[OBSOLETE] Visonic Powermax Alarm

Are you using the latest device handler and firmware? There should be a text box above ‘Remove Zone Devices’ which shows the battery status of any zones with low battery or other problem. The zones are listed with name and ID. Either that or I am totally not understanding what you mean.

Yes. Apart from disconnecting and refusing to reconnect unless rebooted I think it works as before.
I downgraded, works as a charm.

Sorry I suspect we are at cross purposes unless I am missing something. I’m using mqtt to communicate with home assistant. The low battery comes in a MQTT message for the Panel but with no Zone number. So looking for a stat update either for a battery that is low as well as the zone number. I am running 27th July release.

Ahhh now I follow, the panel message is one built into Powermax and will just tell you there is a problem, it is also hard to catch as it is buried among disarm/arm messages I think?

I implemented a feature for the ST integration that provided full zone status information on every disarm but due to the way I set up the mqtt integration it wasn’t being sent on any topic.

I’ve moved that status information to ‘alarm/problem_report’ topic which should give full zone information if there are any problems, and will auto update on every panel state change to match the way I have done things on the non-mqtt integration.

I’ve also updated a couple of libraries that could have been causing the crash with the latest build. Can you give the latest version a try and let me know if it is fixed? Otherwise I’ll have to go through logs to see what has changed since last compilation (the only other one I can think of without checking logs is Arduino studio version…)

Thanks - will do.

Looks good so far thanks. The problem report is working for low battery (reports “Fire (Z23) low batt” in my test. I will monitor it for stability and let you know.

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The MQTT disconnects but the unit stays up. I can Arm and Disarm via the web interface.

Thats really weird, when it crashes does the webpage still operate normally? (i.e. can you see zone/alarm status in the status page aswell as just being able to send commands to the alarm?)

Did you notice if it crashed after a certain event? Perhaps after the disarm event? Ive read something that rapid messages could cause the current pubsubclient MQTT library to crash, hence potentially crashing after the disarm message…?

It seems to crash without any events - it degrades. First of all the motion updates stop, next you can Arm but it does not respond to disarm on either the web UI or Home assistant (which is sending MQTT disarm messages).

I just ran another test. This time it worked for about 30 mins, reporting sensors etc. At that point it stops responding to MQTT. Web interface: Zone names and Alarm Status still working, Arm and Disarm still working at present. BTW it is reporting Uptime: 00:00:07.06

When it crashes the Powerlink connection fails but can be re-established. However no zones show in either Alarm Status or Get Zone Names.

Hmm, so the Wemos was up for 30 minutes but only showing uptime of 7min? I wonder if there is a memory leak in one of the recent library releases or something…

Hi, just ran another test - same basic pattern but the clock is still ticking on after the MQTT has stopped.
I am wondering if the page had not refreshed as I clicked back to it.

And does your mqtt server give any indication or logging about what happened? Does the TCP connection die or does the connection stay and messages stop? Does it give a reason, such as timeout?
Seems like I may need to setup an mqtt server again so I can test myself… It seems to be entirely based on library versions as there is no code change.
Thanks

Been watching the MQTT on a monitor as well as the Server log which reports - Client ESP8266Client has exceeded timeout, disconnecting. The monitor just goes quiet for all the topics.
I can access the web menus (sometimes they take 40-60 seconds to respond). I can’t tell if the TCP connection to the MQTT server is maintained. The Free heap varies from around 24000 down to 23000 and then rises again.
I have tried various triggers (sensors, arm/disarm) but there does not seem to be a pattern.

Hi I have been looking at ways to capture the battery status as a sensor in Home Assistant. Would it be possible to separate the problem report into individual mqtt messages with topic ‘alarm/zone#’ and payload of ‘low battery’?

Hi, I left it running for the last 12 hrs. It is just the mqtt part that fails. I can still access the web page.

@mykep @Fredrik_P
Can you try the latest firmware on Github please? Discovered some funky timing in the MQTT library that could cause disconnections in some circumstances so gave it a bit more processing time to maintain a connection… Fingers crossed!

The status messages over MQTT was a nice added feature!
Trying the new firmware as of now. It works , all settings seem to be correct, but funny enough the password I set for the web admin page no longer works!? :frowning:

Will do this weekend

I expect turning it off and on again (or changing the password again) would fix the admin page, though dont know why that would have happened.

Keep an eye on the MQTT status please, to confirm it doesnt die after a few hours, that was the problem from before.