Light status tracking problem

I add three more switches to my account today and I did get this message

“unable to stat tracking for this light because you have exceeded the maximum number of allowed lights with state tracking”

I did some digging and found that only 10 lights can pull and report status, That is not cool. I need that number increased as i need to know the status of all my devices not only 10. if alalrm.com supports 100 lights then it should support 100 statuses. That is as simple as that. Please update my account to correct status support.

Thank you

if alalrm.com supports 100 lights then it should support 100 statuses. That is as simple as that. Please update my account to correct status support.

I understand the frustration, but unfortunately it isn’t that simple and this isn’t a case where we can just change it.

10 is a full-stop hard limit, but it applies to a subset of light switch devices.

A little foundation is necessary:

Up until recently, there was a rather silly patent held by Lutron. They were essentially approved a patent on a light switch sending its status back to the controller when you flip the switch.

For a long time, Z-wave switches were simply manufactured without that ability. For those switches the controller instead needs to poll the switches constantly to know the status if it updates. The more lights you have, this becomes taxing on the network.

For the best reliability across systems, Alarm.com implemented this polling but set a hard limit of 10 devices to poll. This can’t be increased. ADC polls 1 light device every 15 seconds. This means at the max of 10 devices, you should see at most a 2 minutes and 30 second delay on status updates when changed locally.

Now that the patent has expired, new models have the ability to confer status right when they are changed locally.

Many of your lights can relay status without polling. They do not apply to the 10 device limit.

Most of your GE/Jasco devices do not require polling. Looks like the Spare Z-wave Outlet is a model without that capability, but the rest of the lights reporting as Jasco do not require the polling and do not apply to the 10 device limit.

@jwcsurety

All my switches are zwave plus and most of them are reporting but few that I have have a toggle in gear setting tab “show light status” if I don’t toggle that on then they will not report. Please see attached picture

Yep, that’s how the polling works. You can select which devices are polled, so if you have more than 10 the most important ones can be selected.

I looked at your list, you have 21 devices reporting status, which means you have 11 devices which support real time updates.

It looks like you have 13 additional devices which do not support real time updates. You would need to choose which 10 of those 13 are polled, leaving 3 out.

What are the model numbers of the 3 that aren’t polled right now?

@jwcsurety

Jason I have quite a few ZOOZ switches that work great and I know that they report as I can see it when I use vera or when I actual talk to the manufacture of the switch. They told me that they can fix that in there firmware but they need to know what alarm.com or qolsys is looking for reporting. Here is email that they send me. IF you can get that info then I’m sure they can fix it.

Email:
“As mentioned over the phone, please ask Alarm.com what type of report should the dimmer be sending to the hub for it to be recognized correctly: basic report, multilevel report, or binary switch report. This will help us better understand the issue and hopefully address it for you asap.”

Thank you

I’ll send this their way and see if we can get the correct info on what is needed for support.

thank you

@jwcsurety

Have you heard anything back from alarm.com.on what commands alarm.com is looking for on the switches to report

Not yet, when I hear back I will follow up here.

Alarm.com is asking for the model numbers of the Zooz switches. This can likely be implemented if they are able to test compatibility with those models. Can you provide the exact model numbers you have so I can send those over?

@jwcsurety

Jason I personally have zooz zen 23 and zen 24. That all run same firmware including all other switches that they make, so if they make one work then likely all zooz line would be compatible.

Are that going to do this on there end? So that way it will just work? When I talk to zooz they said that there switches already reporting on and off because they have to be compliance with standard zwave protocol for there zwave certification. That said, if alarm.com will follow z wave certification then switch should be reporting just fine. Zooz will be more then happy to update there firmware if alarm.com requires something special.

Thank you, I’ll relay those models to Alarm.com.

This is dependent on Alarm.com’s own certification process, and they should be able to get that open/close state if the devices do not have any limitations and are confirmed compatible.

It’s pretty unlikely that Zooz would need to make any changes, but it just depends on testing.

FYI I was told their product team is looking into these. There are some other devices in the certification process right now I think so we should be seeing some more added to the Hardware page soon I would expect.

@jwcsurety

Do we know the time frame on this?

No, they wouldn’t be able to provide a time frame right now. I’m not sure how they will prioritize it.

any news on this from ADC?

I’ve heard no update on this yet, no. If they move forward with certification testing it would be a normal development cycle item.

@jwcsurety

Ok Thank you, any updates since last time? what would normal development cycle would be?

No updates yet. I do not know Alarm.com internal timelines or how they would prioritize it, but I can say between starting beta testing with dealers for another model of switch recently and officially supporting them now there was 2-3 months. I’ve not heard of any testing yet for Zooz.