I just want the system to work - very glitch and unstable - HC3

[Daniel.E 0]

Hi All,

 

I have a HC3 which is running 5.070.42 (was running 5.080.20 but reverted back via backup as the update created nothing but a glitchy and unresponsive system which required rebooting every day) with a modest number of devices (52 devices). Devices are comprised of, Dimmer 2, Double Switch, Single Switch, Implant, Aeotec multisensor, and roller shutter 3.

 

I am nearing the point where I am going to scrap the HC3 for an alternate controller as it simply does not behave. 

 

Example 1: I have a scene where all blinds controlled by roller shutter 3 devices are to close at a specific time and turn on selected lights. When the scene is triggered, 4 out of the 5 blinds will close and the lights wont turn on. More often than not, the devices that do not trigger with the scene are noted as "disconnected". This is typical to all scenes. 

Example 2: when triggering a device, it will take an extremely long to respond. I have reduced my expectancy level to, trigger the device on the tablet and walk away knowing it will "eventually" turn on/off.

Example 3: devices "Disconnected"... 

Example 4: Output 1 on an implant is controlling a garage roller door which requires a pulse trigger to operate. This being said I have set parameter 156 (output 1 - auto off) to 3 seconds. Initially this worked great, but now it does not work and output one stays closed (set to normally open) sending my roller door into a frenzy. I removed the device through learner mode and added again with no success as it still has the same effect.

Example 5: Throughout the home I have multiple tablets mounted on the wall. If I turn a device on from my phone, you will see it is turned on, however If i go to another tablet it will not update the action and will say the device is off when it actually is on. To use this tablet I have to then press the device on, then off again to turn it off. Is the HC3 only meant to be controlled by one device only? 

 

When the system was setup, initially everything worked very well. Over time it degraded. I was told through my supplier that it is due to the logging of "history" which over time clogs up the system and the amount of device "reporting" which creates an excessive amount of traffic. So I went though each device and unchecked the  "show in history" and "log energy" check boxes and I also went through all device parameters and disabled all reporting leaving "periodic energy reports" and "periodic power reports" set to 1 hour in the hope of freeing up zwave traffic and creating a streamlined system. Whilst this has dramatically reduced history logging, I feel it may have caused other issues as there is an increased amount of "disconnected" items. I would have thought however that device polling set to "recommended" level would maintain communication to all devices? 

 

Unfortunately I have no way of diagnosing the system like other systems provide. 

 

I have been in contact with fibaro support. Living in Australia makes this process quite slow and to date have not had any success. 

 

I also thought I had a decent understanding and ability of the system, however reading some of the forums, I am reducing myself to basic user as some of these forums blow my mind on a tech level. 

 

So, as a desperate final attempt before scrapping the HC3, I am reaching out to the forum. 

 

Where have I gone wrong?

 

I will put it down to "user" fault first as I cannot grasp the idea that Fibaro would release/sell a system to the public with so many flaws?  

 

One day I will sell this newly built home, and I would hate to see what the next owner will have to go through, especially if they are not tech minded in any way shape or form.

 

Thank you in advance for your time and efforts.

 

Regards, DE

Edited September 26, 2021 by Daniel.E

[Tim__ 126]

Hi DE,

 

My Fibaro experience (admittedly of the HC2 only) is that it is a very robust and flexible system. However, there is a steep learning curve, and you need to be technically minded to make it work. And if you want to take full advantage of it's flexibility you need to learn to code in LUA. I spent a very long time getting my system up and running because of this, though now it works pretty seamlessly. It's also cheaper than a professional installation (eg c-bus) and many say that Fibaro is better than other brands...there is no perfect solution.

 

There are traps in terms of how you wire up, there are workarounds for fibaro bugs and there are optimisations required (as you found for reporting). Documentation is not great and support works well only for simple issues. But then it's hard to expect free support from Fibaro for the code that we wrote ourselves. This forum is a good way to get help with problems but again it's just other users trying to help out.

 

Before you scrap it, I would seriously consider getting a Fibaro installer to come and tune it for you. Yes it will cost you but you will avoid having to start again. Not sure where you are in Oz but there are several installers in Sydney.

 

[tinman 1,071]

1 hour ago, Daniel.E said:

I have a HC3 which is running 5.070.42 (was running 5.080.20 but reverted back via backup as the update created nothing but a glitchy and unresponsive system which required rebooting every day)

 

hmm, actually 5.080.20 is better that 5.070.42, if you ignore BUI response issue

 

1 hour ago, Daniel.E said:

with a modest number of devices (52 devices). Devices are comprised of, Dimmer 2, Double Switch, Single Switch, Implant, Aeotec multisensor, and roller shutter 3.

 

this is nothing, with that amount of devices no reason to get problems

 

1 hour ago, Daniel.E said:

I am nearing the point where I am going to scrap the HC3 for an alternate controller as it simply does not behave. 

 

when you have problem with setup, or environment, alternate controller will not help

 

1 hour ago, Daniel.E said:

"Disconnected"

 

this means your zwave mesh has problems

 

1 hour ago, Daniel.E said:

 Is the HC3 only meant to be controlled by one device only? 

 

of course not, seems to be app or mobile device problem

 

1 hour ago, Daniel.E said:

When the system was setup, initially everything worked very well. Over time it degraded. I was told through my supplier that it is due to the logging of "history" which over time clogs up the system and the amount of device "reporting" which creates an excessive amount of traffic.

 

proper setup is not bad idea, but ...

 

1 hour ago, Daniel.E said:

So I went though each device and unchecked the  "show in history" and "log energy" check boxes and I also went through all device parameters and disabled all reporting leaving "periodic energy reports" and "periodic power reports" set to 1 hour in the hope of freeing up zwave traffic and creating a streamlined system. Whilst this has dramatically reduced history logging, I feel it may have caused other issues as there is an increased amount of "disconnected" items.

 

yes, because there is bug with the setting, when you set to 0, means no report, it does actually flood the zwave network.

Set it back, zero/disable reporting is *abuse*, same as disabling polling for some devices(because some need it, without one have no proper status).

 

The 5.070.42 is geting slow with the time, so as you tried to "fix it", you made it worse. Set reports back (it is enought to set report time higher, no need to disable it, install 5.080.20 (ys it has "slow-BUI" bug, but honestly with 50 devices it does not matter), once all devices are set, repait mesh (in your case maybe 2hrs), reboot, check if devices are communicating, if some dead, wake them up, repair mesh maybe one more time.

 

 

[10der 832]

+1 to @tinman and 5cents from my side.

if you have 5/10 device you can do not care about what happed in your Z-WAVE network.

but if you have 50 (as i can understand) you must (sic!) have Zniffer. 

cuz crystal balling to guess what happened in your ZWAVE network is not a good idea as for me.

and 90% root cause most probably not HC3 here.

[Flix123 1]

I also had my fair share of issues , but I come to the conclusion that for basic lighting automation it seems to work good enough. Things that annoy(ed) me:

 

1. Slow response of Motion detectors (Aeotec) - I am already at the light switch before the corridor light decides to come on  

2. Danalock  responds to Fibaro controller maybe 90% of the time,  z wave receiver seems to go to sleep

3. All-lights-off scene works slowly and sometimes misses a light or two

4. Fibaro smoke detectors go off sometimes without reason - retired the ones that did it most often

5. Aeotec Siren was going off randomly for no apparent reason - retired this one

6. Fibaro switch 2 had this crazy default setting where it starts flashing lights on and off for no good reason

7. One time all my devices went to unconfigured state after a backup,   was a few hours  of work to fix it back to normal

8. The ipad app drives me crazy whenever you start it or bring it in the foreground it asks to update the controller s/w  which i don't feel like updating all the time, but the app never gives up asking

9. I had  2 x switch 2 die on me, contacts welded into the on position somehow

 

But with all this criticism i am happy with my basic lighting automations and the dimmer 2 is a great product, i have it on nearly all my light circuits in the house

 

[Daniel.E 0]

As suggested by @Tim__ I have found a local fibaro installer whom I will contact should the next steps fail. 

 

@tinman Thank you for your input. I will upload the backup before changing device parameters whilst having maintaining "show in history" and "log energy" as unticked. I have tried to reconfigure entire mesh before, however every time I have tried this, each device says "Getting new neighbor list failed". Assuming there could be many causes for this, where should I start looking? 

 

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Another question I have is, why do the loading circlies keep spinning, even after days of making an adjustment? This tells me communication failure?

 

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@10der thank you for this. My level of tech is certainly not at this level, but i will certainly start reading. I am eager to understand the system at this level. I can imaging how much trial/error and pain will be involved. It just pains me to think that a system off the shelf requires so much work or level of tech/modification. Imagine the world if mobile phones were like this.

 

@Flix123 I found with the aeotec multi sensor 6 that they worked best with LUA instead of block scene. I found the attached LUA code (which you will need to adjust device numbers and time setting) worked extremely well. I was very impressed as it worked perfectly. I also extended the code to also trigger at certain lux levels of the room. 

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Edited September 27, 2021 by Daniel.E

[tinman 1,071]

aeotec multi sensor 6 - when you have usb powered, please ensure you did set the humidity param manually (template might not work, param i think 42 will get set to 0, so flooooooood again).

 

neighbours update - ok, that bad already, you don't have any non-zwave-plus modules, so soft reconfiguration probably not necessary (to fix neighbours update).

When devices near HC3 have problems, then something is really odd, will be hard to do something without zniffer and/or logs dump.

[Flix123 1]

15 minutes ago, tinman said:

aeotec multi sensor 6 - when you have usb powered, please ensure you did set the humidity param manually (template might not work, param i think 42 will get set to 0, so flooooooood again).

 

neighbours update - ok, that bad already, you don't have any non-zwave-plus modules, so soft reconfiguration probably not necessary (to fix neighbours update).

When devices near HC3 have problems, then something is really odd, will be hard to do something without zniffer and/or logs dump.

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so this is not good? should i just disable parameter 40? 

[tinman 1,071]

no, disabling 40 will not help, one need to turn off template and set manually the 42 value

Edited September 28, 2021 by tinman

[Daniel.E 0]

HI all,

 

Thanks to all that has offered assistance in this thread.

 

Update: As mentioned I engaged with a local installer who so happens to have extensive knowledge with the system. We have not used a zniffer as yet, that will come simply to further extend my knowledge, however a few minor tweaks has made the biggest of differences.

 

"Mark if unavailable" - I had this ticked on all devices. I was told that if a device for some reason does not respond to an injection of sorts to see if its available then the HC3 will stop communicating with that device causing all sorts of issues with the mesh.. I unchecked this on all devices and by far this has made the biggest of differences. The system has been near flawless with this change only glitching on me one time since.

 

Device reporting adjusted to still maintain reports but at longer time intervals.

 

I have started removing templates from device configurations for problematic devices which has worked great.

 

 

[Tim__ 126]

@Daniel.E that's great to hear. For me it validates that the Fibaro system is a good one, but sometimes so complex and undocumented that it causes people to think otherwise. Glad you persisted.

 

I didn't know about "mark if unavailable" so thanks for sharing.

 

@Flix123 re 3. All lights off scene....are you trying to turn all lights off at same time? This may overload the network with z wave messages. Try putting at least few seconds between each light off command.

 

Re 9 contact welding, search for "inrush" on here to see why inrush current can cause this and what you can do about it.

[Flix123 1]

On 9/28/2021 at 12:34 AM, Daniel.E said:

I found with the aeotec multi sensor 6 that they worked best with LUA instead of block scene. I found the attached LUA code (which you will need to adjust device numbers and time setting) worked extremely well. I was very impressed as it worked perfectly. I also extended the code to also trigger at certain lux levels of the room. 

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Hi Daniel,  thought I'd try this today , but just get this LUA syntax error: 

[DEBUG] 09:08:30: 2021-11-03 09:08:29.965321 [ fatal] Unknown exception: /opt/fibaro/scenes/61.lua:3: expected near '{'