Would there be any known caveats or challenges associated with connecting HomeSeer HS3 as a secondary controller using an Aeon Z-Stick? I would like to use HS3 to handle conditional logic as well as an Autelis/Jandy pool controller interface. Virtually all Z-wave devices would remain on SmartThings as the primary controller.
Commands, status, values, etc. would be passed between the two in real-time, correct? Is there anything flawed about what I hope to achieve?
How do I ensure SmartThings remains the primary controller? When I first installed ST, it somehow became a secondary controller when I connected it to my Honeywell Tuxedo Touch security controllers. I had to remove everything and start over.
Search the forums for discussions of secondary controllers. SmartThings meets the minimum required to be certified as a Z wave controller in this regard, but it doesn’t have a lot of the additional utilities that devices that expect you to do this have.
For example, it doesn’t have controller replication, which means whenever you add new devices to the primary you have to completely rebuild the secondary if you want the secondary to see them as well.
There are no, repeat no, network mapping utilities.
And SmartThings as primary does not collect state information from the secondary.
So it’s not impossible, and some people do it when they have a specific use case, but it’s not elegant and it’s not very commonly done.
And this specifically does not happen:
Commands, status, values, etc. would be passed between the two in real-time, correct?
No, your assumption is incorrect. While Z-Wave protocol support multiple controllers, they’re largely independent. I.e. if one controller changes the status of a device (e.g. dimmer switch), the other controllers are not notified of the change. This is not a problem for hand-held remote controls, which don’t care of the current device status. However, if you’re using multiple intelligent controllers that need to be aware of the real-time status changes, then it’s a problem. Most Z-Wave controllers implement periodic polling to address this issue.
All hope is not lost. I’ll try to some limited conditional logic with SmartRules or similar, and for the pool controller I can try to do Echo->Homeseer->Autelis->Jandy in parallel with my ST system on Echo.
Is the information about Smartthings still true? I use it as a secondary controller and I believe it has started to adopt new devices without me going in graph and adding them by hand.