these forums and even the official Facebook page.

But keep telling your self your helpful. Because you are not at all helpful.

 

If there is somebody that's willing to help I'm willing to listen.

[alexndr 1]

Right. And what would you like to here other than the devices aren't working, And my examples of the issues i have with these devices.

 

Where did i talk about any block scene's at all? Or anything stating that it has anything to do with scenes.

 

Be very happy that it seems te work for you. I see a lot of users with a lot of complaints on these forums and even the official Facebook page.

But keep telling your self your helpful. Because you are not at all helpful.

 

If there is somebody that's willing to help I'm willing to listen.

 

What I think Sankotronic is trying to say is that HC2 opens up for great possibilities when it comes to somewhat more complicated solutions but you have to know what you're doing. You have to go beyond block- scenes to do cool stuff but with "great powers comes great responsibility".

 

I've seen so much complaints from users puking their guts out as soon as they encounter problems even though the problem later on relates back to their own poor implementations. What HC2 lacks is good support to understand what is actually wrong and causing the problems. Real profiling and debugging features would be great. 

 

I'm not saying you're a poor implementor but sometimes it seems that users are a little too fast in joining the angry crowd screaming "lousy product". 

 

I would try with a clean HC2 4.090 installation and try to include your motion- eyes. 

[T.Konopka 8]

This is my last a tempt to fix this with the Fibaro stuff we have in our office.

 

Al started in good fun. But it has been a nightmare and a lot of frustration.

 

With the latest being that al of the 5 motion-eyes since a few days al are stuck on motion.

 

Information:

15 devices total in the Z-wave network

Al devices have line of sight with the HC2

Motion Eye's al have new battery's

 

Exclusion of the network not working.

Reset of the motion-eyes have worked on one side but now the HC2 doesn't see any new devices. So that's a dead end.

 

Some can't be removed from the HC2 and wil stay stuck on motion.

 

Software version 4.090

 

tried to restore a backup nothing changed

 

Since the latest version there are firmware updates for devices

 

Some did update others didn't and even dimmers failed with a very stupid reason: Status: Fail - Battery level too low to perform the update. Replace the battery and try again. on a device that's connected to 230volt is the dumbest i have ever heard.

 

Is there something I'm missing

Maybe it is just that Fibaro looks nice but in reality it is the biggest peace of crap people can buy.

 

Hoping people here come up with an answer or it wil see the shredder.

 

Hello,

 

Firstly, did you contact our Support with your issues?

 

Secondly, you did not provide any detailed information about your issues so the Community is not really able to help you, including me. You posted only that, in short, "Fibaro is not working". So, please, post a description of issues you face while using our system (please use punctuation and examples of what you want to achieve). Also, writing "some of them" you do not indicate which devices cause issues.

 

Thirdly, what do you mean that a Dimmer cannot be controlled? What do you mean by 'reset of motion-eyes'?

 

Furthermore, you mentioned that your colleague took your FIBARO Motion Sensors and without any issues included them into his network and they worked - conclusion: they work fine.

 

Then, "Even using the button on the back of the HC2 we could not get anything to happen" - what did you try to do? Did you try to perform a recovery? Or did you just click the button to see if it does anything?

 

Finally, screen shots of your web UI is crucial in many, many cases. Attaching screen shots you indicate where you encountered an issue and other, including me, can check our system in order to reproduce the issue.

 

As you can see, FIBARO Community is always willing to help, but we have to know what the issue is and we have to get necessary information.

 

P.S. Please, check these links:

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and

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There are descriptions of our system and our devices, there are guides on how to "build a network" with Z-Wave modules.

[Big-Foot 0]

Wel let me try again.

 

First additional issues we got with this setup where that the eye in the kitchen kept the lights on for a few second when motion was detected and turned the lights of in 10 seconds or less.

The script running the controls haven't changed and the on-time was somewhere in the order of 10 minutes in the scripts. There was a association setup with the relais controlling the lights to gain reaction time.

Otherwise we would be out of the kitchen with coffee before the HC2 switched on the lights.

 

That's all of the basic functions we use several dimmers with several eye's to switch on and off lights. when motion was detected.

This seems a very simple thing to do. But somehow it became very tedious. And functions almost never correctly. at first with block scenes later on with LUA.

 

So last week the issues got worse. al motion eyes where stuck on motion detect so when we came in the office al the light where on. And we would not be able to switch anything of because the association kept switching the lights on the second we turned anything off. So the logical step was to remove the association with the dimmers every eye controlled.

 

That was impossible because even if we did that via the usual steps the device would stay in waiting to wake up.

So waking up the device several times didn't do anything. So my last step was to try to remove the eyes from the HC2. Same issue it could not be done. Sometimes the screen came up for learning devices and started te countdown. Nothing actually happend in those screens. And later on these screens didn't show at all. Even after a reboot. Or downgrade from 4.090 to I think 4.082.

 

Deleting the correct way didn't work so then trying to do it another way. Just deleting the device and then resetting the motion eye "long press and waiting for yellow light and short press and waiting for red blink"

The eyes did that perfectly. But we could never learn the HC2 these devices again.

 

 

So my bureau has 5 eyes on it without battery's and where back to using the wall switch to get lights in the office. 

 

Than at the same time the dimmers could not be operated by the HC2 accept after a reboot for lets say 10 minutes and then it was over again. So no switching on lights or dimming lights.

 

We also had several relais with stuck outputs without any load on them just a small relais so we could actually switch something.

 

Al has been a very disappointing experience with Fibaro.

And to give a background we work and install high-end AV solutions on a daily basis. With a lot of LUA programmable devices. Some easily cost 10x the price of the HC2 but some controllers we use are in the same ballpark price wise but are considered professional. And yes those are much better at what the are supposed to do. Than what the HC2 does. So if I sound somewhat pissed off i'm sorry.

But the time it cost to just have it do some thing close to what we had imagined. I could just spent on a few wires and a professional device and probably would work for 10 or more years without a glitch.

 

I have now started the HC2 in a recovery mode and maybe it wil solve the issues. If not its out with the Fibaro and in with something else.

[Big-Foot 0]

Nope complete factory reset didn't fix a thing. still cant learn new devices.

 

Very nice.

 

Update:

 

Well maybe i found it. If i shutdown our Wi-Fi access point  i can add devices to the HC2.

Looks like a serieus issue maybe with the z-wave chip or tuning of the supplied antenna.

Measuring the frequencies where in z-wave functions there is no other signal then the z-wave stuff.

 

So somehow the Wi-Fi frequencies have a huge influence on the functioning. Which are not even close in frequency of z-wave "868,392" locally measured minus 110dbm with no z-wave device talking

 

And the access point was located at least 7 meters away and not on high power.

[Big-Foot 0]

Thanks for the fantastic help from the Fibaro Support crew. Fibaro is out of the building and Domoticz is in.

[barend121 13]

what is post.......  I live in an area with more wifi access points than humans (thats a joke, but >30 AP visable is not weird), and no problems at all. Don't know what issues you got, but you can't compare domoticz with fibaro.  

 

Fibaro is much more user friendly and looks nice and works good!  

There are to many happy users, to devaluate fibaro as poor/buggy/instable.  

[T.Konopka 8]

Thanks for the fantastic help from the Fibaro Support crew. Fibaro is out of the building and Domoticz is in.

 

Hello,

 

Did you contact our Support at [email protected] ?

I do not see any tickets from the email address linked to your account on the forum.