So I bought a GE Z Wave Light Switch. Install was easy, ST found the device. I can control the lights. So everything is great but there is a delay on turning on the lights when paired with the motion sensor or multi-sensor.
I’ll provide some background:
So I have the motion sensor in the hallway. I have also installed the GE Z Wave Switch in the hallway. The ST Hub is about 5 feet away.
So I have it set right now when someone walks in the hallway, the hallway lights would turn on. So that works great but there is about a 5 second delay or more. So I would start walking from one end of the hallway and by the time I get 2/3 of the way, the lights would turn on, which is about 5 seconds or so. I would like the lights to turn on instantly once it detects motion. Is there something I did wrong or is there a setting I can tweak? I read something about Z Wave Switch not broadcasting their state, so the hub would have to poll it? Would that be the issue? Thanks in advance.
Knight - I’d keep testing and logging. You may find that this will improve at times. I have an Aeon Multi controlling a Wall Switch and the timing is 500 ms up to 30 seconds. The average is <1 second. At times, I think ST’s cloud has some latency. Then there’s our own WiFi networks and our Internet connections. Remember too that the motion sends a signal to the hub which sends the state to the ST cloud which, if I understand this correctly, compares the state to all of your app settings / solutions and then sends a command back to the hub which sends a command to the switch. So that’s a lot of comm that has to occur perfectly and as fast as possible. Of course, local processing and control at the hub level would be better for these simpler use cases. At the same time, I’d not want to give up cloud awareness and control (think IFTTT and similar).
It’s just like @jbeletti described so eloquently: The communication through the SmartThings cloud definitely introduces some delay, which can be annoying at times. Also, I’m unsure whether the Groovy code is pre-compiled in any way, or whether there is some delay from JIT compilation.
Usually my delays on motion detector response are less than 5 seconds, but can easily be in the 3 second range, which is already very noticeable. It’s especially annoying when I link switches to turn on/off multiple devices. Not sure if you can do something to increase response times. You really don’t have any control over what happens beyond your LAN.
Performing the execution in the cloud definitely has lots of benefits, but I’d love to see some sort of functionality for installing a rule-set on the ST hub, which the hub can then replay locally. Rules should be simple like “If motion detected on A, then turn on B”, or “If A turned on, then turn on B”, and could be installed and uninstalled from within the SmartApps. Any logic that goes beyond simple rules would still have to be executed in the cloud, but usually these operations are a lot less time sensitive. For example, I don’t care whether my sunset timer fires at 5 pm, or 5 seconds after 5 pm. Also, I don’t care if my lights turn off automatically 5 minutes, or 5 minutes and 5 seconds, after motion ceased. Does that make sense?
@florianz, Sounds like you want to turn SmartThings into Vera
But seriously, latencies can be quite awful at times. Unless ST addresses this issue rather quickly, it’s going to be it’s undoing. Even for unsophisticated users, once the novelty factors wares off, you expect certain things to happen immediately, not 5 seconds later.
Thanks for all the information everyone posted. The wife is getting annoyed with this issue. I also have a wemo light switch which is attached to a wemo sensor and the lights turn on instantly. I know different tech but she loves those a lot more and I might just have to switch to a wemo light switch for the hallway but then I won’t be able to do cool things with the presence senor and multi-door sensor. I would rather keep the wife happy and maybe in time, these issues will be resolved. Unless there is some beta I can get on right now to test it?
