Home Assistant does not find all my modules

For developers
1

Hi all,

I’m busy setting up my new Velbus installation, in our new home.

I have no Signum, but I’m using a Raspberry Pi, running Home Assistant. I used the Velbusd/Velbus TCP plugin (GitHub - cereal2nd/hassio-velbusd: HASSIO addon to create a velbus proxy) to connect Velbuslink. This seems to work fine, in Velbuslink I can scan and see all the modules.

However, in the Velbus integration (also connected via the TCP addon), there are only 14 devices found (instead of 19 in Velbuslink)

I tried already some things:

  • rescanning (this improved the situation a while ago, I first only had 6 devices)
  • syncing everything in Velbuslink first
  • stopping the TCP addon, and reconfiguring the integration to use the USB connection (this had similar results, sometimes other devices are found, but never all of them)

It might be worth mentioning, that currently, no wall switches are connected yet (I had other priorities…), but all the modules in the cabinet (relays & dimmers) are working fine. I also have some PIR sensors, and they seem to work as well.
Since the wall switches are still to be connected, I only have one terminal-resistor connected. However, since Velbuslink finds everything, I can’t imagine this might be the root cause?

Any other ideas on how to solve this issue?

Thanks!

Best regards,
Jeroen

2

Hi

Welcome.

Can you provide a list of what you expect to see Vs what is actually discovered.

“Something is missing” is a great start, but needs just a little more info.

3

Hi,

I also got some extra info from csoete on this forum. Apparently, the initial scan takes up to 10 minutes, and it’s not allowed if you rescan while the initial scan is still busy.

So I deleted the connection in the Velbus integration, and added it again yesterday evening. This morning, I could find 17 devices already (that’s already a step up from 14).

However, still two devices are missing.

This is the list in Velbuslink:
image

This is the list in Home Assistant:

image
image937×877 38.5 KB

image
image906×322 15.3 KB

Seems that the only two modules which are still missing are two VMB2BLE-10 modules.

In the diagnostics, downloaded in the Home Assistant integration, I now see that these modules are present

      {
        "type": "VMB2BLE-10",
        "address": [
          2
        ],
        "name": null,
        "sw_version": "20236-4.67.0",
        "is_loaded": {
          "__type": "<class 'coroutine'>",
          "repr": "<coroutine object Module.is_loaded at 0x7f7e9dbd30>"
        },
        "channels": {}
      },

However, the name is “null”. I’ll try to fix this tonight, and see if this helps.
One other thing I notice is that the channels are not filled.

So all ideas to help here, are still very welcome!

Thanks!

Best regards,
Jeroen

1 Like
4

Unfortunately, renaming the module in Velbuslink did not solve it…
Anyone any other ideas?

5

I’m not a HomeAssistant expert, but now that you’ve been able to provide lots of details, I’m sure someone will jump to your assistance

6

Small update, tried factory resetting the missing devices, but without success.
Also tried connecting to the Velbus system directly over USB, again without success.

Would it be possible, since the missing devices are from the ‘new series’ (VMB2BLE-10), that the Velbus integration in Home Assistant is not yet compatible with these modules?

7

Yes the new modules are not (yet?) integrated. I also have VMBxxxxx-10 or 20 that are recognized with the scan but their channels don’t work

8

Indeed, I dug a little deeper into the Velbus integration for HA.

Seems the Velbus integration relies on the this Python library: GitHub - cereal2nd/velbus-aio: Velbus Asyncio
In here, I noticed the VMB2BLE-10 module seems not fully integrated.

More specifically, the channels are not defined in velbus-aio/velbusaio/module_spec/4A.json
Also, the implementation of the messages are not done yet (blind_status.py and all cover_*.py sources)

I had a quick look into the module protocol, to see if the protocol differs from the “regular” VMB2BLE module.

I did not find much differences, so I think all logic for the VMB2BLE can be reused for the VMB2BLE-10 module.
The only differences I found are:

  • The “terminator” databyte is added. But this part of the logic seems to be already implemented in the Python library.
  • The parameters of the actions are different. The newer modules has these parameters:
    image
    image742×136 6.14 KB

    Whereas the old module has these:
    image

I could try to do a pull request on the velbus-aio library, but I’m not sure if these parmeters are relevant. (did not find any in the sources)

I hope it’s not rude to ping @cereal here, to get some help?

9

this is really helpful, that you already looked at it the module specs.

So if there is not a lot different it should be pretty easy to implement.
Do you want to do this with some help? (it would be really good if someone else could help)

1 Like
10

Off course I’m happy to help. The problem is, I’m a bit busy with the new house (we are moving 22nd of November - the backlog of other things is also still long, so there is not much spare time…)

But I created a pull request anyway: Added VMB2BLE-10 module, based on VMB2BLE module by jeroenvdw · Pull Request #127 · cereal2nd/velbus-aio I hope you can have a look, and provide me some feedback.

I’m pretty confident that the same messages can be used as the “older” VMB2BLE module.
Only the difference on the “actions” (see post above) is a bit unclear for me, I’m not sure if and where this would impact the existing source.

I’m also not sure how to properly test this. Not sure if I can point my HA to another version of the velbus-aio lib. But then, it’s also not working now, so it’s surely not breaking any stuff :slight_smile:

And then maybe a bit off topic: I’m a bit amazed that this library, and also the Velbus integration is maintained by volunteers. I mean, we all love opensource off course, but Velbus is a commercial product, and since they are now pushing HA to its Signum devices, I’m assuming they are simply reusing your work to integrate it into HA?

11

Purely for reference.

I’m told that there is very little difference in firmware between the original models and anything with a -10 suffix. ( -10 versions are mostly PCB & packaging changes)

Meaning you should be able to make quick additions.

However, anything with a -20 suffix will (potentially) have very different firmware.

I’m told…

As with the attempt with openHAB core, everything regarding Velbus has been completely rewritten.

The signum contains the HA Core with new Velbus code, rather than a full blown HA instance with access to all the integrations.

1 Like
12

Hi @cereal,
I see you already merged my PR. Thanks :slight_smile:
Just wondering: I’m assuming the library won’t be released automatically on pypi? Can you ping me here once a new version is released? I’ll create a PR for Home Assistant to bump the version then.
Thanks again!

13

done:

3 Likes
14

Hi all,

FYI a small update!

The new version of velbus-aio is in the latest beta of Home Assistant, so I switched to the beta version to test it.

So I’m happy to announce that the changes are working. That means that the vmb2ble-10 devices are now supported too.

Thanks all!

2 Likes