KNX Rookie question(s)

NCO3 · October 1, 2023, 1:23pm

Dear all,

I just connected the existing (small) KNX installation to HA (I am a bloddy rookie as you will see).
The KNX configuration was downloaded by the electrician who changed the serial to an IP interface.
I have:
1 pcs 12 channel actuator (11 channels for Rollershutter + one channel to switch the ventilation and another device.
Furthermore I have 2 Multiswitches with 8 channels each.

Step by step I am figuring out about the meaning of the existing group addresses.
E.g Switching the ventilation works with the two multi switches (group adress 3/0/7for switch 1 and 4/0/7 for switch 2).
I also can switch is from HA with this config (and see the changes done by the switches):

switch:
    - name: "Lüftung"
      address:
            - "3/0/7" # Taster Flur EG
            - "4/0/7" # Taster Schlafzimmer

My idea now was to create separate group adresses for HA and expand my config like this:

switch:
    - name: "Lüftung"
      address:
            - "5/0/7" # Home Assistant
            - "3/0/7" # Taster Flur EG
            - "4/0/7" # Taster Schlafzimmer

I also created the group adress in ETS6 and added the channel to the group address 5/0/7.
However, the switch is unavailable and I wonder how I need to add the home assistant device (according to KNX in HA 1.2.6) to my ETS6 (I assume the HA couterpart in my ETS6 config is missing)

Thanks in advance for any help!
NCO

farmio · October 1, 2023, 2:05pm

Hi !

That’s very uncommon. Normally one “action” (eg. switching the ventilation) uses 1 GA (group address) - and every switch (or HA) sends to that GA, and updates its state from it.

Not sure what you mean by that. There is no HA counterpart for ETS.

You will want to get the basic KNX topology terms right, before you continue. See eg. https://www.knx.org/wAssets/docs/downloads/Marketing/Flyers/KNX-Basics/KNX-Basics_en.pdf or get a book / course for it.

Thorsten77 · October 1, 2023, 2:23pm

Hello,
farmio is right that using separately GA for switching is uncommon. You need only 1 GA for switching
(eg. 1/0/1) in which you put the actuator channel and your switch 1 and switch 2. You can use a separate adress for state (eg. 1/0/2) where you put in your actuator confirmation object. When Home Assistant starts and you have no sep. state Adress it will use the last known state. If you use a state adress it will read the state from bus.

farmio · October 1, 2023, 2:28pm

You can however use the one address for switching as state address also. In HA you would just configure

- name: ...
  address: 1/0/1
  state_address: 1/0/1

For simple things there is often no need for a separate state address.

NCO3 · October 1, 2023, 2:41pm

Thank you for your help!

I started with this and it works basically with 3/0/7 (Wall-Switch 1 uses this one) only.
However, if I changed the Ventilation with the Wall-Switch 2 (using 4/0/7), HA did not recognize the change.

Question:
Would it make more sense to put multiple GAs in the state_address instead?

As Wall-Switch 1 and Wall-Switch 2 are using separate GAs (for easier identification on the bus I guess), I thought, I need to create a separate trigger source for HA related GAs / entities / Devices in ETS as well (?)
So, my guess would be that I need to add a “device” to ETS which mimics HA.
But from your response I guess that’s rubbish?

I guess you are right.
Actually I did some “youtube course” already (which helped a lot).

But with this I would miss the state change / update from Wall-Switch 2 (4/0/7) - see above

Thorsten77 · October 1, 2023, 2:46pm

Reading the state adress from the switch object only works if the adress has set the read flag on the actuator. Thats why it is better use the state object from the actuator in a sep. adress.

farmio · October 1, 2023, 3:08pm

Yes, that’s possible. But state_address would actively read the first configured GA → this can lead to the wrong state.
The most clean solution would be to reconfigure your second switch via ETS to use the same GA as your first switch.
If that table is right, you would see, that when you turn off the ventilation from switch 1 (send a 0 payload to 3/0/7) the second switch doesn’t know it. So it may or may not send a 1 payload to 4/0/7 when you press it - depending on what it did send when you last used it. If you used the same GA it would have received the telegram from switch 1 and would know to send the opposite payload next time you use the switch (this is possible from any number of switches with a single GA).

You said you had ETS, so it would be easier to look this up in ETS, than in some table that may not be perfectly updated with your reality.

Telegrams have a source_address - so you would see what device sent the telegram in every way.

Since you are german (according to your entity names) I can recommend “Torben Ledermann” on YT. Other than that, there is the “ETS Schnellkurs”, but that’s quite expensive imho.

farmio · October 1, 2023, 3:11pm

Group addresses can’t have flags - only group objects can.
You can still set the same GA to an “action” and a “state” group object, that’s perfectly fine. Normally the flags are set correctly, so that only the “state” group object has the read flag set, and reading the GA will work perfectly fine.

You’d need 2 separate addresses eg. when there is some internal logic diverging the “action” object value from its state (like timers or locks).

Thorsten77 · October 1, 2023, 3:52pm

Sorry for my wrong explanation, my english is not so good. I am always for sep. adresses, i think the channel with ga 3/0/8 in his picture is a timer for the channel, and if the timer will switch the state on the switch channel could be wrong. And putting the state Object with the action Object in 1 GA have to be done… it works not automatic, that was what i try to explain.

NCO3 · October 1, 2023, 4:01pm

So the conditions I found in the existing ETS config (2 GAs for 2 switches) is not common then?

I am using the demo verion at the moment to learn.
Unfortunately I don’t have the original knxproj file, but only a downloaded one without “meta data”.
That’s why I created the table to get a better idea about it’s structure without changing something.

Thank you - I will check this out (I just started with the Voltus stuff from “haus-automatisierung.com”)

Unfortunately I played too much and the actuator is not in run mode anymore.
I guess I messed it up

I used the original knxproj file to revert back (upload application), but failed.
Possibly the best way is to take the course and start from scratch as the system is not too complex…

Thank you for your help!
I might come back with more questions

NCO3 · October 2, 2023, 3:23pm

I actually started from scratch and just added one single group for a switch.
The download to the KNX device (2 switches) works well and I can see the application running and the group in place:

The Actuator also shows the group correctly:
But the application does not run (RUN LED = off)

Can I manually start the application?
How to troubleshoot this?

EDIT:
After several attempts of updating the config on the actuator + Soft- und Hard-Reset, I have used the “unload” function in ETS (“entladen”).
After that, the programm download onto the actuator was successful and it went back to RUN mode