Support for Secondary Controllers

I have a security system that supports the control of Z-Wave devices. It would be great if Indigo fully supported including the security panel as a secondary Z-Wave controller. The main usage model would be that Z-Wave devices could be controlled by both Indigo and the security panel. This way Z-Wave devices could be integrated in scenes on the security panel/website (ex. "Arrive at Home" would disarm the security system, unlock a door and turn on a light) and Indigo features (triggers, schedules, etc.) could also control the same Z-Wave devices. As devices are added/deleted in Indigo, those changes would be propagated to the secondary controller.

There are probably other features defined in the Z-Wave specification that relate to secondary controllers so the request would be for Indigo to fully support secondary controllers as defined in the Z-Wave specification. Hopefully this would allow many types of secondary controllers to "just work" with Indigo.

I don't know enough about the z-wave protocol re: getting commands from multiple controllers, but I have a few other systems in my home that run in parallel with Indigo and it works just fine. Devices need to be manually added, to each, but as long as each system reports status, it works just fine.

Example: Lighting in my home is RadioRa2. RadioRa2 has it's own interface, and interface with it several ways:
1) Direct, end-point, wall switch control.
2) Lutron's app (I think this is the best way to access keypads (which might control lighting groups) without being at the switch.
3) 'Homesense' App. Basically I use this to control the Lutron system because they offer widgets (Next Indigo Touch update Jay and Matt... )
4) Indigo's control of the system. This is used for all 'real' automation like triggers, conditions, etc... Even though Lutron's native control has timeclock functions, I handle them from Indigo because I think it's more flexible.

These all work together just fine, since any change made by any control is reported to all of the other systems, so nothing is ever out of sync.

A bigger split might my pool. I have ability to control most of my pool functions via Indigo, but generally leave the Pentair Panel in full control for scheduling, etc... with Indigo adding ability to add remote control, and use pool states for other logic (reason for this is because if say, there is some computer or network failure, the pool controller will keep running and keep the pool from getting green, but since Indigo requires the pool controller to be running to control it, there's no point on making Indigo the master, since a failure of the Pentair Panel would bring that down anyway.

Regardless, I'm not sure what 'more' level of control or support we could have with a secondary controller. It seems like running multiple controllers (at least the way I can understand it) is readily doable.

I think the problem is that unlike Insteon for example, Z-wave devices can only have one controller and they only report to THAT controller... so they can either talk to the Z-stick on Indigo OR the security panel (which may or may not be able to talk to Indigo using WIFI, Bluetooth, or some other protocol) but not both. I like the fact that Insteon sensors can be tied both to an Insteon hub AND indigo; I actually have a hub monitoring my smokebridge as well as Indigo; when the smoke detectors go off, I get both a pushover alert from Indigo AND a text from the Hub, so even if one of he systems is compromised (the Mac we have running Indigo has crashed on occasion), I do have a backup... provided the network modem has not failed. But with the Z-wave sensors, I can't do a similar trick using the old Vera that I had for door control before Indigo allowed secure Z-wave communication; if the sensors are on the Vera, Indigo can't see them and if they are on the Z-stick, they are invisible to to the Vera... and since the Vera Bridge couldn't forward sensor data to Indigo, I retired it when I updated to 7.

[jay (support)]

As we've said before, enabling secondary controllers is on the feature request list and has been since we first implemented Z-Wave. Demand has, to date, been quite low, especially as compared to fleshing out Z-Wave device support.

Hannt, I’ve replied on other thread.

I’ll look at a plugin for this.

Peter


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I think the problem is that unlike Insteon for example, Z-wave devices can only have one controller and they only report to THAT controller... so they can either talk to the Z-stick on Indigo OR the security panel (which may or may not be able to talk to Indigo using WIFI, Bluetooth, or some other protocol) but not both..

I've been doing a lot of research on this topic and here's what I've found so far. Please correct anything that may be incorrect:

• Even though the primary and secondary controllers each have their own, unique Network ID, the ID of the primary controller is the one used for the network. The secondary controller takes on the Network ID of the primary controller when it is included into the network just like any other device.
• The primary controller and secondary controllers have the same functionality on the network except that the primary controller will handle inclusion and exclusion. The secondary controller cannot include devices onto the network. Otherwise, devices can be controlled by both controllers.
• Devices can be part of scenes setup on either controller or both controllers.
• Primary controller functionality can be moved from one controller to another. So for example you might have a static primary controller and a portable secondary controller. The primary controller function could be moved temporarily to the secondary portable controller so that it could then go around a house and include devices. When finished with the inclusion, the primary controller function could then be switched back to the static controller.
• When a secondary controller is included into the network, the primary controller passes device information to that secondary controller so that it then knows about all of the devices on the network.
• This is one I'm not sure about... I *think* device information can be updated between the primary and secondary servers as devices are included or excluded.
• Here's one I have no idea about... When a primary controller changes the state of a device, does the secondary controller know about the change? Does it get a notification of some sort? And what about if the secondary controller changes the state of a device, does the primary controller know about the change? And what if the device state changes (ex. a light switch was manually turned on or off), do either controller know about the state change?

There are actually 5 network server roles:

1. Primary Controller
2. Secondary Controller
3. Static Update Controller (SUC)
4. SUC ID Server (SIS)
5. Inclusion Controller

I still have more testing to do, and more research to do, but a lot of the functionality does already exist in Indigo. I'm hoping a plug-in could be written to makeup for what's missing.

Hannt, I’ve replied on other thread.

I’ll look at a plugin for this.

Thanks, Peter. I'm definitely willing to help out.

-Tommy

Matt / Jay,

I saw this old post from 2018 discussing secondary controllers. Is there any update on Secondary controller support?

[jay (support)]

No update. It's on the list, but demand is very low so it hasn't made it to the top.

Please?

The main reason for me would be to replace a faulty controller. I have about 100 Z-Wave devices and a controller that needs to be replaced.
The only way to do that right now is exclude all devices from the old controller and include them in the new controller.
I don't want to do that.

So having support for a secondary controller and switching roles would be perfect for my situation.

Would this option work for you? On the assumption it is an Aeotec device.

https://aeotec.freshdesk.com/support/so ... p-software


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Please?

The main reason for me would be to replace a faulty controller. I have about 100 Z-Wave devices and a controller that needs to be replaced.
The only way to do that right now is exclude all devices from the old controller and include them in the new controller.
I don't want to do that.

So having support for a secondary controller and switching roles would be perfect for my situation.

I don't think this will do what you want. you can't have a z-wave device included to two different controllers. So you can't use them as main/backup.

You MIGHT be able to backup the controller and then load that backup to a new controller. IF your controller supports that, and you can run their backup software (usually Windows only).

According to what hannt said above it should/could work that way.