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[marineau]

I just bought a CM15A with many WS467 and many remotes RF!

If I active a light on WS467 a delay is 1/10 sec
If i active a light with a software a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a PalmPad (HR12A) a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a chain remote (KR19A) a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a SlimSwitch (SS13A) a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a Infrared (IR543) a delay is 1/10 sec

Is it possible to reduce a delay when I use a RF remote ?

[roger1818]

I just bought a CM15A with many WS467 and many remotes RF!

If I active a light on WS467 a delay is 1/10 sec
If i active a light with a software a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a PalmPad (HR12A) a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a chain remote (KR19A) a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a SlimSwitch (SS13A) a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a Infrared (IR543) a delay is 1/10 sec

Is it possible to reduce a delay when I use a RF remote ?

Unfortunately the answer is no.

Most of the delay is the amount of time it takes to transmit the command.  The X10 powerline protocol is actually very slow.  To understand why you are getting different delays you have to understand how the X10 protocol works.

To turn a specific light on or off two messages are needed.  The first message is the address (housecode and unit code) and the second message is the action (turn the light on, off, bright or dim).  Furthermore to ensure reliable operation, each message is repeated.  So to turn a light at address A1 on, the following messages must be sent:

A1 - A1,  A_ON - A_ON  (every action is tied to a house code)

As you can see that the module doesn't know what to do until it has received the first A_ON command and since each message takes approximately 1/4 of a second to send, it takes about 3/4 of a second for the module to know what to do assuming there isn't any delay between you pressing the button on the remote and the transceiver starting to transmit the command.

Now you noted two cases where you get a faster responce, and there are good reasons why that is.

In the first case ("i active a light on WS467"), the WS467 is a receive only device and it doesn't have to send or receive any X10 commands and all it has to do is turn on, so it can do it very quickly.

In the last case ("i active a light with a Infrared (IR543)"), the IR543 sends the address and action commands separately so when you press the 1 button on the remote it will send the A1 - A1 commands and when you press the ON button it will send A_ON - A_ON.  In this case it only takes about 1/4 of a second for the light to turn on because the address had already been sent before you pressed the ON button.

One other nice feature about the IR543 is that not only will it seem to respond faster to your commands but it will support grouping of commands so that if you for example press 1, 2, ON it will send A1 - A1,  A2 - A2,   A_ON - A_ON which will turn the modules on both A1 and A2 at the same time.  On top of that it also allows much finer control of bright and dim commands.  For various technical reasons with an RF remote you can only get about 8 brightness levels, but with an IR remote and the IR543, you can actually get (if you have very fast fingers) about 128 brightness levels using a little known feature called micro-dimming.

[marineau]

Roger, I tried with with my own program for create my own macro in VB6.

If I press a button "b16" in my RF remote, I noticed that for each action, CM15A interface receive twice event "recvrf" and twice event "recvplc" in Event Function "RecvAction".  I wait that these 4 events (RecvAction) finished for send my command like this: "SendAction sendplc a1 allunitsoff".

Unfortunately a delay for terminate all events and execute my own macro is 3 seconds !

Too long for this macro !

ActiveHomePro needing 3.5 seconds for same macro !

Any suggestion ?

[TakeTheActive]

I just bought a CM15A with many WS467 and many remotes RF!

If I active a light on WS467 a delay is 1/10 sec
If i active a light with a software a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a PalmPad (HR12A) a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a chain remote (KR19A) a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a SlimSwitch (SS13A) a delay is 1 sec
If i active a light with a Infrared (IR543) a delay is 1/10 sec

Is it possible to reduce a delay when I use a RF remote ?

Since this is a commercial endeavor for you, I would suggest that you invest a bit more money and research (i.e. READING) so that you yourself can get a better picture of what's going on "behind-the-scenes" in the X10 World.

Purchase:

• ELK Signal Meter: to SEE how long each PLC command takes to complete.
  .
• RR501 or TM751: to HEAR (via the internal relay) how long each RF command takes to reach it's receiver *BEFORE* the PLC command can even begin to be "relayed" / transmitted.
  

I also suggest that you CLICK ON both the LINK in my Sig Line and TTA's X10 Troubleshooting Tips Thread [Updated: 2006/09/22]  (Read 901 times) and then all of the LINKs contained in both of those documents and READ, READ, READ. IMO, you can never learn enough... 

Best of luck to you with your project!

[-Bill- (of wgjohns.com)]

Roger, I tried with with my own program for create my own macro in VB6.

If I press a button "b16" in my RF remote, I noticed that for each action, CM15A interface receive twice event "recvrf" and twice event "recvplc" in Event Function "RecvAction".  I wait that these 4 events (RecvAction) finished for send my command like this: "SendAction sendplc a1 allunitsoff".

Unfortunately a delay for terminate all events and execute my own macro is 3 seconds !

Too long for this macro !

ActiveHomePro needing 3.5 seconds for same macro !

Any suggestion ?

What you are seeing in RecvAction is that the RF remote sends a "button down" event and then a "button up" event (you will also see a string of events when the button is held down).  Also, you will see a recvplc event because the CM15A is "Transceiving" the RF signal to the power line.

In my program, I chose to ignore the RF events unless Parm3 = 0.   

Also, you can execute your SendAction without waiting for all of the events to settle down.

Warning!  If the RF buttons trigger MACROs in AHP, you WILL see false RF (and possibly PLC) events!

[marineau]

In my program, I chose to ignore the RF events unless Parm3 = 0.   

Yes, that I do !

Also, you can execute your SendAction without waiting for all of the events to settle down.

I tried, but,  I don't know why, this don't work !!! I'm obligfate to wait afer a 4th (last)
event to execute a SendAction

[roger1818]

marineau,

Sorry to take so long to get back to you (it was Thanksgiving here in Canada so we went away for the weekend).  I agree with Bill that you are probably seeing separate "button down" and "button up" events.  If you look at the code returned, you should see an indication of what type of event it is (I can't remember what it looks like off the top of my head).

As for the delay, I would reccomend configuring the CM15A not to transceive the house code(s) that you are trying to receive in software.  This will keep the powerline free for you do immediately send commands.

As for needing to wait for the events to execute, I have seen this as well.  The SDK won't queue up the commands properly.  I think it will queue up one message (address or command) while sending another message, but if you try to send more than that, messages will be lost.

If you are finding that the X10 protocol is too slow, you might want to consider switching to a faster protocol such as Insteon.  The nice thing about Insteon is that it is backwards compatible with X10 so you can still send and receive X10 messages (although at the same slow speed) if you need them.

[marineau]

As for the delay, I would reccomend configuring the CM15A not to transceive the house code(s) that you are trying to receive in software.  This will keep the powerline free for you do immediately send commands.

I'm obligate to receive code, because I want execute a macro when I receive a 4 fth event of M1:
exemple when I receive (A1 on) from may SS13A, setted to A1(halogene lamp), A2 and A3, I want execute this:
AH2.SendAction "sendplc", "a2 dim 65"
sleep 1500
AH2.SendAction "sendplc", "a3 dim 40"
sleep 1500
AH2.SendAction "sendplc", "a4 dim 80"

As for needing to wait for the events to execute, I have seen this as well.  The SDK won't queue up the commands properly.  I think it will queue up one message (address or command) while sending another message, but if you try to send more than that, messages will be lost.

Its a reason that I'm obligate to add a delay and wait a last event for each command !