My HC3 - My (bad) Experience So Far

[andyb749 4]

So, I've just recently got the HC3 and so far its been a bit of a battle to get it working any where close to the HC2.

 

Out of the box, the setup script didn't work and it took a couple of iterations before I got through it.

 

In no particular order here's some of the issues I've encountered to date:

* The GUI is very slow, sometimes to the point that mouse clicks are missed, and certain portions of the GUI are not rendered.

* The time can be out.  At one point the clock on the banner was showing 1551, but the history was showing events with the correct time of 1630.

* A lot of devices will appear as unavailable - in particular all my Fibaro Motion Sensors and Popp TRVs.  I've changed some parameters on the Aeon/Aotech device I have as I suspect the network is busy 

* The Fibaro motion detectors are not detecting motion, they are reporting temperature, lux and will flash on the device when motion is detected... but not in the web UI.

* Fibaro door/window detectors are not detecting doors opening.  They appear to be reporting temperatures OK

* Secure SRT Thermostat.  One of these works, the other is reporting a temperature at least 10C higher than the room

* Secure SRT Thermostats & Popp TRVs.  There is no ability to set a temperature setpoint on these, and in the climate panel there's a warning that they may not work.  They do work using the climate panel

* Fibaro RGBW.  The on/off button does not function and it doesn''t look like RGBW mode is supported.  In fact, when included the RGB panel was hidden and five individual sliders were shown instead.  It is impossible to control from any scenes.  Setting a colour slider causes multiple entries to be logged in the history - one from user with set colour, then two, three, sometimes more from system with completed incorrect RGB values.  

* Everspring ST815 Light Sensor.  Includes OK, never updates any value and doesn't send a command to the associated devices

* Lots of devices without templates

 

That's all for now, but these were all features that just worked in the HC2.   In general, its not a good experience and trying to explain to my wife why she can't control the heating and that the lights in the kitchen aren't working is not easy.

 

Other things that I wanted was the promised support of Zigbee and RF433 protocols, but they appear to be a distant dream for now.

[10der 832]

On 10/17/2021 at 8:26 PM, andyb749 said:

Parameter 41 (change in temp to report) is 131,097.6 C and so far can't be changed

Please update FW for MS6

[robw 116]

I have used the HC2 for a long time, and when the HC3 was released I jumped to it immediately. I thought the UI looked better, the new features was interesting, it was promised to be much faster and have support for more hardware.

 

Yet the firmware released felt more like alphas. The promised hardware it was announced to have was not functioning (I don't know if it still is, I haven't been visiting here for awhile). It was released way too early, perhaps a year or two when looking at how the firmwares have worked.

 

The hardware in the HC3 is good, but what does that matter when it is not supported nor utilized? Bad firmware released makes the experience a pain. It started to feel like I was back using Zipato again... The HC3 is priced in the upper end of the middle/home class of smart gateways. With that in mind it should perform better, have better support and more features.

 

I have moved on to HomeAssistant and I'm constantly amazed over it's features and stability, and it is free of charge! Yes, you do need hardware, but even with that you can get away much, much cheaper than with a HC3 and get a better and more stable experience.

[cag014 635]

On 10/22/2021 at 11:25 PM, MaciekJ said:

Limit of scenes wasn't only reason. Hc3 lite i used to as a training machine . Hc3 has overall better performance, and less restrictions. Problem is that someone should clearly mention about lack of compatibility of hc3 and hc3 lite. 

What about master/slave configuration, it might help

[PedroChacon 15]

I totally agree with you, same procedure, same feelings

[cag014 635]

What version and Z-wave engine you're running on your HC3?

Have found that using 5.080 without changing Zwave engine to 3.0 is the cause of these misbehavior of the sensors. Once have set Z-wave 3.0 everything back to normal.

[PedroChacon 15]

To move to zwave 3.0 would I have to restart HC3?  then re-integrate all modules again?

[Martin Windsmose 4]

Yes. you need to re-integrate all modues again.

 

[10der 832]

5 hours ago, Martin Windsmose said:

Yes. you need to re-integrate all modues again.

nightmare for users with 100 devices.

 

look like a cool idea for migration in commercial solution.

Edited October 12, 2021 by 10der

[Sjakie 138]

@10der, great thanks for you mentioning 100 devices!

I can have sweet dreams with my 87 devices, hahahaha.

To add devices on HC3 goes better as compare to HC2, but to redo again mmmhhh................................

What will I gain? 3.1 turbo Fibaro support? >>> if yes I wll do.

10der I  am lucky I dont have a job 40-60 hours others I should not have tiem for HA Fibaro.

//Sjakie

 

[andyb749 4]

On 10/12/2021 at 1:37 AM, cag014 said:

What version and Z-wave engine you're running on your HC3?

Have found that using 5.080 without changing Zwave engine to 3.0 is the cause of these misbehavior of the sensors. Once have set Z-wave 3.0 everything back to normal.

I have 5.080 with Zwave 3.0, I can't remember getting the choice of Zwave engine.   So looks like I have to remove most of my devices to get some stability, and migrate others back to HC2 to get functionality.

[andyb749 4]

This is not getting any better.  I need to reboot after I exclude every device - with around 70 device it going to take a week

[pnutp0wer 23]

You can do factory reset, start with engine 2.0 and start exclusion mode and add it directly after that

[andyb749 4]

3 minutes ago, pnutp0wer said:

You can do factory reset, start with engine 2.0 and start exclusion mode and add it directly after that

I don't want to do a factory reset as I need to get the ZWave devices excluded cleanly as some can't be reset to factory settings easily and I do need to try and keep parts of the house operating albiet in a reduced operatability mode.   But thanks for the advice.   

[A.Socha 118]

W dniu 11.10.2021 o 20:28, andyb749 napisał:

So, I've just recently got the HC3 and so far its been a bit of a battle to get it working any where close to the HC2.

 

Out of the box, the setup script didn't work and it took a couple of iterations before I got through it.

 

In no particular order here's some of the issues I've encountered to date:

* The GUI is very slow, sometimes to the point that mouse clicks are missed, and certain portions of the GUI are not rendered.

* The time can be out.  At one point the clock on the banner was showing 1551, but the history was showing events with the correct time of 1630.

* A lot of devices will appear as unavailable - in particular all my Fibaro Motion Sensors and Popp TRVs.  I've changed some parameters on the Aeon/Aotech device I have as I suspect the network is busy 

* The Fibaro motion detectors are not detecting motion, they are reporting temperature, lux and will flash on the device when motion is detected... but not in the web UI.

* Fibaro door/window detectors are not detecting doors opening.  They appear to be reporting temperatures OK

* Secure SRT Thermostat.  One of these works, the other is reporting a temperature at least 10C higher than the room

* Secure SRT Thermostats & Popp TRVs.  There is no ability to set a temperature setpoint on these, and in the climate panel there's a warning that they may not work.  They do work using the climate panel

* Fibaro RGBW.  The on/off button does not function and it doesn''t look like RGBW mode is supported.  In fact, when included the RGB panel was hidden and five individual sliders were shown instead.  It is impossible to control from any scenes.  Setting a colour slider causes multiple entries to be logged in the history - one from user with set colour, then two, three, sometimes more from system with completed incorrect RGB values.  

* Everspring ST815 Light Sensor.  Includes OK, never updates any value and doesn't send a command to the associated devices

* Lots of devices without templates

 

That's all for now, but these were all features that just worked in the HC2.   In general, its not a good experience and trying to explain to my wife why she can't control the heating and that the lights in the kitchen aren't working is not easy.

 

Other things that I wanted was the promised support of Zigbee and RF433 protocols, but they appear to be a distant dream for now.

GUI - next patch is dedicated it - browser will eat less memory and CPU so it should work faster for you

Time - please check is time and timezone is set good - because some data js get from local PC and some from gateway, so You may have different time

Z-Wave 3.0 is as early access - I suggest use 2.0 especially when you have old devices like Secure SRT, Z-wave 3.0 will work better is you got new z-wave Plus v2 devices

 

[SmarterHOME 12]

6 hours ago, A.Socha said:

GUI - next patch is dedicated it - browser will eat less memory and CPU so it should work faster for you

Time - please check is time and timezone is set good - because some data js get from local PC and some from gateway, so You may have different time

Z-Wave 3.0 is as early access - I suggest use 2.0 especially when you have old devices like Secure SRT, Z-wave 3.0 will work better is you got new z-wave Plus v2 devices

 

 

Hi Andrzej,

let me react to your points.

 

GUI - why this issue slowness is still over and over present? Were there some patches already applied or not? Is hardware related issue or only software?

TIME - I mean the basic stuff like Time did not work properly in HC2 and HC Lite several years. (

Please login or register to see this link.

). I am not surprise with HC3.

Z-Wave 3.0 - why did you even release for public if it is not recommended for using?

Z-Wave 2.0 - currently there is a bug with device inclusion -

Please login or register to see this link.

 

And there are many more bugs present in HC3 (Lite) system. Many users, installers are not happy about current state when they do not know if they will be lucky even correctly include Z-Wave device in to HC3, so maybe you can tell us more about how FIBARO is planned to fix all these bugs. Because there is always something broken with new update of HC3 system.

 

Bug reporting with FIBARO support is another story to tell.

I mean is there any hope left, that FIBARO will improve?

 

Marian

Edited October 14, 2021 by SmarterHOME

[A.Socha 118]

Hi @SmarterHOME

There is 2 types of heavy load of gateways

- first when gateway eat a lot of RAM and CPU - we fixed most of this problems sometime ago

- second when browser of client will eat a lot of cpu and RAM of user PC - we fixed that in 5.081 by changing that we refresh only visible elements, so you got some type of loader when you scroll up but thanks that browser need a lot of less RAM and CPU

 

Z-wave 3.0 that engine is in early access - why we give acess to him - it is more political decision - he got certification and from certification point of view he is better. But if you look from client perspective we still need a lot of work to made more device compatible with him

 

I'm in Fibaro a long time so when you're saying that problem of time is long story i only remember few of them and all are fixed

- problem with not good pooling of time - there was desynchronization for example after day few minutes

- some problems with setting time zone

- some problem when you change timezone gateway was staying in till you restart it

 

[andyb749 4]

27 minutes ago, A.Socha said:

I'm in Fibaro a long time so when you're saying that problem of time is long story i only remember few of them and all are fixed

- problem with not good pooling of time - there was desynchronization for example after day few minutes

- some problems with setting time zone

- some problem when you change timezone gateway was staying in till you restart it

 

As @SmarterHOME said, time is a basic.  My time server and time zone as set correctly.  Trust me when I say the system has been restarted, even powered off, so I can't see where one part of the system can get the time correct when the other is so wrong.   

 

Meanwhile I'm still slowly un-installing devices so I can roll back to version 2 ZWave.  Not what I had planned to do this week.

[cag014 635]

On 10/13/2021 at 7:47 PM, andyb749 said:

I have 5.080 with Zwave 3.0, I can't remember getting the choice of Zwave engine.   So looks like I have to remove most of my devices to get some stability, and migrate others back to HC2 to get functionality.

Yes, you do... after factory reset it asks what Z-wave engine to use.

[andyb749 4]

Installed the latest beta update.   The GUI is definitely working a bit better, thanks for that.  However....

 

The Fibaro RGBW is still seriously broken:

* The sliders in the RGB tile never reflect what the lights are doing

* The coloured ring in the tile's icon never updates (the Quick App one does)

* The sliders in the RGB tile change positions.  As soon as one is set, then it will move to the top

* The sliders in the RGB tile move randomly. As soon as one is reduced from 25% to 0%, it will jump to 50%

* The sliders in the RGB tile don't reliably have any effect.  Move one and nothing happens

* Still no way to setup whether RGB or RGBW 

* The On/Off functionality does nothing

* The tile for this physical device is completely different to the one for a QA colour controller - one has single slider, other has R, G, B, W, Bright sliders

* The Lua API calls for seton and setoff don't work.  Only the setColor() command appears to do anything

 

The only way that nearly works most of the time is clicking on the favourite colours, and the Quick App that uses API calls

 

The Secure SRT321 looks better:

* Did a re-configure.... 

* First time I've seen an alert for "unconfigured devices" in the banner

*     The alert can be cleared

*     On the device page, the device reports that it's configured

*     The green dot on the bottom right of the icon shows it's healthy.  I presume that's what the green means, blues appears to be in-progress, and the red I know is un-healthy/no communications - that should really be in the manual

*     The tile still shows "Not configured"

* Temperature now indicates correctly, or was that just a snapshot at the time? Given that the heating is on and I device should be reporting in every 15 mins, there should be more readings and differently values

* Temperature graph lags realtime by about 6-8 hours - this could be due to that was the time of the last reading

* Hovering over the temp. graph only shows the popup when actually over a reading, any other part of the graph there's just a flash

* Still no ability to enter a manual setpoint

 

No Change With Popp TRVs:

* Still can't enter a setpoint

* These appear to want to update their temperature anything upto every 3 seconds - a bit excessive I think

 

Fibaro Multisensor:

* All tiles are red, doesn't look good.  What is the colour meant to signify?

* All values are updating periodically

 

Fibaro Door Window:

* No change - still no reports on breach (opening)

* Temperature updates every couple of hours as expected

 

Fibaro Smoke:

* Temperature udpates

* Can't tell if its going to report smoke or high temp

 

Fibaro CO:

* Temperature updates

* Can't tell if its going to report smoke or high temp

 

Swiid Light Switch:

* This was a bit of an issue with HC2 and was problematic in including and tended to hang up over time.  Power cycle (of the lamp) would fix it

* So far is working OK, had to add an association with the controller so that it reports its own status correctly

 

Fibaro Universal Dimmers:

* So far, no problems, except that their a temperature alarm which I don't think existed in HC2, or if it did it wasn't clear that it was a temp alarm

 

Fibaro Smart Implant:

* No issues, just works

* Looks like the icons have been updated

 

Aeon Labs Smart Sensor 5 and 6:

* Both reporting temperatures, lux and humidity - both are in out buildings a good 10-15 m from the HC3

* Neither report movement

* The '6' has never reported UV

 

Aeon Labs Clamp:

* Very slow at reporting changes in kWH, kW, volts & amps.

* Not had time to see if any settings can be tweaked, there's other bigger priorities

 

NorthQ E Meter:

* No update to the energy reading since included

* No time to investigate this either

 

Fibaro Keyfob:

* Included but not setup by me - no point if I'm excluding everything so I can rollback to ZWave 2

* Icons and scenes buttons look ready for configuration

 

Energy Metering / Panel:

* No changes that I can see

* Choices for a meter are production or consumer.  I don't make my own energy so everything is a consumer.  I have a meter on the incoming supply and various dimmers and sockets that measure.  This means that when I switch any dimmer or socket on it is totalled twice - once at the device and again with the incoming supply.  This major oversight makes a mockery of whole measurement.  I want to know what the rest of the house is consuming.

 

Alarm Panel:

* Can't see any changes here either, it appeared to work

 

Climate Panel:

* Manages to create a schedule which is currently controlling by SRT312 thermostat

* I can enter a manual temperature here to override the schedule

* What is AUTO mode - no explanation in the manual

 

I really don't understand the argument that "older devices aren't supported".   Has the ZWave consortium really obsoleted all the old command classes and replaced them with newer broken ones?  Thought that was the idea behind standards bodies and the whole purpose of the ZWave consortium - to make all manufacturer's device operate with each others.  It that is no longer the case then I am going to get off of the car crash that ZWave is turning into.   I have enough programming and electronic skills to knock up something from scratch with Zigbee which will serve my needs and probably get me some kudos on Hackaday. 

 

 

16 minutes ago, cag014 said:

Yes, you do... after factory reset it asks what Z-wave engine to use.

I shall look out for that when I do the reset.  Maybe last time I was too excited at the thought of getting a nice shiny, working, reliable controller

[andyb749 4]

Update:

Factory reset and installed with ZWave version 2.  Got a lot of the ZWave devices included, but not the power socket switches yet.  Noticed a few things:

 

Fibaro RGBW

Appears to work as expected

 

Secure SRT321 Thermostats

Works as expected

Can't add icons

 

Secure SSR303 Boiler Switch

Tile shows value incorrectly as 0.00, the detailed view shows correctly

Doesn't appear in the mobile app

Can't add icons

 

Popp TRVs

Works as expected most of the time

All 8 of these go offline regularly, and then magically reconnect

Can't add icons

 

Fibaro Multisensor

Works as expected

 

Fibaro Door Window

Works as expected

 

Fibaro Smoke

Works as expected

 

Fibaro CO

Works as expected

 

Swiid Light Switch

Works as expected

 

Fibaro Universal Dimmers

Takes several attempts to set parameters - don't seem synchronised to the device

 

Fibaro Smart Implant

Works

 

Aeon Labs Smart Sensor 5

The Wakeup period shows NaN s and so far unable to change

No parameters in the template, but I think HC2 also had this feature

After setting parameters, HC3 "forgets" about some of them

 

Aeon Labs Smart Sensor 6

Wakeup period defaults to 0 s and so far been unable to change

Parameter 41 (change in temp to report) is 131,097.6 C and so far can't be changed

Pararmeter 101 cannot be changed either, and I guess the other parameters are similiar

 

Aeon Labs Home Energy Monitor (Clamp Meter)

Reports kWH, kW, V, A

Strange behaviour in that the event log shows updated value, but these are not being updated in the main unless a complete set of reading are received 

 

NorthQ E Meter

No update to the energy reading since included

No time to investigate this either

 

Fibaro Keyfob

Icons and scenes buttons look ready for configuration

 

Energy Metering / Panel

Previous comments still valid

Choices for a meter are production or consumer.  I don't make my own energy so everything is a consumer.  I have a meter on the incoming supply and various dimmers and sockets that measure.  This means that when I switch any dimmer or socket on it is totalled twice - once at the device and again with the incoming supply.  This major oversight makes a mockery of whole measurement.  I want to know what the rest of the house is consuming.

 

Alarm Panel

Appears to work

 

Climate Panel

Appears to work

What is AUTO mode - no explanation in the manual?

 

General Stuff

The defaults for including, now default to 30secs, no security, whereas in ZWave3 it was 60s with security and includes S3 security

The update devices page is not populated

The mobile app doesn't not respect the phone's culture preferences or the ones set in HC3 i.e. a decimal place is shown as a comma when it should be a period. (gb-EN)

 

Things I Like

The devices list is way better and a lot quicker to edit a lot of names

The correct spelling of neighbours - this is not consistent throughout

If the device update actually works, and works for all manufacturers - waiting

 

Things I Don't Like

Some of the icons that used to exist in HC2 aren't in HC3 - The Fibaro Socket in particular

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by andyb749