[OBSOLETE] Iris Smart Plug (3210-L) Zigbee Plug with Z-wave Repeater

I use my Iris plugs primarily as Zigbee repeaters, and don’t have a need for the zwave repeater feature. Sorry!

I’ve looked for other posts, but this looks applicable here- Do we have any simple way of measuring signal strength for Z-wave and Zigbee like we do for WiFi, say through an app? I know that you need to have a receiver configured for each wavelength, and that apps are able to take advantage of the WiFi receivers in modern smartphones to show signal strength… without the proper receiver, the phone is useless as a measurement device?

Do we really have to play “Verizon Guy” with our hubs, using an outlet or something- “Can you hear me now?”

A quick search shows me two options right now:

Z-Way software from Z-Wave.Me. It looks to cost about $100 for their USB Z-wave controller and a software license. Their software also works with their RaspPI GPIO duaghterboard (it doesn’t support other hardware). From the doc it looks like it can provide a map and a dump of the routing table.

OpenZWave has a free software library that will work with a number of different plug-in Z-wave controllers, including Aeon’s Z-Stick and the Z-Wave.Me ones. The sample program will dump a rudimentary text map of your Z-wave network (see bottom of that link).

There’s also this, but it’s not helpful with how to debug the network (and the picture is of the v1 hub): blog.smartthings.com/iot101/a-guide-to-wireless-range-repeaters/

There’s a nice graphical display of the Z-wave network built into LinuxMCE. This is an entire open-source, SmartThings-like, home automation suite with support for lots of diff devices, and a number of automation protocols. It uses OpenZwave under the covers and supports a number of Z-wave controllers. I’m not sure the setup is trivial, however.

(In fact, if you went to the effort of setting this up, it might be a ST alternative. There appears to be no ZigBee yet)

@Tolik I cannot verify the repeater works or not. I have too many Z-Wave repeater devices in my configuration to know for sure.

I can say I started having troubles with the 2 Lowes/Iris 3210-L this past week.

For no reason whatsoever the first 3210-L stopped functioning and the only way I could get it to work again was to edit settings like the Icon from the app or any setting in the IDE. Once I got it to save something the outlet miraculously started working again.

However a day or two later it did the same thing. Then after the 3rd or 4th day the 2nd outlet started doing the same thing.

I haven’t had time to investigate further. I literally was looking at buying more of these because of the cost savings over the Smartthings outlet but until I can find out what is happening I won’t be doing that.

If anyone has any ideas or knows what is happening I would love to hear what you know.

It could be a coincidence but it seems this all started after the Smartthings Android App updated. Perhaps the Smartthings Hub v2 also updated??? I haven’t been able to investigate further yet (busy).

I may take a crack at it today if I can get my work done early; so we shall see.

It is frustrating that something that was working perfectly fine just out of the blue starts to not work. Not very nice.

Wish I could help further.

Does anyone know if Smartthings will officially support these Iris devices so we don’t have to use custom device handlers?

Thanks.

Your issues with the devices are probably related to the platform issues that SmartThings is having for the past week.

As for the official support - yes, they support it with the SmartPower Outlet device type if you don’t need the energy meter functionality.

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I’ll chime in here and say that for me it at least feels like it’s working. I had a GE outdoor outlet that would only intermittently work due to distance/garage construction. After adding the Iris plug I haven’t had any issues. That could be placebo though and I have no way of proving it. :-/ Really wish that ST could provide even a rudimentary routing table output…

I need some help. Trying to get the 3210-L working as both Zigbee and Z-Wave. Added and published the “Device Handler” as described in the POST. However, when I plugged in the 3210-L (with out the light on) the ST Hub didn’t find it. So… I press and held the button on the 3210-L and somehow it started blinking. ST Hub then paired with it as a Z-Wave device. I wanted it to be both Zigbee and Z-Wave, so I “Forced” a remove from ST Hub and performed a reset (theoretically) of the 3210-L following the instructions on the Lowes web site. Tried plugging in again to see if ST Hub would find the Zigbee device, but the app just spinned on my phone. No devices found.

Any ideas? What the heck am I doing wrong? Are there step-by-step instructions somewhere?

It’s not z-wave or zigbee, it’s zigbee for control and power monitoring. Z-wave is JUST a repeater function.

To reset zigbee, plug in the switch and hit the button 8 times real quick, should then flash and be detected as the device type you installed.

I’ve had better luck holding the button while plugging it in. When the light comes on then tap the button eight times.

Yeah and I called it a switch so grain of salt with my comments please! :grin:

Thanks, MichaelHess & Tolik. Holding the button in while plugging it in and the the 8 taps, seemed to work.

I have added the reset instructions to the original post to make it easier to find. Glad you were able to add it successfully :slight_smile:

This plug repeats zigbee even when the outlet is off, correct?

Correct. I have one in an upstairs hallway, and as long as it’s plugged in you’re in good shape, whether the device is on or off.

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Well…I’ve installed, reinstalled the plug a few times. I’ve got the two devices added, but the Z-Wave repeater does not work for me. It shows it is there, but status in the IDE device list is INACTIVE. Not sure it should be or not, but it doesn’t extend my Z-Wave range at all. Thoughts?

The Z-Wave mesh might take a bit of time to reconfigure around the repeater. You might want to do a z-wave repair to see if it helps.

Hello,

I’m new to all of the z-wave / zigbee devices. I just picked up a Smartthings v2 kit this past weekend then I have purchased a few other items after, GE receptacle, GE light switch, 2 iris smart plugs, and 2 Leviton receptacles.

My first goal has been to try to create a garage door opener and also have a sensor on the door to determine open / closed. I installed the multisensor that came with the kit and I find that the distance between my house and the detached garage (about 41 feet from outside wall to outside wall) in the backyard is too far to reach with zigbee. I put the ST plug in an outlet at the rear of my house and the sensor on my garage door is on the end of the door that is closest to my ST plug. My house has vinyl siding, but my garage has aluminum siding as well as the garage door being metal, or course.

I started doing some research and decided to switch to using z-wave after reading about z-wave plus, in hopes that I could reach a further distance. That’s when I bought all the extra devices and installed one of the leviton receptacles on the outside rear of my house and then one in the garage where the opener is located. I found that I had to move my hub closer to the rear of the house in order to pair with the outlet on the outside of the house. I then rigged the outlet in the garage to an extension cable so I could move it close to the hub to pair it. After pairing it, I moved it back to the garage and performed a z-wave repair. It was unable to repair all the way out to the outlet in the garage, even with the door open. I then found this page and decided to pick up the Iris smart plugs that I bought.

I’m having the following issue with pairing the iris plug. I copied the code provided, created a new device handler, pasted the code in and then published the handler. I then clicked on “connect new device” in the app and I then held the button down on the plug while I plugged it in. I released the button as soon as the light came on and after a short while it indicated that it was identifying. After letting the app sit there in this state for 5 minutes, I click the back arrow and it said that the device was not configured. Upon clicking on the device, I noticed that it was paired as “Thing”. I can’t seem to get it to pair as the “Iris Smart Plug”. I ran into the same thing with the second plug as well. Moving on from there, I decided to try to pair is as the z-wave device that I really purchased this plug for in the first place. I found that I had to have it within the same room as my hub in order to do the z-wave pairing. I managed to get it to pair by first starting the create new device, then I pushed the button several times rapidly on the plug until it started it’s blinking pattern. It paired as a z-wave device, but I then was too tired to go test whether it could actually fix my issue with reaching to the garage.

TL;DR I can only get the zigbee to pair as “Thing” after creating the new device handler mentioned above. After z-wave pairing, the Z-wave repeating functionality is yet to be determined. Any ideas on how I can resolve my zigbee pairing issue?

P.S. I’m an Engineer, so I tend to get wordy when I describe my situation. Sorry about the wall of text.

As long as the DTH from the first post is saved and published in your IDE then it should automatically connect. If it only pairs as a thing then it’s passing a fingerprint to the hub that it doesn’t recognize. Out of curiosity, what is the “Raw Description” of the device in IDE?

As far as getting it to work properly, once it’s paired as a “Thing” you can assign either the Iris Smart Plug OR SmartPower Outlet device handler by selecting the device in IDE, hitting the ‘Edit’ button and changing the ‘type’ drop-down to the appropriate DTH.

Open the Thing device from https://graph.api.smartthings.com/device/list and press Edit, then change the type to Iris Smart Plug. I recently connected 2 new plugs and the first one got recognized properly but the second became a “Thing” and I had to change it manually.