Intruder partition not automatically armed away anymore using Kwikset Zwave Smartlock on 1.3.13e

Carlo ●

Support is gone.

I've tickets about alarm and 3g stick opened since January.

They even asked to send the box to them (!!!)

I think you are lucky that with old firmware everithing works, stay with the old version and keep finger crossed for the future releases.

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Alberto Macias ●

Now Zipato wants to charge to finish their half-made integrations... they should be ashamed. I would like to see them trying to charge a customer hourly for the same on industrial automation, company would disappear on the first project.

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Mislav C. ●

Hi Olivier,

Stefan has commented on your ticket. You can try the latest beta where we made some changes related to the inclusion process. If you still have problems you will need to stick to the firmware that works best for you, in this case 1.2.29. until we resolve the issue.

@Alberto

The problem here is that some devices need to be in our lab to be fully supported, they are not plug and play. When some users ask for a device to be supported we try to do it remotely so they have at least some functions but this is not always 100%.

Some devices do not follow the standard and here things begin to be problematic. Some configurations work, some do not but we do not have the resources to inspect in detail each and every customer why it does not work for him. If we find it's a bug we resolve it in a future firmware upgrade, no payment necessary.

Industrial automation is not comparable at all with DIY home automation and is a lot more expensive system both for acquiring and supporting.

@Carlo

We have tried to diagnose the problem remotely and since we have not established the reason why you have problems with our 3G stick the only alternative is to send us the box so we test it in our lab and do repairs if necessary.

I am not sure why this seems as bad practice to you.

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Alberto Macias ●

Hello Mislav,

I'm glad you mention, I know for a fact that Industrial and Home Automation are not comparable (that is what I do for a living) however I made that comparison because the US $65 rate per hour is a rate that any decent integration company will charge for a Mid / Sr Automation Engineer, for a freelance it would take 10+ years of experience to be able to charge that for an hour of service (no expenses included), and that is what you guys are charging to the end customer. Besides the experience required and the fact that for the most part we need to travel for long periods of time away from home, in most cases we need to be certified and have very specific skill sets, now I ask, charging that rate to end customers is fare??

I understand in most cases like this one, a device from another manufacturer like Kwikset, is something you guys at Zipato are trying to integrate (I know it takes time and money) and sometimes you don't even have the devices. That part I get, what I don't get is how firmware upgrades are relased and break something that was working before, I assume you guys would keep developing over stuff that already works (I understand sometimes you need to break stuff inernally to make changes), in my opinion Zipato's focus should be the existing customer first, then gaining new customers (new developments).

Now, what is the reason for incomplete Zipato devices and features? for that you cannot say you guys don't know the devices or that you don't have the devices in your labs. I have tickets opened for months on Zipato features and devices, and haven't been solved and the answer was "we are too busy" or "we know is not working but cannot fix it right now", there are a few examples for that;

* OTA upgrades, clearly stated on your devices manuals and webpages.

* Battery alerts, as of now, it does not work.

* Groups partially work.

As I said before, I really like Zipato architecture and devices but I have always seen that you guys care more about adding more stuff to the ecosystem (even though it doesn't work 100%), than adding something and make it fully compatible. Also why promise something you guys are not ready / willing to do in short term?

Thank you.

Hello Mislav,

I'm glad you mention, I know for a fact that Industrial and Home Automation are not comparable (that is what I do for a living) however I made that comparison because the US $65 rate per hour is a rate that any decent integration company will charge for a Mid / Sr Automation Engineer, for a freelance it would take 10+ years of experience to be able to charge that for an hour of service (no expenses included), and that is what you guys are charging to the end customer. Besides the experience required and the fact that for the most part we need to travel for long periods of time away from home, in most cases we need to be certified and have very specific skill sets, now I ask, charging that rate to end customers is fare??

I understand in most cases like this one, a device from another manufacturer like Kwikset, is something you guys at Zipato are trying to integrate (I know it takes time and money) and sometimes you don't even have the devices. That part I get, what I don't get is how firmware upgrades are relased and break something that was working before, I assume you guys would keep developing over stuff that already works (I understand sometimes you need to break stuff inernally to make changes), in my opinion Zipato's focus should be the existing customer first, then gaining new customers (new developments).

Now, what is the reason for incomplete Zipato devices and features? for that you cannot say you guys don't know the devices or that you don't have the devices in your labs. I have tickets opened for months on Zipato features and devices, and haven't been solved and the answer was "we are too busy" or "we know is not working but cannot fix it right now", there are a few examples for that;

* OTA upgrades, clearly stated on your devices manuals and webpages.

* Battery alerts, as of now, it does not work.

* Groups partially work.

As I said before, I really like Zipato architecture and devices but I have always seen that you guys care more about adding more stuff to the ecosystem (even though it doesn't work 100%), than adding something and make it fully compatible. Also why promise something you guys are not ready / willing to do in short term?

Thank you.

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Carlo ●

Hi Mislav, I think that no one from support really uses a zipabox.

I rely on zipabox (and zipato) for heating, alarm and home automation. How am I supposed to send the box to support and have my house without heating and alarm for an unpredictable amount of time?

This is why I think is a bad thing sending the device.

Talking about 3g functionality it's an example of half implemented feature (like wifi in zipamicro). I say this because from user interface there's no way to know signal strength, carrier, roaming, test connection and so on.

During ticket I received a lot of contradictory answers:

- poor signal

- protocol blocked by carrier

- not connected by unknown reason

- good signal and connected (but box offline)

The funny thing is that the same sim and same stock works flawlessly connected to the router.

Despite 3g functionality I have two open tickets related to:

- a true perimeter breach for which the alarm didn't rang

- alarm started ringing without any event tracked in event log

I found very frustrating encounter this issues with a system aimed to manage alarm and home and having no way to resolve them...

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Mislav C. ●

Hi Carlo,

We understand that sending the device to us for testing is most inconvenient but this was the last solution that we could offer to you since we cannot solve this issue remotely unfortunately. What I was trying to explain previously is that we do try to solve the problems but sometimes it not so easy to do so, and it takes extra time in some cases.

Regarding your other tickets we will try to solve them as well, unfortunately we are a little short staffed because of the Frankfurt exhibition and they are issues that need closer inspection.

I saw that you commented that the siren parameter was probably to blame for the perimeter breach. We will check this (test it in our lab and report back).

Regarding false alarm I hope we will have some information for you next week.

We apologise for the delay but rest assured that we will answer your tickets and try to resolve the issues.

Best regards,

Mislav

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Mislav C. ●

Hi Alberto,

Thank you for the constructive criticism. I do agree/understand some of your points. Some of the issues are related to the long term development and our wish to expand the system functionality. We are actually shifting our strategy a little and I believe that in the future our focus will be more on stability and ease of use than adding new features.

Best regards,

Mislav

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Alberto Macias ●

I'm glad to here you guys are listening to your community, also glad you can see that I try to criticize constructively and also help the community as much as I can. I really would like zipato to success and become the most stable and flexible system for Home Automation.

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Olivier Blain ●

Hello Mislav,

I will try the beta and let you guys know.

I didn't want to bring my problem here and would have like to deal only with support using the normal ticket process to get this issue resolved. Unfortunately, over the course of the last month, my ticket was closed twice by support for no valid reasons and I have to re-open it myself. I'm a technical expert working for a wireless operator and let me tell you that 3GGP & ITU specifications are much more complex than the Zwave one due to the variety of protocols and variety of types of logical interfaces. during my career, I've seen vendors arguing and blaming each others because of non-working new functionalities that we tried to implement as new services to our customers. However, I've never seen once over the course of the last 15 years a vendor that has performed an upgrade of its own SW putting the blame on another vendor for a functionality that stopped working.

This is exactly what Zipato is doing currently with my case. I was not complaining about a functionality that is not working while I tried to integrate different devices together for the first time, my case is about a functionality that has been proven working for awhile now and which has stopped working specifically after I have upgraded to the latest Zipatile firmware. Moreover, Zipato confirmed me that they have done major rework to their Zwave Stack which is most likely the cause of the issue I'm encountering.

At the end, I just want Zipato to take the responsibility of this issue and be accountable for fixing it.

I do not think this is too much asking.

Best regards

Olivier

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Mislav C. ●

Hello Olivier,

I understand your arguments, as you can see we are trying to help resolve the issue. In some cases we do make an error in judgement but it's not intentional. Closed ticket is still accessible and if you think that the issue is not resolved you can of course reopen the ticket and comment on it and if possible it will be resolved.

Some issues can be resolved quickly and some are more complex and take time unfortunately.

BR,

Mislav

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Olivier Blain ●

Fair enough Mislav.

I was keeping the latest 1.3.13e firmware on my zipatile for the last couple weeks as an opportunity for you guys to investigate further the issue. Vedran told me he would log in my system to see if the Smartlock notification sent over zwave to the Zipatile controller is properly decoded and interpreted. This is the only reason I was keeping the controller on the latest firmware and it is frustrating seeing that nobody looks at it as I was not getting any feedback even after I asked several times for an update.

At the end, if you tell me that you guys knows exactly what is the issue and it's going to be fixed in the next version... I have no problem keeping my Zipatile on 1.2.29m until the fix is available in one of the next upcoming versions but I feel that you have not identified yet where and what exactly is causing this issue. My understanding is that your recommendation to try the beta does not garantee that the issue is fixed and I would like to know what else will be done on Zipato side to further analyse and understand this issue. BTW, as always, I'm available to support Zipato investigation if needed.

In the meantime, as recommended, I will try the Beta.

Thanks

Olivier

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Olivier Blain ●

Hello,

Today I found out that Zipato has closed again my ticket related to this issue. It is the 3rd time Zipato Support is doing this.

Mislav,

I have answered all of your requests. I made myself available to test any new firmware you guys have provided me with but none have fixed my issue so far. I don't understand why it is so difficult to fix such issue, especially when this functionality was proven working in a previous firmware and it has stopped working in the latest firmwares.

I told Zipato that I was good to stay on 1.2.29m until they provide me with a fix but I never agreed to have my case closed.

I'm very desapointed.

Olivier

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Mislav C. ●

Hello Olivier,

I made a note in your ticket so that it remains open until this issue is fixed. We are working on a new firmware release. When it's available we will contact you again so that we can test if this issue is resolved with the latest release.

Sorry for the late response, I was on vacation so I saw this post just now.

BR,

Mislav

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Intruder partition not automatically armed away anymore using Kwikset Zwave Smartlock on 1.3.13e

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