Ok so i finally got my H801’s set up to work through the second router,i had to set it up as a universal repeater .
The Tenda support agent told me that it was not possible to do that and have a separate SSID ,but it was.
It was a real bitch to get these things to finally connect through the second router
i reset them and entered the new credentials about 15 times and saved it but they still kept on broadcasting the ESPxxxxxx SSID and were not connecting to the second router but they did eventually coonect after multiple, multiple resets .
So finally after all of that they are STILL behaving the exact same way so i guess i can finally rule out poor wifi connectivity.
The problem must be with either the FW, the DTH ,or with smartthings itself,
because reliability with these things is really piss poor .
Basically it is like a 30/70 crap shoot on weather they will decide to respond or not.
Before adding the repeater the controllers had about 3 bars of signal strength, now after adding it i got them to all 4 bars and the reliability is still shit.
This is especially true when using voice assistants , it is bad with both Alexa and Google home.
I can never get the devices to respond at the same time if i put them in a group in either the GH smarthome or in the Alexa smarthome.
I need to give the command 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 times to get them all to finally respond.
Even controlling them individually is not reliable at all though.
My other smartthings lights are by no means perfect but these things are just horrible.
Reliability is just crap for some reason , i figured it was the wifi but now that i have got them to 100% signal strength and they still perform like shit i feel the problem is someplace else .
I have been going crazy for months now trying to make them work reliably but no matter what i try nothing helps.
I really wish i had just sprung for the Dresden electric controllers instead at this point.
I just have wasted too much time on getting these to work at an acceptable level of reliability with no success at all.
I do not have as much testing experience with controlling them through the app since 99% of the time i am using a voice assistant to control them but when i do try controlling them through the app it is also unreliable in the sense that they will respond eventually but it usually involves hitting the button on them to off then on again.
They seem to get stuck at either “turning on” or “turning off” ,then if i hit it 2 more times it will respond. .
Maybe it is a problem with the custom DTH or maybe it is just a problem with smartthings controlling wifi devices period.
The only thing that i have not tried messing with is the “switch debounce” setting in the controllers advanced tab because i have no idea what it is for.
It sounds like maybe it could help reliability performance but i am not sure if i should be trying to increase or decrease the value and by how much.
Am i the only one here having this poor reliability issue? has anyone else experienced it?
and has anyone tried messing with the switch denounce settings to try and correct it?
@NewTechFool
Glad to hear that, we do need to update the instructions for the sake of everybody’s sanity! Do you have a link to the page saying it should be ip:mac ? I’ve only ever seen ip:port (all in hex of course) OR just mac address in hex
@cjcharles I looked at the device handler code – it was during lunch, so perhaps I did not give it my full attention – also in my defence I have never looked at groovy code before. I am mostly a Java/C# guy You are right. There is a function that sets the device network id. It’s in line 719:
private setDeviceNetworkId(ip, port = null){
def myDNI
if (port == null) {
myDNI = ip
} else {
def iphex = convertIPtoHex(ip)
def porthex = convertPortToHex(port)
myDNI = "$iphex:$porthex"
}
log.debug "Device Network Id set to ${myDNI}"
return myDNI
}
It is called from here, so it is just set to the mac.
The variable in setDeviceNetworkId is called “ip”, but it is actually the mac that is passed, and port is null as it is not passed. Therefore the device id is the mac address. I will update my post above to reflect this.
@NewTechFool yes I know mate I helped write it! What I was after was another internet page using ip:mac as none of this is documented by ST so thought that was perhaps a new way of setting the device id. Thanks
@cjcharles got ya! According to the SmartThings documentation (from a section about creating virtual devices):
Device Network Id
Should be a unique ID that identifies your Virtual Device.
Make sure this ID doesn’t conflict with any other device Ids.
Basically, it must be unique on the network. They don’t care what it is as long as it is unique, so it is up to your code to generate/use it as you wish. The MAC address is a good one, as it should be guaranteed to be globally unique (if everyone plays by the rules) and you can easily query it from the H801.
Ok i tried to adjust the switch debounce setting and the uptime interval setting and the reliability still sucks.
I have tried just about everything now to get these device to respond in an even remotely predictable way and nothing works.
I tried using trendsettter and that did not work, i tired using color coordinator and that did not work,
i tried a range extender and that didn’t work, i tried changing the switch debounce and up time interval settings and that didn’t work , i even tried using Alexa routines where i set it up to give the command like 15 times and it still doesn’t work.
For example , i have 3 H801’s for my kitchen cabinet lighting , i make an Alexa routine , call it redrum,
for actions i tell it to turn on the R channel virtual switch for the 1st controller, then to turn on the R channel virtual switch for the second controller ,then to turn on the R channel virtual switch for the 3rd controller and
then i repeat that sequence in the routine a shit ton of times, and still the 3 device will not all set to red, i even added the commands 20 times , so each controller is getting sent the turn on red channel command twenty times each and still they all fail to respond reliably , some times 2 will change sometimes one will change and like one time of 1000 all 3 will respond.
Is there any way this can be fixed?
No matter what i do the reliability still sucks, and i need to tell Alexa or GH to turn on the cabinet lights or to change color 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 times to get them all to come on or to get them to change color.
Even commanding them individually they do not always respond either, none of my other smartthings lights have this issue.
There must be something wrong in the DTH or the FW because the performance is awful even when they all have full signal strength bars.
Also there are several other issues with control through voice assistants.
they do not behave like other lights.
if i ask Alexa to “turn on cabinet lights” where as i have a group named cabinet in Alexa smarthome with the 3 H801’s in it then nothing happens.
If i add to the cabinet group the 3 virtual switches for the W1 channels for the 3 controllers then they will come on
but then i can not control the dimming without the lights changing to white.
If it try and dim or brighten the lights and they are set to a color then they go to W! channel and since i have it set to mutually exclusive the RGB goes off.
It would also be nice if there were a setting to change how the Alexa command “set lights to white” responds.
Right now it just uses the RGB and sets all channels to 100%
but there should be an option to toggle it to use W1 instead , or maybe the DTH could add color tempature and have the command warm white turn on W1
I have flashed this, But the pins out and colors are wrong. going to work on it some more. maybe a different firmware not sure. Any way I attached both grounds on the controller and the GPI00 port to the FTDI ground, RX to TX and TX to RX. Start your flash then plug in the 12v power.
@Albert_Santiago follow the instructions in this post. I purchased the same test leads from Amazon as he did in his tutorial, used the same color leads as he did in his pictures (that way you don’t have to worry about the labels on the boards – just connect them in the same order) and it worked like a charm. I was a little heasitant with the flashing by making contact just by putting pressure on the pins, but succeeded first try. Everything works correctly. Colors are correct, all pins are correct. So far it has been rock solid. I used the firmware listed in the first post in this thread.
Not sure if this post helps you but maybe only helps with flashing.
If you use the firmware which is now in the Github page, with my updates in (updated like a month ago), you can change which pin is assigned to what colour and that should sort you out.
If you’ve already flashed once and have a web dashboard already, I suggest trying the firmware update through the web dashboard first, as that is easiest. If you can’t get that working for some reason then try flashing again using the FTDI.
I got them to work, I had the wrong numbers in the pin settings…oops, all is good now. the new ones with the ESP8285 are different from the ones listed here. they are much easier flash. thanks for the response.
Sturdy wire recommendations? Right now I’m using jumper wires with pins for LED side and the other end stripped and inserted in the screw terminal. The stripped wire side won’t stay in no mater how hard I screw them down. Should I be using copper wire instead of stranded?
Can someone help me understand how the RGBWW strips work with this H801 controller/firmware/smartapp? Are both white and warm white utilized? Or should I just save my money get a RGBW strip?
Anyone having issues with the H801 being unavailble in the classic app? I have 4 H801s and they become unavailble on a daily basis. I have to go into each device and hit the config button to get them back.
@jimimoore The H801 has two W outputs. One called W1 and one called W2. You could hook those up to White and Warm White if you want to control both. W1 and W2 are abvailable in the app, so you can independently control/dim them.
I’ve got some of these and have a program to mimic Sunset… The issue I have is when I try to fade to off or use the switch off (in smart things app) after running program mode all my lights turn to white at the last step rather than off. Anyone know how to fix this?
From the web interface I can issue requests like Info or Status which respond. For example Info shows the correct datetime and mac. I can go to “Advanced Config”, make a config change and that change saves.
But Set Color and Power Off from the “Control” page have no effect on the H801. All 5 channels are always on.
Am I missing something? Did I just get a bad device?
EDIT: Turns out this was being caused by a bad connection on the VCC input. The H801 was rebooting constantly. Everything is working great now. Big thank you to Eric M.
I have 2 of these controllers. Both had been working fine with the original firmware. Last week I upgraded to the lastest version of the code (firmware, app etc)
Both devices successfully updated however one doesn’t work correctly anymore.
When the device is powered on the lights on the device do not light up.
Each time the device is powered off and back on aain, even though I have set the wifi connection it resets itself and broadcasts back its own AP for set up again.
Once I reconfigure it back to the network my router and app pick it up but it does not respond to commands on/off, colour change etc.
Has anyone encountered this before? Is the device bricked or is there some other magic reset button I need to press to get it back working again!!
You are right. There is a function that sets the device network id. It’s in line 719:
What I was after was another internet page using ip:mac as none of this is documented by ST so thought that was perhaps a new way of setting the device id. Thanks
