Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

Posted on
Wed May 30, 2018 3:59 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

jay (support) wrote:
hannt wrote:
matt (support) wrote:
Support for Z-Wave encryption communication. Note encryption security keys are negotiated during device network inclusion, so to enable you must exclude and then re-include the module using the New with Encryption Enabled button inside the define/sync dialog.

Matt or Jay (or anybody): It appears this re-inclusion is the key to getting the Qolsys controller included with encryption. Why is the 2nd inclusion necessary?


In context, this means that if you have a device that you included without encryption, to enable encryption you have to exclude then include with encryption. There is no requirement for a 2nd inclusion if you included the device with encryption in the first place.

We don't support secondary controllers at the moment for a reason - we haven't worked through all the necessary requirements. You are running across just some of those requirements.

Just to explain a bit more of what Jay is saying: we have no idea what is necessitating the requirement for the 2nd inclusion to get the Qolsys working as a secondary controller. That isn't related at all to the instructions you found, which are just about what to do if one accidentally includes a module (not controller) without encryption when encryption is required for that module to work correctly.

Image

Posted on
Thu May 31, 2018 6:19 am
hannt offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

jay (support) wrote:
hannt wrote:
matt (support) wrote:
Support for Z-Wave encryption communication. Note encryption security keys are negotiated during device network inclusion, so to enable you must exclude and then re-include the module using the New with Encryption Enabled button inside the define/sync dialog.

Matt or Jay (or anybody): It appears this re-inclusion is the key to getting the Qolsys controller included with encryption. Why is the 2nd inclusion necessary?

In context, this means that if you have a device that you included without encryption, to enable encryption you have to exclude then include with encryption. There is no requirement for a 2nd inclusion if you included the device with encryption in the first place.

Oops, sorry. I totally misread that. :oops:

It is interesting though that including the IQ2 a second time gets things partially working.

howartp wrote:
Hanns, it won’t be straight away but I’ll look at a plugin to help here somewhere.

Not sure if it will be a Qolsys or 2nd Controller plugin yet.

Thanks! A generic secondary controller plugin would be awesome until that feature is built into Indigo. I'm doing some research to better understand the various controller roles and what would be required for better support of the IQ2 in a plugin. It also helps me with basic understanding of the Z-Wave protocol.

Any suggestions for a Z-Wave sniffer? I would like to see not only the traffic to/from Indigo, but from one device to another. I'm specifically curious to see what devices the IQ2 talks to during the inclusion initiated by Indigo. Does it just talk to Indigo or does it also talk to each of the devices that Indigo already knows about?

Posted on
Thu May 31, 2018 11:28 am
howartp offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

Inclusion is a 1-to-1 process, except for asking for neighbours.

If Indigo is including Qolsys, it’s primarily thus a 1 on 1 conversation.

Only conversation between devices is usually if you set associations. Eg “when this light turns on, turn all the others in the room” without needing any controller.

Peter


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Posted on
Sat Jun 02, 2018 7:47 am
hannt offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

howartp wrote:
Inclusion is a 1-to-1 process, except for asking for neighbours.

If Indigo is including Qolsys, it’s primarily thus a 1 on 1 conversation.

Agreed. When the inclusion process starts, the Qolsys panel displays:

Controller Add/Remove
Processing Controller Add/Remove please wait…

Indigo Z-Wave debug logs show a successful inclusion with encryption. After this process completes, the Qolsys panel displays:

Adding Devices from Primary
Please Wait while adding new devices…

This process takes quite a bit of time, depending on the number of devices previously included. I'd say it takes approximately 30 seconds to 1 minute per device, maybe longer (I didn't time it). During this time, Indigo logs show no entries. I suspect the Qolsys panel is communicating with each of the devices as it adds them to its database. This is the communication I'm interested in seeing.

Posted on
Thu Jul 09, 2020 7:57 am
SearchCz offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

I fear this conversation is above my pay grade, but I'll take the chance at jumping in with a question or two...

I'm currently considering upgrading my wired standalone home alarm system to something I can integrate with my other Indigo automations. My provider (ADT) is pushing the QOLSYS IQ2+ panel / system.

If I go with this panel, what's my path to gaining visibility inIndigo to the events and status of that system and/or its components? I have the very modest goals of:

1) wanting to take advantage of any open/close and motion sensors added with the QOLSYS system ... rather than having to throw two motion sensors in a room.

2) wanting to trigger Indigo actions on QOLSYS events, like arming, disarming, triggering.

Any advice before I buy into this new ecosystem greatly appreciated. Also open to other suggestions about home security systems that might integrate more easily, if such a thing exists?

Posted on
Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:39 am
peszko offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

hannt wrote:
Any suggestions for a Z-Wave sniffer? I would like to see not only the traffic to/from Indigo, but from one device to another. I'm specifically curious to see what devices the IQ2 talks to during the inclusion initiated by Indigo. Does it just talk to Indigo or does it also talk to each of the devices that Indigo already knows about?


I just got z-wave toolbox and it has a z-wave sniffer function. I already found problem packets coming from a switch that periodically has a delay in responding. Will have to investigate it further.

I just got it so need to play around with it a bit.

Posted on
Fri Jul 10, 2020 12:56 pm
peszko offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

This is a z-wave toolbox network map. It's zoomable and clickable.
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Screen Shot 2020-07-10 at 2.51.48 PM.png
My network map
Screen Shot 2020-07-10 at 2.51.48 PM.png (332.45 KiB) Viewed 2638 times

Posted on
Fri Jul 10, 2020 1:00 pm
peszko offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

This one gives you the signal strength from the toolbox to two different devices. The idea is you take a extension cord and walk around (battery would be better) and it gives you live signal readings.
Attachments
Screen Shot 2020-07-10 at 2.58.59 PM.png
Signal strength meter
Screen Shot 2020-07-10 at 2.58.59 PM.png (89.77 KiB) Viewed 2636 times

Posted on
Fri Jul 10, 2020 1:07 pm
peszko offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

Here are some others:

Live background noise reading and Packet analyzer
Attachments
Screen Shot 2020-07-10 at 3.04.20 PM.png
Packet analyzer
Screen Shot 2020-07-10 at 3.04.20 PM.png (284.31 KiB) Viewed 2633 times
Screen Shot 2020-07-10 at 3.01.18 PM.png
Noise reading
Screen Shot 2020-07-10 at 3.01.18 PM.png (115.56 KiB) Viewed 2633 times

Posted on
Fri Jul 10, 2020 5:16 pm
hannt offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

SearchCz wrote:
I fear this conversation is above my pay grade, but I'll take the chance at jumping in with a question or two...

I'm currently considering upgrading my wired standalone home alarm system to something I can integrate with my other Indigo automations. My provider (ADT) is pushing the QOLSYS IQ2+ panel / system.

First let me say that I really like the QOLSYS panel/system. It does a great job as a security system and with Z-Wave management. I just wish it and Indigo integrated better.

With that said, it's been over 2 years since I attempted the integration of the QOLSYS panel with Indigo so please take my response with a grain of salt - I may have forgotten a thing or two. In general, the 2 systems might be able to share Z-Wave devices and functionality (see below). They cannot share other devices such as wired motion detectors or wired open/close sensors.I seem to remember another post in these forums on possible ways to work around this limitation.

SearchCz wrote:
If I go with this panel, what's my path to gaining visibility inIndigo to the events and status of that system and/or its components? I have the very modest goals of:

1) wanting to take advantage of any open/close and motion sensors added with the QOLSYS system ... rather than having to throw two motion sensors in a room.

Unless something has changed over the past 2 years, events that are based on wired devices, or even non-Z-Wave wireless devises, cannot be sent to Indigo. However, one workaround that was suggested was to create a virtual Z-Wave device (or maybe use a physical Z-Wave device) in Indigo that the QOLSYS panel could set to a specific state when a wired sensor was triggered. So for example, if a door was opened, the virtual device would be set to a specific state. Then in Indigo, you could trigger on that state and do something. This all sounded really complicated so I never really checked into it more.

Something more recent that I've just started playing with is to actually watch for wireless signals send from a sensor to the QOLSYS panel. Let me provide some background.

Almost all of the devices that were part of the previous security system when we bought this house were wired. To get them working with the QOLSYS panel, I purchased a QOLSYS IQ Hardware 16 (I think that was the model). All of the wires from the sensors are wired into this device and it relays signals wirelessly to the QOLSYS panel (on or near the 433 MHz band). I also have a couple of sensors that are wireless so they signal the QOLSYS panel directly. Note that this wireless is not Z-Wave.

I recently purchased a software-defined turner so I could receive 433 MHz wireless signals. To my surprise, it wasn't all that difficult to see the wireless signals and I'm pretty sure I got far enough to decode them enough to know if a door was opened or that there was motion detected. This would require a plugin which I started, however, I got sidetracked when I realized the same SDR could see the wireless thermometers I had placed around the house. That's what I use the SDR for now. Anyway...

SearchCz wrote:
2) wanting to trigger Indigo actions on QOLSYS events, like arming, disarming, triggering.

Any advice before I buy into this new ecosystem greatly appreciated. Also open to other suggestions about home security systems that might integrate more easily, if such a thing exists?


The panel handles "scenes" pretty well, although not as thorough as Indigo. So for example, a trigger such as arming can cause Z-Wave devices to do specified things (light on, unlock door, etc.). If the QOLSYS panel was setup as a secondary controller to Indigo, you could create scenes on either (or both) controller. This is what I was attempting 2 years ago and never really got it working.

So I guess in summary, unless something has changed in the last two years, the two systems really can't be integrated with each other. On the other hand, if something has changed and the QOLSYS panel can be included as a secondary controller, there would be quite a bit of functionality from a Z-Wave perspective. However, there probably wouldn't be much functionality with security (wired or wireless) triggers.

Hope this helps.

Posted on
Fri Jul 10, 2020 5:18 pm
hannt offline
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Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

peszko wrote:
hannt wrote:
Any suggestions for a Z-Wave sniffer? I would like to see not only the traffic to/from Indigo, but from one device to another. I'm specifically curious to see what devices the IQ2 talks to during the inclusion initiated by Indigo. Does it just talk to Indigo or does it also talk to each of the devices that Indigo already knows about?


I just got z-wave toolbox and it has a z-wave sniffer function. I already found problem packets coming from a switch that periodically has a delay in responding. Will have to investigate it further.

I just got it so need to play around with it a bit.


I recently saw that and was wondering if it was any good. Thanks for posting the pictures! Looks really useful, but I'm not sure I want to pay $149 for it.

Posted on
Tue Jul 14, 2020 11:40 am
peszko offline
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Joined: Mar 07, 2012

Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

hannt wrote:
I recently saw that and was wondering if it was any good. Thanks for posting the pictures! Looks really useful, but I'm not sure I want to pay $149 for it.


Yes its a bit expensive. I'm still not decided if it was worth it. It did find one issue that I had, but...

Posted on
Thu Jan 12, 2023 7:10 am
bobbyc176 offline
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Joined: Mar 15, 2014

Re: Qolsys Security Panel as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

I've got the Qolsys Panel 2+ and I've been able to do a Z-Wave inclusion with my Aeon Stick 7. It comes up on my device list as "074 - Gateway"

However, when I try to create a new device and select "Sync using node:" "074 - Gateway" I get a timeout error. "Timeout waiting for "074 - Gateway". Module may be asleep, or is unreachable.

When I pull the Event log, I see the following....

Jan 12, 2023 at 8:07:06 AM
Z-Wave Syncing - started for "074 - Gateway"
Z-Wave Syncing - retrieved module neighbors list: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 15, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 43, 45, 47, 48, 54, 61, 63, 68, 70, 75, 78

Jan 12, 2023 at 8:07:31 AM
Z-Wave Error Syncing - failed
Z-Wave Error Timeout waiting for "074 - Gateway". Module might be asleep, or is unreachable.

Is there something I need to be doing on the Indigo or Qolsys side to get the device to build successfully?

Thanks!

Rob

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