I write today’s update from my freezing office in Bedford NH, 8 degrees! One of our rooftop heating units is not putting out any heat so it’s pretty cold in the office. Help is on the way though!
Z-Wave 800 Series and More
Our HomeTroller PI and Z-NET Z-Wave network interface have been updated and now use the latest Z-Wave 800 series chips! The 800 series is the very latest Z-Wave hardware from Silicon Labs and supports Long Range, higher performance, and lower power consumption. These updated (G8) products are available now at shop.homeseer.com.
New Z-Wave switches are in the works. These are very similar to the original WS200+ in that it will include a single RGB LED. The LED is controllable from HS4 in that you can set the color to one of 7 colors and use it as a generic indicator. The firmware will be developed by HomeSeer in the US! We are looking at availability around April.
Dashboard work continues for HS4 version 4.2.23.0. Updates include the ability to resize and drag and drop cards. More customization options including color and font options. Custom cards will be available including one that allows for displaying features from multiple devices. For example, all the lights in one room could be added to this card.
HS4Touch has received some updates. Updates to the Designer and the Android App have been posted. The HS4Touch Android App is in the Google Play Store as a Beta. Make sure you add yourself as a Beta in order to get it. See the HS4Touch forum for details.
MyHS
We have started work on our promised MyHS updates. Updates will include the ability to say “Alexa close the garage door”. The change is to support the “Open” and “Close” words. Also, HS4 will now report device changes directly to Amazon. This results in faster device status updates and the ability to create triggers in the Alexa App. This change should also significantly reduce server traffic as Amazon is currently polling HomeSeer for device status changes. We should be testing these changes next month.
Tech Tip
My home is heated by Oil and in the winter, I like to keep track of the oil usage. On one of my HS4 dashboards, I have cards that show the current daily cost of heating my downstairs and a separate one for upstairs. The way this works is that I use timers that track how long the heat has been on using the thermostat operating status. A couple of simple scripts use this information along with the oil flow of the burner and cost per gallon of oil to calculate the cost. It is interesting to see how changes in your home can affect heating costs.
Join The Discussion
If you have comments, suggestions or complaints, please tell us about it. We want to hear from you! The feedback we receive in the coming weeks will help us to improve the features and fine tune what dashboards will offer now and into the future.