MSR UI on a mobile browser

[tamorgen]

@gwp1 ,
Not to steal your thread, but out of curiosity, have you noticed any issues with battery life lately? I've noticed that a few of my iBlinds are draining very rapidly, ending in a unresponsive state. I've charged them, then less than a week later, they are dead and unresponsive.

They all appear to be the older v2 iBlinds, so it could just be that the batteries are ending their useful life, however, it's also possible that the new configuration and command class is affecting them in some way. I'm gradually replacing them, as I've found the v3.1 iBlinds to be much more reliable. I haven't noticed this behavior in the v3.1 iBlinds.

I'm just curious if you've seen this as well. If you are seeing it, it could be an issue with how ZWaveJS is communicating with the iBlinds due to this new roleout.

[gwp1]

@tamorgen Not entirely stealing or off-topic as that has played a role before in iblind responsiveness. I have solar panels on mine - 50/50 on how well they work. My blinds are all v3.1, btw, @toggledbits, just as a point of reference.

I have found if ZWaveJS HA Plugin shows anything under 60% battery the blinds become unresponsive. A quick plug of the power cable and a tap of the ping button and the physical button on the blind itself and they come back.

For this specific topic, all tested blinds are either plugged in or showing 100% battery.

[tamorgen]

@gwp1,
Thanks, I figured it couldn't hurt to ask someone else running HA to see if they were experiencing the same problems. I think it just might be old batteries.

[tamorgen]

@gwp1,
I'm working on trying to make something useful in the dashboards using this new device class, and it's not going well. I've reached out to iBlinds/Eric B for help. What we are both seeing as unknown/null states could be a problem.

There are three values that are null or unknown: cover.state, position.value, and then a repeat using the x_hass.state.

When I go into Developer Tools in HA, the state is unknown as well. That makes sense since MSR has to grab it from somewhere.
I'm trying to work on my dashboard and display some useful information, and I'm unable to get the value of the attributes. I'm guessing that's because the State is unknown.

Hopefully iBlinds can work with HA and ZWaveJS and get these values to show properly.

[toggledbits]

Yeah, logs confirm everything going out as expected, ZWJS acknowledging the request, and also sending a notification for a value change asynchronously. ZWaveJSController appears to be doing the right things. ZWaveJS appears to be doing its part as well.

[gwp1]

@toggledbits I'm conducting an experiment.

DR2 blind (22-0) is configured as [Default] direction and using MSRs ZWJSController. I have set the three Reactions to:

DR OPEN: cover.open
DR CLOSE: cover.close
DR @25: position.set = .75 (resulting in the blind being tilted open 25%, "top inside").

All other iblinds are using HA's ZWJSC plugin and all ran flawlessly for the past 24 hours. I'm wondering if this issue is somehow load-induced. If this single blind remains solid I will add a second and so on.

UPDATE: as my patience level on any given day runs the gamut between saint and toddler I've added KITCHEN (18-0) to this test with the same settings as above excepting .80 instead of .75. Both of these iblinds were the most impacted in being unresponsive.

[gwp1]

@toggledbits we have fail!

Added two more iblinds to the test. They failed to respond so I isolated one of them and did the following tests on node 8-0:

LR Left OPEN: cover.open
LR Left CLOSE: cover.close
LR Left @20: position.set = .80 (resulting in the blind being tilted open 20%, "top inside").

Results:
cover.open = iblind opens, position of 50
cover.close = iblind moves to position of 50 <---expected result, position 0
position.set = iblind moves to position of 80

As this Reaction was to run BOTH left and right blinds I removed the right blind and ran the left solo as the kitchen and DR are (both still working fine, btw). For reference, Kitchen was existing unit and was re-interviewed to be current, DR is a brand new unit. LR's are existing units re-interviewed.

Log forthcoming.

[tamorgen]

@gwp1, I just replaced 6 of my ib2 motors with ib3.1, and they are working just fine (12 of 14 are v3.1). I can control them from MSR with ZWJSController without issue.

My only issue is actually Home Assistant itself. I've had to go to great lengths to get a somewhat working card for each of the blinds in my home, and I'm still not completely there yet. I'm hoping either the ZWaveJS devlopers or the HA developers figure out whats going on with the 'state' value for each of these, as they all return 'unknown', so none of the cards work out of the box.

[gwp1]

@tamorgen said in [SOLVED-ish] New iblind and zwaveJScontroller/MSR not communicating:

they are working just fine (12 of 14 are v3.1). I can control them from MSR with ZWJSController without issue.

It's more helpful if, instead of generalized statements, you provide settings/configurations you're using whilst having this success for comparison sake.

I ran into an issue this morning wherein, after completing the weekly zwave_device.set_config, the iblinds finish in a closed position but reporting back in all systems (HA, both ZWJSC's, and MSR) as 50 or open. I've created a workaround wherein, after completing the config, they wait a few seconds then tilt 20% and then set back to open.

[tamorgen]

@gwp1 said in [SOLVED-ish] New iblind and zwaveJScontroller/MSR not communicating:

It's more helpful if, instead of generalized statements, you provide settings/configurations you're using whilst having this success for comparison sake.

All of mine are like this, cover.close, cover.open.

Perform cover.close on Office Blind Left (zwavejs>30-0)
Delay for 5 seconds
Perform cover.close on Office Blind Right (zwavejs>31-0)
Delay for 5 seconds
Perform zwave_device.refresh on Office Blind Left (zwavejs>30-0)
Perform zwave_device.refresh on Office Blind Right (zwavejs>31-0)

I'm not even sure the zwave.device.refresh is needed anymore. This was more of an issue when trying to force the old device class to refresh on both the binary switch and the multi-level switch, as they weren't directly connected and didn't update each other. It was one of the reasons that the folks at iBlinds were pushing to get the window device class implemented.

[gwp1]

@tamorgen I see you doing the delay as I do. How do you do a weekly config? (The blinds will "drift" if not config'd weekly or bi-weekly.

I have removed the zwave_device.refresh to see how that goes.

Question: you have a great number of blinds in your fleet as do I - how many blinds do you group together? I see you grouped two for your office blinds, do you have more than two at a time grouped in a single reaction? Or are you skipping reactions and adding each entity in each ruleset?

[tamorgen]

@gwp1 ,

I really don't have any sort of weekly config on mine. I haven't noticed mine drifting at all, but a weekly recalibrate wouldn't be a bad idea.

I have rules for hourly refreshing the the cover, position, and switch positions that are now pretty much legacy of the old device class. I only have two of the IB2 devices left, and they're in non critical rooms ( guest bedroom and mudroom). I'll replace those later this year. Once those are gone, I'll be able to remove those three hourly rules.

I have reactions set up for each set of windows in a room. Most rooms only have two windows, so I group those. The lone exception is my family room, where I have four windows, but on different walls. I have those set up on two separate reactions, which allows me to separately set the blinds to a partial open position when the sun is shining directly in. The largest events with the blinds are at sunrise, sunset, and when the house is vacant or someone arrives, when I'll set the reactions from the rule, and I have "Wait for completion" enabled after each call for a reaction. It takes a couple of minutes for all my blinds to open/close when it's called. I initially didn't do this, but iBlinds recommended not calling them all at once (thus the pause in between each call for a blind to open/close). For the most part, this has helped tremendously with the IB2 motors, although they still had their fair share of problems, which is why I've been replacing them all this year.

I call the reactions from rulesets, so I don't have to reinvent the wheel each time I want to perform an action on a window. It also allows me to make an adjustment once and not 10 different times in different rules.

[gwp1]

@tamorgen we are very much aligned in our approach.

• My office has four windows, one front-facing and three smaller side-facing. I group the three together.
• My main room covers the single kitchen, single dining room, and two paired living room blinds.
• My master bedroom has two paired together, the master bath a single that I do not group with the bedroom.
• Guest rooms are single independents.

I, too, do reactions for:

• open (Day)
• close (Evening/Night)
• tilt (this is used for Away for all, also for "sun defer" as the sun moves around the house)

I do reactions as well for the very same reason: single place to edit. I know @toggledbits will cringe but my "Open ALL" , "Tilt ALL", and "Close ALL" are reactions that contain the other room-specific reactions and are called by rulesets.

I've increased my delays again back to 00:00:05 (was down to 00:00:02) just to see if that may help the initial issue that spawned this topic. I don't need to have all blinds close at once (sure, it would be cool) - it's still fun for guests when the actions start in the office at the front of the house and just file their way around until all are completed.

[toggledbits]

@gwp1 said in [SOLVED-ish] New iblind and zwaveJScontroller/MSR not communicating:

Log forthcoming.

Looked at the log. ZWaveJSController is consistently, correctly issuing the right commands and values for all actions in every case. ZWaveJS is responding with a successful acknowledgement of the command, and later passing an update notification with the node's position having a value consistent with the command previously given in every case. It appears that ZWaveJS understands what MSR is asking it to do, sending that to the device, and the device is sending back updates indicating it has done what has been asked. If that's not what the device actually does, then I assert it's firmware or hardware issue with the device.

The log contains errors for an attempt to refresh (using the zwave_device.refresh action) non-existent node 7 (that is, ZWaveJS reports that the node doesn't exist; the entity may still exist as a zombie). That has no effect operationally, just bringing to your attention that after excluding/including devices, you may have missed a now-dead entity.

[gwp1]

@toggledbits Node 7-0 has cleaned itself up in MSR (it was cleared out in HA's ZWJSC). I got the same from the logs, was hoping you would see something I missed.

The firmware is on the latest. I'll doublecheck the firmware on the ZWave Stick that runs these from HA. Thanks @toggledbits, as usual.

Updating this thread to [SOLVED] as whatever the issue may be it's not MSR's.

[gwp1]

A final update here... adding in a minimum of 00:00:05 delays has resolved the issues.