Multiple Z-Wave controllers

Posted on
Thu May 28, 2015 2:33 pm
jtodd offline
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Multiple Z-Wave controllers

I know it's been asked before, but I'll put another "+1" in for multiple Z-wave controllers. I would like to have a controller (for example) in each of my distant out-buildings.

I could easily get few Serial-over-Ethernet adapters that allowed me to put additional controllers in my garage, one in my shop, and one in the pool house - I have less than 3ms latency on the ethernet to all those locations but they're all completely out of range even for extenders or other Z-wave hacks. Then I could manage all of those locations from a single Indigo instance. Currently I manage none of them since I don't want the headache or cost or running multiple computers in the various locations. There are quite a few ways to share USB/serial over ethernet, and I won't get into them here. It just matters that Indigo doesn't try to be clever about how to talk to serial ports, and uses the standard interface API so that the various hardware/software shims could be used to stretch the signals out across the network.

Posted on
Thu May 28, 2015 3:07 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

Thanks for the feedback.

[MODERATOR NOTE] moved to the feature request forum.

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Posted on
Sat Aug 15, 2015 11:11 pm
hishamk offline
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Multiple Z-Wave controllers

I second this. I think another use case might help support the need for this feature.

I use both 868.4MHz (EU/MENA) and 918.4MHz (US) Z-Wave frequencies. My main frequency and preferred one is obviously the EU, since it's the official frequency and 95% of my nodes use it. So that's controlled by an Aeon Z-Stick controlled by Indigo. However, I was hard pressed to find reliable Z-Wave thermostats and locks in EU frequency so I ended up using Honeywell and Yale respectively, using a US VeraLite via the Vera Bridge. It all works quite well, though I'm hoping that in the future I won't need the VeraLite and simply plug in a US frequency Aeon Z-Stick.

In any case, love the software - great job guys! Keep going.

Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 1:43 pm
rjsmetal offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

this would be the best, I have an out building with Cat-6 cable buried between and have tested extended USB between them and it works great for a second Z-Wave stick just can't have 2 sticks configured in Indigo.

Posted on
Mon Sep 30, 2019 9:17 am
joel.snyder offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

Anyone at Indigo care to respond here? I've seen a "no one wants this" a couple of times in the past, but wanted to check in now to see if supporting a second Z-Wave controller is anywhere on the horizon.

Posted on
Mon Sep 30, 2019 9:53 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

There are no plans for multiple controller support in the near term. Demand is just too low vs other priorities.

One thing some users have done is to purchase an inexpensive Vera controller and use the 3rd party Vera Bridge plugin to integrate with Indigo. Note: I don't know if the new Vera Ezlo Atom works with the plugin (it's unclear if it supports the integration API the plugin uses).

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Posted on
Mon Sep 30, 2019 10:19 am
FlyingDiver offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

Another option, if you really want to get into the guts of things, is to run a raspberry Pi with node-red and a Z-wave controller, and bridge the two devices with MQTT. That's sort-of what I'm doing with a remote node in my storage garage. I'm not using Z-wave there, but I am using some Wyze sensors and TP-Link outlets/switches.
Last edited by FlyingDiver on Mon Sep 30, 2019 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted on
Mon Sep 30, 2019 10:55 am
jtodd offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

Thanks for the hint! I'll give it a shot, but it looks like a fragile layering of Yet More Protocols into this giant mess of automation that I've built around Indigo. Say goodbye to another three days of my life. :-)

The Vera option is not an option - the bridge to Vera is so weak-featured that it really shouldn't even be mentioned as viable.

Posted on
Mon Sep 30, 2019 11:27 am
joel.snyder offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

jtodd wrote:
The Vera option is not an option - the bridge to Vera is so weak-featured that it really shouldn't even be mentioned as viable.


I have to agree. Indigo support has mentioned this as an option in the past, but the Vera bridge doesn't work well, and it's a lousy solution. I went through two Vera boxes before deciding that it was just crappy code, both in the Vera and in the plug-in.

I accomplished this with the ISY box (Universal Devices); the plug-in is a lot better (plus I made a lot of changes and re-submitted so it's available and updated), but it's overall a weak solution. If you want to turn lights on and off (which is what I want) then it is OK. But if you want to start to incorporate other devices such as sensors and other more sophisticated things than on/off/dim, the ISY won't work well--too much paradigm shift between the two products.

It's a bit astonishing that whoever did the Z-Wave code didn't abstract it enough to handle multiple Z-Wave sticks---seems like an obvious design possibility from the very beginning, and they did write code to handle different "interfaces" to devices (e.g., Insteon, Z-Wave, etc).

I picked up a Homeseer box on eBay for a couple of bucks and I'll give that a try. They handle multiple Z-Wave easily, but whether the whole Homeseer is junk or not I don't know. Their Windows legacy approach has me worried. The other option seems to be OpenHAB. Maybe give that a try over the xmas break...

But I really wish Indigo would do it. Why throw out my investment (both in learning and in software) ? And otherwise Indigo is a fantastic product!

Posted on
Mon Sep 30, 2019 12:05 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

jtodd wrote:
The Vera option is not an option - the bridge to Vera is so weak-featured that it really shouldn't even be mentioned as viable.


joel.snyder wrote:
Vera bridge doesn't work well, and it's a lousy solution.


Interesting. There are quite a few users using it, so it's viability is clearly subjective.

In any event, as I say above it's on the list but not a big priority. If we hear more demand for the feature, it would certainly increase it's priority. It's just not there at the moment.

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Posted on
Mon Sep 30, 2019 12:12 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

joel.snyder wrote:
It's a bit astonishing that whoever did the Z-Wave code didn't abstract it enough to handle multiple Z-Wave sticks---seems like an obvious design possibility from the very beginning, and they did write code to handle different "interfaces" to devices (e.g., Insteon, Z-Wave, etc).

You can be astonished at me then.

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Posted on
Mon Sep 30, 2019 2:53 pm
jtodd offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

I get why there was no abstraction of Z-wave to start with - I know how difficult it is to consider that kind of thing at the very start of a project, and then how hard it is to change once it's enshrined in code that many people rely upon. However... some sort of "new" Z-wave interface that supports multi-device might be the path forward, instead of modifying the old one.

Joel is on target - the Vera bridge is really, really simplistic. If you just want to turn a light on and off, maybe it does work OK, but my recollection when I looked hard at what it could do was that it didn't support much more than that.

I have outbuilding(s) that need fire alarms, temperature sensors, generic switches, motion detectors, light switches, outlets - the works. Everything has ethernet (and/or wifi) and I am really not wanting to switch over to using much more expensive and non-homogenous interfaces using WiFi. Z-wave is great, and the short-range mesh is perfect for what I need. So I'll try out Node Red and see if I can link via MQTT.

Also - OpenHAB looks very interesting, so I'll have to see what that can do. It appears to be a full-on replacement for Indigo, so that will take quite a bit of thinking and evaluation. I have a lot invested in Indigo currently, though mostly the "investments" are hacks to make it do things that it doesn't do out of the box (or which it now does do, but didn't a while ago.)

Posted on
Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:34 am
joel.snyder offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

Just trying to keep this thread alive: now that 2021 is out and Alexa is supported, is multiple Z-Wave devices (Z-wave networks, really) anywhere on the To-Do list?

jms

Posted on
Sun Aug 08, 2021 12:58 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Multiple Z-Wave controllers

Still on the ToDo list but no ETA as to when/if we'll get to it.

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