Managing Your Z-Wave® Network

Indigo 6 provides several tools to manage your Z-Wave network. Not only can you create/control/delete devices but you can also manage device associations and scenes. See the Connecting Z-Wave Interfaces section of the Getting Started Guide for details on connecting and configuring your Z-Wave interface.

Tip: if you're having issues with Indigo communicating with some of your Z-Wave devices, look at the position of your Z-Stick or EZController/Z-Troller. If you have it plugged directly into your Mac then the chances are that the signal range is reduced somewhat. Also, if there are any other electronics close to it (external hard drives, etc.) then you may want to try to move the interface around a little. For the Z-Stick, try a USB hub with connectors on the top that allow you to position it vertically. A word of warning: some users have used short USB extension cables successfully but others have found that these sometimes cause communication errors with the Z-Stick.

Indigo supports a variety of Z-Wave devices.

Before proceeding, make sure that you have connected and enabled your Z-Wave interface.

To add a Z-Wave device to Indigo, follow these steps:

1. Select DEVICES in the Main Window outline view or select one of the sub-folders.
2. Click the New… button. You'll see the Create New Device dialog.
3. Select Z-Wave from the Type popup menu.
4. Click the Define and Sync… button.
5. You'll see the Synchronize Z-Wave Device dialog.
6. Follow the directions on the dialog to complete setting up the device.

If you include multiple devices of the same type to your Z-Wave network at the same time, it may be almost impossible to distinguish them since they will all identify themselves the same way. There are a couple of ways you can make the process easier:

• When you include the devices with your Z-Stick or EZController / Z-Troller, jot down the order in which you included them. Hopefully, they will be given consecutive node numbers by the Z-Stick and that's the order that they'll be presented in the popup. This may not be fool-proof however. The EZController / Z-Troller will show you the node number on the LED display, so you can accurately record the included node.
• Include the devices one at a time to your Z-Stick, adding them to Indigo before moving on to the next one. This will ensure that the only nodes showing in the Use Node popup will be the last one you added.

Either way, you can always do trial and error. Add the node with its generic name, try it out to find out which device it is, then rename it. Unfortunately, there's not really a better way to handle this process. Fortunately, adding new devices is most often done one at a time anyway.

Note: all battery-powered Z-Wave devices will go to sleep to conserve battery power - when they are asleep, they will not respond to commands. Indigo needs to send the device some commands when it's adding the device, so you'll need to follow the manufacturer's instructions to wake the device up when you actually add the device to Indigo.

Once you've defined your device, you can edit it's properties. If you've still got the device dialog open, you can skip the first three steps below.

1. Select DEVICES in the Main Window outline view or select one of the sub-folders.
2. Find the device in the device table and double-click it (or select it an click the Edit… button)
3. You'll see the standard Edit Device dialog
4. Click on the Edit Device Settings… button and you'll see the configuration dialog:

The top part of the dialog allows you to set the polling properties for the device. The first thing you need to determine is if the device needs to be polled to check for status changes. Most devices will require some kind of polling to stay in sync. There are a few devices that Indigo can determine status changes on automatically, and we'll turn off the checkbox for those when we define the device. There are many devices that don't send out this information though (primarily because of some patents held by Lutron) so we give the option to poll the device.

Next, select the desired polling interval. This setting is quite important actually - the more frequently you poll a device the more congested your network will become. In fact, we can't guarantee an exact polling frequency below 5 minutes because we have to watch for the network to become idle before we can try polling. So, we suggest that the less important devices to keep in sync are polled at longer intervals and more critical devices get polled immediately. You can also poll devices that can't or don't get manually operated at a much lower frequency because Indigo will update the state as soon as the command to operate the device is acknowledged.

The top item on the list, Only When Activity Detected, is a great optimization - some devices send out a message whenever they change - they don't actually send the necessary information for Indigo to automatically update state, but it is enough to bump the device to the top of the poll list so that the status update will occur much more quickly. And it keeps us from having to poll the device at regular intervals because we can just poll it when we see this specific message. How do you know to select this option? We will eventually be collecting this information in our device database so we can set it automatically. For the time being, you can try this setting out: just select Only When Activity Detected and save the device. Then, go manually operate the device. If the status updates (within about 10 seconds) then you can leave it. If the status never updates then you'll need to pick one of the other intervals as described above.

The fastest polling option is As Often as Possible - we'll poll the device as frequently as we can given the conditions of the z-wave network. Over time, we'll adjust this parameter as we learn more about the network characteristics.

The bottom part of that dialog shows some details about the device that will help support when diagnosing problems. The Write To Log button will write even more details to the event log that you can then paste into a forum post or email to support.

The Submit Device Information button will help us learn about the hundreds of types Z-Wave devices that exist out there. If you are running the client on the same Mac as the server, when you click that button a page will open in your default browser asking for some more information that will help us and other users more effectively use the device. If there is no Manufacturer or Model Name then we would really appreciate it if you could take a minute or two to submit the device. The same applies if the data shown doesn't match your device. If the information is there and it matches, then we know something about the device but it wouldn't hurt to submit it again in case we don't have all the facts.

Maintaining our Z-Wave Supported Device List is a community effort since we can't possibly directly test every Z-Wave device available worldwide. We appreciate your help!

Sometimes you may be instructed by support to resync your device - the process is quite simple:

1. Select DEVICES in the Main Window outline view or select one of the sub-folders.
2. Find the device in the device table and double click it (or select it and click the Edit… button).
3. Click the Define and Sync… button.
4. Click on the Sync button.
5. When the Synchronize Z-Wave Device dialog disappears, just close the Edit Device dialog.

This will tell Indigo to query the device and update various information about it and may help with some communication issues.

If a Z-Wave device fails (and depending on the type), you may be able to just replace it with a new one and all Triggers, Conditions, Actions, and Control Pages will continue to work. To replace a device:

1. Select DEVICES in the Main Window outline view or select one of the sub-folders.
2. Find the device in the device table and double click it (or select it and click the Edit… button).
3. Click the Define and Sync… button.
4. Follow the instructions on the dialog to use your interface to include the module into your network if you haven't already and press Refresh List button.
5. Select the new device in the Use Node popup
6. Click on the “Sync” button.
7. When the Synchronize Z-Wave Device dialog disappears, just close the Edit Device dialog.

Note that not all devices can be replaced. Specifically, if a device has multiple personalities (like, for instance, a multi-sensor that has a motion sensor, temp sensor, humidity sensor, etc) and any of those dependent devices are used in Triggers, Conditions, Actions, or Control Pages, then you'll get an error message in the Event Log saying that you need to manually resolve those conflicts (or manually delete the device). Indigo helps with this process - see Deletion Dependencies for details.

When deleting a Z-Wave device, it's always a good idea to exclude it from your network after you've deleted it in Indigo (if it's still functional). So, the process is this:

1. Select DEVICES in the Main Window outline view or select one of the sub-folders.
2. Find the device in the device table and select it.
3. Click the Delete… button (or press the Delete key on the keyboard).

If the device has any deletion dependencies, Indigo will show the dependency dialog that will allow you to review and/or modify any of those dependencies. If you choose to continue the deletion process, the device will be deleted along with the dependencies.

The last thing you'll want to do is to exclude the device from your network if it's still functional. To do this, remove the Z-Stick from the USB port and press and hold the button until the LED surrounding it blinks rapidly (EZController / Z-Troller users should use the Delete button). Go to the device and perform whatever process is required at the device: it's usually the same process you used to include the device in the first place but you'll need to check the documentation for your device for details.

The Interfaces→Z-Wave submenu contains several Z-Wave specific menu items to help manage your Z-Wave network and devices. Below are the current options.

Indigo supports defining Z-Wave Associations (which are similar to INSTEON links) between devices that support that functionality.

Some Z-Wave devices provide configuration options through the use of configuration parameters. These are generally outlined in the documentation that comes with a device. Indigo often times support setting these parameters directly in the device config dialog, but because of the sheer number of Z-Wave devices we can't add every one. This menu item will allow you to set any config parameter that a device accepts.

Note - this process can cause your device to not function correctly if incorrect parameters are entered so you'll want to make sure you are very careful to use only the params specified for the specific device.

You can use this menu item to send arbitrary Z-Wave protocol-level commands to any Z-Wave device. This is generally only useful when Support instructs you to do so.

If a Z-Wave device is no longer available to your network (it failed, etc) then you can use this menu item to remove it from the interface. You might need to attempt a Define and Sync on the device (and allow it to fail) just before using this menu item.

You can completely reset your Z-Wave interface by selecting this menu item (you should only do this if instructed by Support).

Z-Wave® is a registered trademark of Sigma Designs, Inc. Indigo's support of Z-Wave hardware is neither endorsed nor certified by Sigma Designs.