Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

Posted on
Sat Jan 23, 2016 9:37 am
wideglidejrp offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

I don't know the business model for Indigo, but seems to me developing support for new devices will become increasingly difficult. They can't support every device with limited resources. I wonder if it would be possible to distribute the effort into the community, much like plugins. I realize there is a difference, but if Indigo could document the process of developing device support, testing it, and integrating it, I suspect there are people (users) who would happily contribute. Device support has been a limitation for many technologies. Back in 1992 I was vp of marketing for IBM's OS/2 operating system. It was superior to the then Windows 3.1, but Microsoft had a lock on the device drivers. Users were frustrated that IBM could not get drivers for new devices out more quickly. When we switched to a Linux strategy around 2000, things were much different because users could help create the drivers. If Indigo is going to grow to its potential, I think it needs to open up the device support process. My two cents.

John R Patrick
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Posted on
Sun Jan 24, 2016 12:24 pm
gsbrewer offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

+1 for open architecture to support our own (or someone else's devices). Thanks for your continued concise insights john.
Is accessing this device not currently possible by making a device plugin? Is there suitable communication management to new devices? I have never written a device specific plugin (just server plugins that rely on standard insteon/zwave communication messages from the server).

In my server plug-in du jour I simply need to be able to distinguish motion on state and off state. I currently get all deviceUpdated() events but I can't tell origDev and newDev apart from each other. This puzzles me because I currently see in the log "Z-Wave received \"Test Multisensor\" status update is on" (and corresponding "off" messages) that seem to correspond to motion/nonmotion events yet the device definition doesn't support onOffState. Am I missing something or is there any trick or hack I can do in my server plug-in to get the state change details until full support for this device comes out?

Posted on
Sun Jan 24, 2016 1:14 pm
wideglidejrp offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

I do not know enough to accurately answer your question. I believe the issue concerns a fundamental difference between device support and plugins. Device support is integral to Indigo. If they farmed this out to users/developers, they would take on a quality control responsibility because if the device support was defective, it could bring down the entire Indigo system. Plugins on the other hand, are somewhat isolated from Indigo. A plugin could totally fail and have no impact on Indigo. I still think the "outsourcing" of device support could be done, however. It would require a process with quality control testing before any device support could be approved. I hypothesize this would be less effort on Indigo's part than having to do the entire job of supporting a new device. If you believe, home automation is going to continue rapid growth with an increasing number of new devices, it seems to me a new approach to supporting them is needed.

John R Patrick
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Posted on
Sun Jan 24, 2016 3:51 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

It would require a process with quality control testing before any device support could be approved. I hypothesize this would be less effort on Indigo's part than having to do the entire job of supporting a new device. If you believe, home automation is going to continue rapid growth with an increasing number of new devices, it seems to me a new approach to supporting them is needed.

I personally think this is a moot point because Matt & Jay are going to do what they believe is best for users and have already announced a plan they believe will lead to faster updates and support (with the Indigo Up-to-Date program). But I have to tell you that as a software developer I disagree with your above statement - I find it far harder and often more time intensive to test, validate and support another user's code... especially on a commercial product for which they are assuming support. And even perhaps without even having the device itself. Not only that, but it takes a LOT of work to break things out of a base product to support another plugin style object for devices.

I have no particular insight into their codebase or plans, but I don't want people to read that statement/idea and get worked up about why they don't implement it. I'm not saying they or their plans are perfect, but you've trusted them this far and it is clear they know it is something to be addressed... just my two cents.

Posted on
Mon Jan 25, 2016 3:32 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

wideglidejrp wrote:
It would require a process with quality control testing before any device support could be approved. I hypothesize this would be less effort on Indigo's part than having to do the entire job of supporting a new device. If you believe, home automation is going to continue rapid growth with an increasing number of new devices, it seems to me a new approach to supporting them is needed.


As a former VP of Engineering at CyberSource (now part of Visa), I'm quite well versed in the development and testing process, particularly when it comes to high availability and mission critical software. While it would be possible to create another layer of architecture to support pluggable Z-Wave devices, it would be a large undertaking, primarily due to the need to sandbox each device rather than each protocol. I'm not even sure it's really feasible to do that while maintaining the performance characteristics and stability that's the hallmark of Indigo. Our competitors often sacrifice usability, stability and performance (among other things) by not architecting their products well. That is not something we're willing to do.

As Adam pointed out, we've already outlined our plans to address the speed at which we add new devices. It doesn't guarantee that every new Z-Wave device will be supported quickly, but we believe that it does mean that the more mainstream devices that require custom implementation will appear sooner. We're also hopeful that as the adoption of the Z-Wave gen 5 spec increases, hardware vendors will find it less and less necessary to "interpret" the spec in different ways - this has been one of the biggest barriers to interoperability in the Z-Wave world. If everyone followed the spec exactly and didn't stray, then adding devices would be significantly easier.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Mon Jan 25, 2016 3:41 pm
wideglidejrp offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

Thanks very much for the insight. I understand your points. Makes sense.

John R Patrick
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Posted on
Sat Feb 20, 2016 2:23 am
moyse offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

Noooooooooo! :shock:

I should have checked compatibility before buying.... and certainly should have checked before ripping out my old system. Whoops.

Don't suppose there's any news is there? I know it's the weekend but it'd be absolutely amazing if you could quickly bosh out a new version (ideally before my girlfriend comes home tonight). :lol:

Posted on
Sat Feb 20, 2016 11:20 am
matt (support) offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

No new version this weekend, but support of all Aeotec modules (especially the MultiSensor) is very high on our priority list for the next major release.

Image

Posted on
Sat Feb 20, 2016 12:08 pm
gsbrewer offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

We are all excited for the next major release... you guys do a great job on this product. For what it's worth, I moved on to the Fibaro multi-sensors for the time being. The reason is that I have a rather large insteon device count and the insteon wireless motions contribute to a fair amount of communication collisions. As I think I saw you state elsewhere, the Fibaro's indeed work at a slightly different frequency. I modified my server plugin to be able to accept either one's input interchangeably (and I will add the Aeon in the future). So far I changed out about 20 sensor. I now have about 20 Fibaro sensors and 20 Insteon sensors deployed in the same house (along with about 100 other insteon devices) and message collisions are noticeably reduced ( judging by the seat of the pants - I have not instrumented the change).

Keep up the good work guys!

Posted on
Wed Feb 24, 2016 11:03 am
akimball offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

I just learned about the Multisensor 6 about 10 minutes ago and I feel like a chum for investing so much into 23 Insteon motion sensors... on the bright side, they're installed and working. I'm not good at waiting... any chance that support for the Multisensor 6 will materialize before noon?

-Al

Posted on
Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:31 pm
johnpolasek offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

Unless you need the small footprint or tamper and UV sensors, the Multisensor 4 is supposedly already supported. I have one of each, both of them currently on the Vera that I have to have for my Z-wave lock; although they are invisible to Indigo, they seem to work pretty well as security devices through the Vera App. As I've mentioned in other posts, Aeon seemed to put a lot of effort into making the 6 tough for other companies to use, so I don't blame Jay and Matt for not wanting to fight with it, since it's not that much better than the 4 that is already in place.

Posted on
Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:38 pm
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

I noticed the Multisensor 6 because it includes a vibration detector and I've been looking for some type of glass-break sensor, but concluded that the vibration detector is more of a tamper detection device. I'm still trying to decide which glass break sensor will work best with my insteon system... I like having a sensor that I can leave running even if I'm at home (unlike motion detectors which require AWAY status).
Has the Multisensor 4 or 5 any capability for detecting glass breakage? I'm new to Z-Wave... I have around 220 insteon devices, but these would be my first Z-wave sensors.

-Al

Posted on
Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:12 pm
johnpolasek offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

The tamper sensor on the 6 was pretty sensitive to movement when I was trying to find the best spot to hide it on my bookcase, but I don't know how it would respond to something like the shock and vibration of glass breaking (unless it fell off the window it was glued to, of course)... I may give it a flick with my fingernail when I get home tonight and see if it triggers. And as far as the "away" status goes, on the Vera all that does is determine whether or not to send out the text message ; The sensor logs movement and device turns color in the web display irregardless of whether it's "armed" or not. And once I added a Z-wave relay between the far sensor and the Vera (that are about 100 ft and 3 walls apart), the z-waves have been more responsive than the Insteon motion dectectors that sometimes can't manage to get their signal through even though they are in the same room with multiple dual band Insteon switches. and keypads.

Posted on
Wed Mar 09, 2016 5:00 am
PeteVis offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

It would be nice if the Aeotec products would get some kind of priority to get supported. That would be nice.
Any kind of priority would be nice, low, medium, high...
Anything with less than a year of users begging for support would be awesome.

Posted on
Wed Mar 09, 2016 10:11 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6 ZW100-A

PeteVis wrote:
Any kind of priority would be nice, low, medium, high...


As we've stated in other threads, Aeotec devices are a high priority.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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