ZWave - why can't things "just work"

[sector13]

Hi folks,

I'm appealing to anyone with ZWave experience and HomeGenie. I chose HomeGenie because the interface looked very nice and the Aeon ZWave stick I have suggested it. Supposedly my ZWave stick works with HomeGenie. And, to some degree I can agree.

What's puzzling me is the lack of information to set up ZWave and the various Z devices. This is not unusual to home automation. I've been tossing around home automation for years and always avoided it because of this very problem - lack of documentation - lack of things "just working" - and a somewhat closed feeling to the whole category.

I'm a coder and sysadmin - so this stuff should be easy. But there seems to be a lack of documentation and huge requirement of searching the Internet for solutions. 20 years ago I had that sort of time on my hands. Today - not so much.

So, rather than continue ranting ... here's the dilemma.

I'm using Win7 and the Aeon ZWave Gen 5 stick. The Aeon driver is installed and COM3 is the chosen port. HomeGenie sees this port and does give me some diagnostic info. Paired with the stick is a MultiSensor. It was paired according to ZWave's instructions.

I'm unable to see the MultiSensor in HomeGenie.

I don't see any app in HomeGenie related to the Multisensor.

I can't find any helpful instructions on ZWave and HomeGenie.

What I'd like to do is draft documentation for future users of HomeGenie specific to ZWave.

Yes, I'm volunteering to write a manual. Why? Because that's how you can get more people to use your product. Make it pretty, easy to use, and supported by a suitable knowledgebase for reference.

So, I'm appealing to any HomeGenie users with ZWave. HELP!

HELP!

Thanks in advance,
Jason

[kevin1]

try this...
http://www.homegenie.it/forum/index.php?topic=1420.msg9049#msg9049

[kevinvinv]

I share your frustration !!!    It is very frustrating indeed.  I was so frustrated starting with HG that I cant believe I actually stuck with it.

That's why I started the doc mentioned above. 

I hope you can add to it!!!

[bkenobi]

From reading posts, I estimate that 75% of people here use ZWave, 20% use X10, and the rest use something else (maybe a derivative of ZWave, but not sure).  There should be plenty of help with it though.

[pim555]

The issue with z-wave is that the core SDK (command classes) is not open source and therefore, if you dont want to pay for it, you need to re-engineer. That is why in a lot of open source home automation products, z-wave support is flaky.

Pim.