First off, thanks for continuing to grow, evolve and improve ThinkEssentials!  It’s a great tool for configuring my ZWave house.

Configuration:

Lenovo Thinkpad T500, Win7-32bit, Leviton Vizia-RF switches, WD thermostats, WD USB stick.

Bugs:

A few random bugs:

·         When I moved from v2.4 to the v2.5 beta build 2, it showed up with 2 icons for USB thinksticks.  One was the real one, and one was a phantom.  Note that I am using a WD stick.

·         Most of my scenes got corrupted in one way or another. Scenes containing both thermostats and lights lost all of the lights but retained the thermostat settings.

·         V2.5 frequently will fail to turn lights on and off from the UI, where v2.4 worked.

·         Often V2.5 will get to a point where it will not communicate with any light (progress arrows spin endlessly.)  Shutting down and restarting fixes the problem.

The main different I notice in the UI of v2.5 is the combining of scenes and areas onto one tab.  I think this change has pushed the overall TE UI, which was already stretched to the brink, past the breaking point.  From the beginning I have felt that TE really needs a traditional multi-window UI with scrollbars (ala most paint programs, Visual Studio, etc.)  Formerly, with areas and scenes on separate tabs, it was just barely manageable. With them combined, my list of areas + scenes in unmanageable. This has been further exacerbated by the model in which TE is now requiring an area for any scene.

The distinction between areas and scenes in ZWave has always been a source of confusion; however, once understood it is useful. I’m not sure that the hybridization of areas and scenes in TE makes the distinction any less confusing, and it definitely does add another level of clutter.  Given that ZWave itself defines both scenes and areas, adding this artificial connection seems counterproductive.   ZWave already requires the creation of many extra areas simply for “book-keeping” (i.e. if I want a button on a 4-zone controller to turn off a particular switch, I can’t just associate the button with the switch - I have to create an area for that switch first.)  Adding yet more areas as platforms for scenes increases the clutter with no obvious user benefit.

To make matters worse, TE does not allow for the sorting or re-arranging of the list of scenes and areas.  They appear to show up in order of creation, not in a sequence that is logical or helpful to the user.  If I could move all the “book-keeping areas” to the bottom (or hide them altogether) that would help.  Now I have to slowly scroll (using the up/down arrows) through my dozens of areas and scenes searching for an area or scene of interest.

I am hopeful that an upcoming release will re-write the TE UI completely, providing for scrolling and zooming in the layout field, and giving the areas (and scenes?) a scrollbar [or presenting them in a pop-up window, etc.]

Finally, a change was made to the UI for modifying a scene.  Formerly, if I wanted to change a switch from on to off, or adjust its level, I would right-click to pop up an On/Off or level adjuster.  Now I get a right-click menu offering  “state controller” or “optimize device.”  It is not helpful having Optimize Device available in scene modification mode.  This UI change now means yet another click before I can adjust a switch in a scene.

Feature Requests:

Many, many feature requests.  Here are my top requests:

·         #1 with a bullet is the multi-window, scrollable, zoomable interface described above.

·         Much more complex and robust thermostat control.

·         More complex events: Currently events are only time-based and only allow invoking a scene or area.  I would like a richer set of triggers (e.g. a button push, an event fired by my alarm system or garage door, a temperature reached by the thermostat, etc.) and a richer set of event possibilities.  Some example scenarios:

o   I push the “go to bed” scene controller, it turns on the light to the stairs and fires an event. That event is coded to wait 1 minute and then turn the stair light back off.

o   At 6:30am the bedroom lights fade up 1%, then increase 1% every 5 seconds until 100% about 8 minutes later.

o   If the living room thermostat shows a temp above 75, then turn on the ceiling fan.

o   The garage door opens, firing an event to turn on the outside lights.

o   The alarm is turned on in “away” mode, which turns down the thermostats.

o   The alarm goes off, which turns on all the lights in the house.

o   Etc, etc, etc.

·         Polling interval:  I would like to be able to have the polling interval change based on time of day.  During the day I want it very frequent, but at night it doesn’t need to poll at all.

·         Quicker timeouts for failed device communication, and error reporting when communication fails.

·         Error reporting: I set up a network, optimize the network, update all the controllers and check for signal strength.  Still, when I click on a light, sometimes it gives me a red cross icon over the light.  Other than that, TE provides no information – there is no error message, no error log, no tools to diagnose the problem.

·         Startup: I find it very frustrating that TE wont launch without the controller stick.  It should at least launch in a read-only mode.  Preferably I would be able to change the layout, events, and other options that are not controller dependent.

·         Exit: TE should have an “exit” menu item.  Currently clicking the TE icon in the title bar offers “close”. However, close only minimizes to the notification area.  To exit TE, one must then right click TE in the notification area and choose exit.  There should be a full-exit offered on the TE menu.

Thanks!  I hope some of these ideas are useful in growing and improving TE.

Andrew Sigal