Zigbee Firware Update with 1.7.0 & Card Access

[rdmzmorgan]

I had a Card Access Wireless Contact Relay with External Antenna identified and installed with Composer version 1.3.2. As you all know the 1.7.0 version pushed out zigbee firmware updates to all Control4 devices. Do these zigbee firmware updates impact the zigbee repeater performance of the Card Access devices? Areas of my home that saw improved performance wth the installation of the Card Access Contact Relay (1.3.2) are now with 1.7.0 experiencing degraded performance much like before the installation of the Contact Relay with 1.3.2.

[Kevin L]

what is the reason for the 1.7.0 upgrade? 1.7.0 has what is called zigbee polling. it would be best to update to 1.7.2 which does not have polling on the zigbee network..

[rdmzmorgan]

Rhapsody was the main reason for going to 1.7.0 from 1.3.2 late last year. Also looking at the iPhone/iTouch Control UI interface. Still not convinced it is worth the 299 though...

Why would polling impact the range/coverage area that I saw improved after installing the Contact Relay with 1.3.2? Why would it then be degraded after the zigbee firmware updates with 1.7? Is a firmware update required for the CardAccess contact relays and 1.7?

[henniae]

How long after the 1.7 upgrade did you begin to have the range issues? These issues could be caused by other factors.

1. The contact relay or it's power supply could be bad. Unplug it wait a minute or so and plug it back in

2. There could be RF interference from an external source.

Edit

I just checked the release notes for 1.7.0.348. There is not mention of a firmware upgrade for the CardAccess relay. There is a table that lists all the Control4 devices that had firmware upgraded in 1.7.0.348. This table lists all devices that had upgrades and all devices that did not get firmware upgrades. Since no CardAccess devices are listed at all in this table I can't be sure if there was or was not a firmware upgrade for your contact relay.

[thecodeman]

Why would polling impact the range/coverage area that I saw improved after installing the Contact Relay with 1.3.2? Why would it then be degraded after the zigbee firmware updates with 1.7? Is a firmware update required for the CardAccess contact relays and 1.7?

Polling would not impact range/coverage as you saw improved by the card access extender. Polling only affected LED status and was removed in 1.7.2 and later versions.

[RyanE]

Cody,

Your explanation of polling and how ZigBee Pro works leaves quite a bit lacking. The polling implementation ONLY dealt with light level status feedback. Everything else was not polled.

ZigBee Pro does not have any sort of polling or 'check-in' for nodes to communicate on the network, or for the controller to communicate over the network.

It's all asynchronous.

RyanE

[thecodeman]

Cody,

Your explanation of polling and how ZigBee Pro works leaves quite a bit lacking. The polling implementation ONLY dealt with light level status feedback. Everything else was not polled.

ZigBee Pro does not have any sort of polling or 'check-in' for nodes to communicate on the network, or for the controller to communicate over the network.

It's all asynchronous.

RyanE

Ah, sorry. I gathered that oversight over some other threads in regards to polling (http://c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=3253) and the brief explination of Zigbee Pro from the dealer road show. Of course, we dont know anything about Zigbee Pro really, since there's no documentation or releases for us yet I will edit my post so as not to confuse anyone.