Broken in hub version 2.3.0.124: Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat

update: using the other button instead of "SKIP" when doing Z-wave include combined with latest djdizzy driver from Github seems to have fixed it for me. I'm at a loss to explain how since I would have (naively) thought if I can Z-wave include in any fashion it would always be equally powerful if it connected at all. And I always tested by hand to make sure I had "write power" in the dashboard before rewriting my Rule Machine rule to attach to the new device. But apparently it really matters. Or maybe it was the hubitat hub reboot that fixed things I am just not sure. I've spent 20 or so hours on this issue over the course of many days. I am glad it seems resolved for now but am curious about the complex questions this brings up.

Hi,

I had previously had a system working for a few months with my thermostat and a motion sensor so that when I left the house or in the middle of the night my HVAC thermostat would be set to "off". Then when motion was detected or every morning when I am present it would switch to "heat" or "cool" mode. This was saving energy. Since I upgraded my hubitat it stopped working in the following way: After I install a driver (any of the three: dizzyd, built-in Honeywell T6, or Generic Z-Wave Thermostat) I find that initially it appears to work ok from the dashboard because I can change modes manually there. But once I use RuleMachine to set the T6 mode to "off" it simply fails to respond to commands at all from the hub anymore. So I can't save energy automatically anymore. What can I do to fix it? I see in the logs the RuleMachine is sending the action. But the T6 just doesn't respond. BTW I am including in Z-wave insecure ("SKIP" button) mode. Any tips appreciated.

Here are T6 event logs:

thermostatOperatingState idle DEVICE 2022-01-05 05:38:23.527 PM PST
thermostatMode off DEVICE physical 2022-01-05 05:38:22.646 PM PST
thermostatMode cool DEVICE physical 2022-01-05 05:38:21.598 PM PST
thermostatOperatingState heating DEVICE 2022-01-05 05:38:19.776 PM PST
thermostatMode heat DEVICE digital 2022-01-05 05:38:19.184 PM PST
thermostatOperatingState idle DEVICE 2022-01-05 05:32:31.971 PM PST
thermostatMode off DEVICE digital 2022-01-05 05:32:31.537 PM PST
thermostatSetpoint 69 F DEVICE digital 2022-01-05 05:32:21.886 PM PST
heatingSetpoint 69 F DEVICE digital 2022-01-05 05:32:21.885 PM PST
thermostatSetpoint 68 F DEVICE digital 2022-01-05 05:32:21.703 PM PST

as you can see "off" is the last thing I see then it is like I cannot read nor write commands from hubitat.

Best regards,

Rudi

@cilibrar

Just a note: Hubitat reccomends the generic z-wave plus thermostat driver for the Honeywell T6 over the actual t6 or advanced t6 driver. That said, skip should have taken care of pairing without security. Strange behavior indeed. It's more likely though you have a bit of corruption in your database. This can be exposed in updates. For giggles and to ensure you have a clean database, go to settings>>backup and restore and click the download button. Save the config db to your PC (the database will be cleaned during this process) Go to yourhubip:8081 and do a soft reset, then when it comes back up, restore from the backup you made to your pc. This is the only time this off behavior happens after an update that I've seen.

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Did that work for you then?

i have not switched to the driver you recommended nor have i done the backup save/restore yet because i don't want to risk breaking it but so far the hubitat is still performing fine ever since i basically "lucked" into a working config somehow. one other thing i guess i did differently was pressed the "configure" button right after adding the device last time, not sure if that could explain everything. if and when i see any more t6 problems i will definitely follow your advice exactly thank you!

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The following thread may be of interest about the T6:

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this morning my thermostat was stuck in the "off" state. it is supposed to (according to my rulemachine 5.0/5.1 system) send the Adv t6 a command every minute which is either "heat mode", "cool mode", or "off mode" with fan always "auto"

it is supposed to disable (go to "off mode") from 1am-5am roughly.

i am now applying the backup - soft reset - restore procedure. if this doesn't fix i plan to try switching drivers again. which is fairly difficult because my minuteHVACController has about 10 lines it is a ten minute minigame to re-enter (in mouse GUI) every time I switch devices according to rlithgow1 instructions. will post results here.

i found the problem is not in the driver but before it. I have a global boolean deepSleep and another called hvacEnabled. at 4:30am every morning it is supposed to change deepSleep to false. then another rule that triggers on deepSleep changed . i see deepSleep is false. i see hvacEnabled false and that is incorrect given my rule that triggers when deepSleep changes. somehow my hubitat presence detection seems broken now in recent versions even though it worked for months using a sensor fusion approach: my iphone network detection and also motion sensor in my living room. sorry for mistitling this post. i would love to post a full copy of all my rules if there was an easy way to export them.

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my motion detector is zooz 4-in-1 sensor. i know it's detecting my motion because i see the red light flash on it. i know it's connected to z-wave because i am also able to configure and refresh in the hubitat dashboard. i see the event log shows:
Name Value Unit Description Text Source Type Date

syncStatus Synced zooz 4-in-1 sensor 01: syncStatus is Synced DEVICE 2022-01-08 08:59:00.108 AM PST
syncStatus Resync All zooz 4-in-1 sensor 01: syncStatus is Resync All DEVICE 2022-01-08 08:58:34.150 AM PST
humidity 55 % zooz 4-in-1 sensor 01: humidity is 55% DEVICE 2022-01-05 12:26:03.872 AM PST
temperature 67.01 °F zooz 4-in-1 sensor 01: temperature is 67.01°F DEVICE 2022-01-05 12:26:03.820 AM PST
illuminance 0 lux zooz 4-in-1 sensor 01: illuminance is 0lux DEVICE 2022-01-04 11:36:04.458 PM PST
humidity 53 % zooz 4-in-1 sensor 01: humidity is 53% DEVICE 2022-01-04 11:36:03.412 PM PST
temperature 68.80 °F zooz 4-in-1 sensor 01: temperature is 68.80°F DEVICE 2022-01-04 11:36:02.381 PM PST
motion inactive zooz 4-in-1 sensor 01: motion is inactive DEVICE 2022-01-04 11:35:31.982 PM PST
motion active zooz 4-in-1 sensor 01: motion is active DEVICE 2022-01-04 11:34:51.709 PM PST
motion inactive zooz 4-in-1 sensor 01: motion is inactive

so i know it worked 4 days ago to detect motion. somehow it's not working reliably anymore. so my hvac control system apparently thinks i am never here anymore.

sadly, the iphone wifi presence detection is also broken for me now. so that explains why my hvac won't heat the house.

turning wifi on my phone fixes wifi presence so that was my mistake. but i don't understand why my motion detector detected motion only once in the last week and stopped sending motion updates for about 4 days. that seems like a real bug in hubitat or zooz 4-in-1 driver to me or maybe a result of corrupt database also?

so wifi presence was enough to set hvacEnabled to true. but then the adv t6 thermostat did not come out of "Off" mode by itself. so it does appear there is more than one fault in this system.

  1. something involving zooz 4-in-1 motion detection failing
  2. something locking thermostat to "off" mode.
    i have a cronjob like system that is supposed to send a command to the t6 every minute to control mode to heat / cool / off. when hvacEnabled is false it should be off. when hvacEnabled is true it should be heat/cold (heat this time of year).

since hvacEnabled was true after i turned on wifi on my phone it should have set the t6 to "heat" mode but didn't. at least now it's better than earlier this morning before i noticed the presence detection sensor fusion problem. then it would turn off my thermostat even when i manually set it to heat mode every minute. so now it's not doing that which is nice so i don't freeze.

New mystery: unplugging my only (Aeotec) Z-wave repeater caused my motion sensor to work again! Feels like Zooz 4-in-1 motion sensor etc must have a ZWave networking bug.

Was it included with security? If so it's a known issues with the zse40 and the C7. There's a thread about it on here, I used a software hub as suggested to include it without security but even being an IT professional with over 20 years in the field it took me about a day to get it working right.

hehe yes i am also 20-30 year computer pro but wow z-wave is tricky in practice. in any case maybe it is better now i am not sure. it was S0 before i think. and i decided to switch to a beta user driver after excluding and including it a few times. i don't really know if the security caused it. the only thing i can think i might have done to trigger the problem was change the battery on the Zooz 4-in-1 a few weeks ago.

Well this morning my house froze again because the T6 was stuck in the "off" state. I checked my global state vars and this time the hvacEnabled is true. So the system is supposed to be trying to set the T6 to "heat" mode every minute. I tried rebooting the hub, that did not work. I have already tried the DB dump and restore a few days ago. So this time I tried changing the T6 driver to Generic Z-Wave Plus thermostat. in my RM logs for the hvacMinuteController rule, I see:
dev:1482022-01-11 10:38:31.341 am debugnew supervised packet for session: 10

dev:1482022-01-11 10:38:31.338 am debugsetThermostatFanMode(auto)

dev:1482022-01-11 10:38:31.253 am debugnew supervised packet for session: 9

dev:1482022-01-11 10:38:31.250 am debugsetThermostatMode(heat)

dev:1482022-01-11 10:37:36.174 am debugre-sending supervised session: 8

dev:1482022-01-11 10:37:36.170 am debugre-sending supervised session: 7

dev:1482022-01-11 10:37:31.127 am debugnew supervised packet for session: 8

dev:1482022-01-11 10:37:31.124 am debugsetThermostatFanMode(auto)

dev:1482022-01-11 10:37:31.045 am debugnew supervised packet for session: 7

dev:1482022-01-11 10:37:31.041 am debugsetThermostatMode(heat)

dev:1482022-01-11 10:36:36.383 am debugre-sending supervised session: 6

dev:1482022-01-11 10:36:36.370 am debugre-sending supervised session: 5

so we can see it is indeed trying to set the T6 to heating from the RM (5.1) point of view.

Next checking Z-Wave logs for the T6:

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:36.073 seqNo: 12, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:36.072 seqNo: 11, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:32.865 seqNo: 255, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:32.565 seqNo: 253, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:32.264 seqNo: 251, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:31.964 seqNo: 249, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:31.663 seqNo: 247, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:31.365 seqNo: 245, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:31.363 seqNo: 244, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:31.262 seqNo: 243, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Advanced Honeywell T6 Pro Thermostat2022-01-11 10:41:31.064 seqNo: 241, routeChanged: false, transmissionTime: 0ms, repeaters: None, speed: Unknown, rssi: [0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm, 0 dBm], Ack channel: 0, Transmit channel: 0

Anybody have more ideas I can try?

What does your z-wave network look like? How many nodes? How many repeating nodes?

I ask because it is apparent the hub isn't able to talk to your thermostat. I had a T6 z-wave thermostat for ~2 years, and have never experienced this. My z-wave network has 57 nodes, 35 of which can function as repeaters (5 of these are Aeotec Range Extender v6).

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Also, as a general suggestion, it is not a good idea to turn a thermostat off in non-occupied modes.

What is generally recommended is setting the Cool and Heat temperatures to safe levels that under normal circumstances would not be exceeded.

For example, my Away cool setting is 78F, and my Away heat setting is 62F, both of which are 8 degrees removed from my desired comfort level during Home mode.

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Agreed. Because if you turn it off and then there is a communication or hub issue... well whatever happens next is on you. :slight_smile:

Don't do that and then post saying "my pipes froze because the hub didn't turn my thermostat back on".

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I'm just gonna throw this out there....perhaps opening myself to consternation for doing so.

But when folks say, and I paraphrase, "Hubitat and the HA devices that prevail on the market are not meant to be replacements for Security Systems" presumably because they "aren't up to the task" I always think about the HA stuff (like this) that people ARE doing that have HIGHER ODDS of "going wrong and having impact" than some Security event being missed.

People are doing some serious sh_t with HE and everything that happens on the back end as upgrades and evolution occur has a very big chance of being MATERIAL to the function of said sh_t. When folks set up controls & monitoring these days they are hoping for something more than X10 hobby-level cross your fingers functionality & reliability.

Now, that said....the advice to construct your stuff so that you FAIL SAFE is AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY when you step up controls beyond the proverbial "just turning your lights on to a cool color".

I just wanted to make the point that playing HA with HE ain't PLAY anymore...and dismissing one application area, like Security, as "inappropriate use" is like ignoring the elephant in the room when it comes to what all people are doing with HA and HE in and around their environments.

I have about 5 nodes on my z-wave network and 0 repeaters AFAIK.

I have heard about the suggestion to change hot/cold temperature instead of turning therm off. it does seem it always gets stuck in the "off" position when it gets stuck so there is some evidence accumulating that the "off" mode is the problem. The main reason it's challenging for me to do the hot/cold temperature adjust thing is because I want to enable the user to adjust the therm up/down manually. In the current system I use the Hubitat never adjusts heat/cold setpoint.
so to turn off T6 using setpoints i would have to: a) save current therm temp setting in a global variable b) adjust temp up or down according to cool/heat mode respectively, and then c) wait for system to be re-enabled at which point i would need to set the temperature to the saved value. an additional complication is that iirc there are 3 different temp settings: heat setpoint, cool setpoint, and plain setpoint on the T6. this is a lot more complicated than "switch t6 mode between heat/cool/off" every minute. which works most of the time, for days even, before it fails and gets stuck in "off" somehow. thanks for these great suggestions. certainly here in California my pipes will not freeze but i may get charged extra some months when there is a serious control bug or have an uncomfortable temperature situation unless I can find a good solution to my heat/cool problems.

This is a major issue. And it will manifest itself by devices falling off the network, and unreliable communication with devices.

This method of operation is not good for a z-wave network either. You're generating a ■■■■-ton of traffic, especially once your thermostat goes off-line vis-a-vis the z-wave network.

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