Zones 9+

[mgreinke]

I'm considering ordering a wireless zone expander for my Vista 40. If I do, is there anything special I need to do to see zones 9 and above insmart home monitor? It looks like zones 1-8 appear automatically even if any of the zones are disabled. Not sure about expanded zones. I just dont want to buy the wireless zone expander if they arent accessible in smart home monitor. I didnt locate any documentation mentioning how to include expanded zone in smart home monitor.

Thanks in advance.

[kevin]

It should just work, zone expanders are fully supported and tracked with the zone tracking algorithm - if you want to use them in a virtual sensor, just put the zone number in, ex: 9

If it doesn't, we'll work with you until it does.

[mgreinke]

I've added a zone expander to add a couple more wired zones I have. I know there are working correctly because the alarm system is recognizing them as zones 17 & 18and I can trip the alarm by passing in front of the PIR sensors.. I'm not sure what is required to have these zones also show up in smartthings though. Zones 1-8 appeared automatically but zones 17 and 18 aren't there. I imagine there is some manual step I need to do to add these zones on the smartthings IDE website but I have no idea what settings to use.

[kevin]

We will visit this in the office this next week and hopefully come up with a good solution. Really thought it would just work.

[Scott]

The 8 zone sensors in SmartThings are not directly related to the first 8 zones on the panel. Each sensor can be configured to map to a specific zone, so for example if Zone Sensor #1 was configured as '17' it would trip when zone 17 faulted or restored. Those can be configured inside of SmartThings below where you entered your API key and user code.

If you need more than 8 sensors that can be accomplished by some cut & paste work inside of the Service Manager and Device Type.

The wireless zone expander should just work as long as you set it up and configure the zones correctly in your panel. Triggering off of unpaired wireless devices is not supported.

[mgreinke]

Ok so I can clearly see how you can map a zone sensor in smartthing to a specific zone for the alarm above #8. To add more than 8 zones I would need to modify the code for both service manager and device type and then republish? I guess I will need to peek at the code to see if I can figure out what additional lines can be appended to capture the additional zones.

[Scott]

Due to the way the zone sensors are created you'll want to uninstall it completely (from the Service Manager), make the changes, and reinstall. Here are the three places I believe you'll need to make changes:

https://github.com/nutechsoftware/alarmdecoder-smartthings/blob/master/device_type.groovy#L25
- Add additional inputs. Make sure the name and title are numbered like the previous entries.

https://github.com/nutechsoftware/alarmdecoder-smartthings/blob/master/device_type.groovy#L522
- Update the number '8' to whatever your new input count is.

https://github.com/nutechsoftware/alarmdecoder-smartthings/blob/master/service_manager.groovy#L366
- Update the number '8' to whatever your new input count is.

[mgreinke]

OK. Thank you for very much for the info. Just a couple more follow-on questions:

1) When you say "uninstall it completely from the service manager" you mean delete AlarmDecoder (Service Manager) Smart App from the Smartthings IDE webpage? Alternately< I see this can be done from the iPhone app.
2) If I currently have 10 zones configured on my Alarm panel (1-8, 17, 18). I would change the number '8' to '18' in the 3 lines noted above? On the zone expander connected to my panel it made me start the new zone numbering at 17 (not 9). Just trying to figure out if the this '8' is tied to the highest zone # or total number of zones.
3) Do I need to first delete any of my virtual contact sensors?

Thank you very much for your assistance

[kevin]

OK. Thank you for very much for the info. Just a couple more follow-on questions:

1) When you say "uninstall it completely from the service manager" you mean delete AlarmDecoder (Service Manager) Smart App from the Smartthings IDE webpage? Alternately< I see this can be done from the iPhone app.
2) If I currently have 10 zones configured on my Alarm panel (1-8, 17, 18). I would change the number '8' to '18' in the 3 lines noted above? On the zone expander connected to my panel it made me start the new zone numbering at 17 (not 9). Just trying to figure out if the this '8' is tied to the highest zone # or total number of zones.
3) Do I need to first delete any of my virtual contact sensors?

Thank you very much for your assistance

1) Yes, completely remove the AlarmDecoder and related devices from the SmartThings IDE
2) Just name them sequentially 1-8, then 9, 10, 11 - in the configuration for the virtual zone where you input zone number, you will put for example 17 in spot 9, so it would be "zonetracker9zone" for the 9th sensor you want to monitor - not for zone 9. You can configure these to monitor any zone you'd like.

[mgreinke]

Ok. Thanks for the info. I will try to get my nerve up to make the edits and report back. Everything is working great with the 8 sensors now so Im a little nervous I'll break something and nothing will work.