As promised I will discuss my experience in automating the open/close of my garage door. At first I was going to use the ZRF113 device, but Mark from HS said it is being redesigned with no ETA on restock so he recommended the Global Cache WF2CC which is a wifi device to contact closure. I ordered it and it arrived on Tuesday.
The first step was getting the wf2cc box to talk to my wifi router/ap and boy was that a pain in the arse. I tried 4 different routers/aps and it would not connect. I tried all combinations of security (wep, wpa, no security, etc.) and still no luck. After 4 hours of this nonsense, I called it a day and went home. That night I sent an email to Global Cache and he said that I needed to make sure that my SSID was not hidden. Well of course my SSID is hidden, so the next day I allowed it to be broadcast and voila it connected. Could have saved 4 hours if Global Cache would have just PUT THAT IN THE MANUAL!
Now that it was on my network, I installed the latest version of the Global Cache plug-in 1.0.0.3 and as soon as it finished installing, I had 3 new devices (Relay 1,1 , Relay 1,2 , Relay 1,3). I clicked on Relay 1,1 to see what configuration was available since that is the relay I was going to use to open/close the garage door and there were four options to select from:
Digital Input, Analog Input, Digital Output, and Interface Variable
I had no idea which on to select, but it seemed logical to select Analog Input since I will be dealing with electricy. Saved the setting and set out to wire the wf2cc box to my garage door unit. I read over the garge door instructions and located the correct terminals that open/close the garage via the button on the wall. Wired the wf2cc to the garage door unit in parallel and tested out my handy work. Guess what, nothing. I tried all relay's on the wf2cc box, but nothing worked. I just kept getting the same error over and over again after every change. By this time it was time to go home again.
Next day, I tried it again with fresh eyes but it did the same thing. So I called HS and spoke to Rich about my error. He said to close HS and open it again as that is when HS "talks" to the wf2cc. Once it restarted, I tried again but still no luck. So right after I got off the phone with Rich, I tried it again and it WORKED! What I found, was that if the Relay state was CLOSED, I had to change the state to OPEN and the change the state to CLOSED again before the door would OPEN or CLOSE. Well that makes sense now that I thought about it so I called Rich back and told him what I found. Also, Rich told me that the four options in the relay device are meaningless for the wf2cc box. I verified this by choosing each one, saving config, and testing the open/close of the garage door and the door opened/closed everytime.
Hope this helps someone get the wf2cc running in 15 minutes instead of 8-10 hours
The first step was getting the wf2cc box to talk to my wifi router/ap and boy was that a pain in the arse. I tried 4 different routers/aps and it would not connect. I tried all combinations of security (wep, wpa, no security, etc.) and still no luck. After 4 hours of this nonsense, I called it a day and went home. That night I sent an email to Global Cache and he said that I needed to make sure that my SSID was not hidden. Well of course my SSID is hidden, so the next day I allowed it to be broadcast and voila it connected. Could have saved 4 hours if Global Cache would have just PUT THAT IN THE MANUAL!
Now that it was on my network, I installed the latest version of the Global Cache plug-in 1.0.0.3 and as soon as it finished installing, I had 3 new devices (Relay 1,1 , Relay 1,2 , Relay 1,3). I clicked on Relay 1,1 to see what configuration was available since that is the relay I was going to use to open/close the garage door and there were four options to select from:
Digital Input, Analog Input, Digital Output, and Interface Variable
I had no idea which on to select, but it seemed logical to select Analog Input since I will be dealing with electricy. Saved the setting and set out to wire the wf2cc box to my garage door unit. I read over the garge door instructions and located the correct terminals that open/close the garage via the button on the wall. Wired the wf2cc to the garage door unit in parallel and tested out my handy work. Guess what, nothing. I tried all relay's on the wf2cc box, but nothing worked. I just kept getting the same error over and over again after every change. By this time it was time to go home again.
Next day, I tried it again with fresh eyes but it did the same thing. So I called HS and spoke to Rich about my error. He said to close HS and open it again as that is when HS "talks" to the wf2cc. Once it restarted, I tried again but still no luck. So right after I got off the phone with Rich, I tried it again and it WORKED! What I found, was that if the Relay state was CLOSED, I had to change the state to OPEN and the change the state to CLOSED again before the door would OPEN or CLOSE. Well that makes sense now that I thought about it so I called Rich back and told him what I found. Also, Rich told me that the four options in the relay device are meaningless for the wf2cc box. I verified this by choosing each one, saving config, and testing the open/close of the garage door and the door opened/closed everytime.
Hope this helps someone get the wf2cc running in 15 minutes instead of 8-10 hours
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