I have just added the Devolo Siren to my zwave setup.
It works fine when using the binary switch to toggle the siren on and off.
The technical document states that you can also ring “notification” type sounds instead of toggling the siren when using “COMMAND_CLASS_NOTIFICATION_V4”.
In the home assistant z-wave config panel i coudn’t find anything, in general it was hard to find information if/who i could send a “NOTIFICATION_REPORT” to ring those other sounds.
Can anyone assist me trying to figure out how/if this works?
It seems the technical information is only available in german, but what it basically states:
“With the switch “SWITCH_BINARY_SET” the siren is played.
0xFF plays the emergency alarm, 0x00 stops the playback.
The device also supports the playback of “NOTIFICATION_REPORT” with different tones.”
Assuming your are using the HA native zwave (openzwave), unfortunatly I don’t think it will ever be possible to send a Notification Report to nodes. The OZW developer has stated that OZW will not implement “node” functionality, which I would think this behavior falls under. Unfortunately, that limits the functionality of this product. I don’t know if other zwave hubs support this functionality.
Most sirens now seem to use the Sound Switch command class (e.g. the Aeotec Siren 6), which is supported by OZW 1.6, so (in the future when HA supports it) you could accomplish what you want using a different siren product. Instead, this product seems like it is designed to use associations with other nodes to sound different chimes w/o involving the hub (perhaps for a security system). For example, if you have a door sensor that sends events using the Notification Report (which is most sensors these days), you could associate the siren with the sensor’s Group 1, and any door open event (0x16) would trigger the Door chime, because door sensors typically use the Access Control notification type (0x6). Doesn’t help though if you want to trigger chimes from non-zwave devices.
BTW, not that you need it, but there is an English version of the manual and product details for the same model siren here. Similar to, but not exactly the same as the German manual.
Thank you for this extended reply and all the information. Now i’m understanding the logic behind it. It actually seems correct that the siren responds to notifications from other devices for security related issues so the system also works when the controller is not responding.
Sadly for me this means, since OZW will not include node functionallity, i cannot use the different sounds for automating things with HA.
I should have researched better before, i hardly know anything about zwave and this siren was just a too good deal not to take. I’ll see if i can resell it and check out other Sirens.
Do we know when/if HA will support OZW 1.6?
Thanks again for your help! Much appreciated.
Not really. First the python module needs updating (in progress), then HA changes need to follow. You’ll find various discussions about it here.
