So, it works now. Weird.

I swapped out for a radio without the antenna and replaced the capacitor just in case (the leads were getting wavy). The little antenna worked, but very intermittently, there were many misses. So, I put the radio with the antenna back to try some of the "fixes" for them like the ugly fix and powering externally. Well, I put it back and it works now. I moved the antenna back where it was sitting and still worked. Restarted a few times, still works. Not sure what was going on but I'm guessing it was either a bad capacitor or I had it mis-wired somehow as I completely redid the wiring when I swapped them.

Thanks very much for your time. I know I was annoying as hell, I appreciate you sticking with me

Nevermind, I figured it out (sort of). I deleted the serial port from device manager and then checked for hardware updates which reinstalled it. It then worked just fine for one iteration, but the serial monitor showed BinarySwitchSleepSensor output instead of gateway output. And then stopped working. I deleted it again, reinstalled the port, and immediately uploaded the gateway sketch back to it. Now it works great. My guess is that the binary sketch somehow messed up the serial comm when on the Nano? Not sure, but that fixed it. I must have forgotten to switch the port # when I was reuploading the binary sketch to my node and accidentely uploaded it to the gateway port.

I had SimpliSafe for a while and the batteries last a long time (3 1/2 years, no battery change for me in any sensor) -- but the base station, even after a reset, still seems to know when a door sensor is open or closed. I had thought about using the IRQ pin on the radio to wake up the node when a status request was sent, but most people here were saying this is terrible for battery life. How the heck is SimpliSafe keeping batteries lasting for almost 4 years (and maybe longer) but still retain the functionality of detecting what state a sensor is in?

Is it maybe that they have the sensors wake up and report every minute or something? I thought about doing that, 1 second of every 60 seconds powered up shouldn't have too much battery impact, should it?

@hek

Thanks -- one other quick question: am I right in assuming a child sensors will only ever send "set" message types and will only be routed "req" types?

For example, I'll never see a message like this:

3; 3; 3; 0; 9; etc

right? Nodes would send that sort of message, but never a child:

3; 255; 3; 0; 9; etc

yes? I'm assuming this because most nodes just report a setting or get set to something, they don't have any intelligence beyond that, that all exists on the child's node.

Nevermind, I figured it out (sort of). I deleted the serial port from device manager and then checked for hardware updates which reinstalled it. It then worked just fine for one iteration, but the serial monitor showed BinarySwitchSleepSensor output instead of gateway output. And then stopped working. I deleted it again, reinstalled the port, and immediately uploaded the gateway sketch back to it. Now it works great. My guess is that the binary sketch somehow messed up the serial comm when on the Nano? Not sure, but that fixed it. I must have forgotten to switch the port # when I was reuploading the binary sketch to my node and accidentely uploaded it to the gateway port.

Everything worked last night. Then I came home on lunch today and when I tried to open the serial monitor to my gateway, I get nothing in the screen and this error:

Error while setting serial port parameters: 155,200 n 8 1

I tried reseating the usb cable on both ends, reset the gateway, restarted the computer, and reuploading the sketch, and even uninstalled arduino and reinstalled -- none of that did anything. I have the board set correctly to "Nano" and the com port correct (verified by removing, checking, and reattaching). The 155,200 is obviously the baud, and I've always used that for the gateway. I tried a few other bauds (9600, etc) and still nothing.

I haven't tried a few other things like trying it on another computer yet because I ran out of time and am now back at work.

I literally didn't even touch the gateway, it just started doing this, does anyone know what this error is?

Nevermind, I think I figured it out. In the Library API it says:

On Nano/Pro Mini: 0=Pin2, 1=Pin3

Which means that minus 2 would turn pin 2 to 0 and pin3 to 1 -- I feel like an idiot. What's that dash do? Lol. It's a minus and it uses the pin number to get the proper interrupt #.

Leaving this here in case anyone in the future has this issue.

I only have one sensor attached to my node, so I changed the BinarySwitchSleepSensor example to only recognize one. I changed PRIMARY_BUTTON_PIN to BUTTON_PIN, changed PRIMARY_CHILD_ID to CHILD_ID, erased SECONDARY_BUTTON_PIN and SECONDARY_CHILD_ID, and then deleted the portions referring to the secondaries. But I'm stumped on the last line in the sketch:

sleep(PRIMARY_BUTTON_PIN-2, CHANGE, SECONDARY_BUTTON_PIN-2, CHANGE, 0);

Presumably, I can just delete ", SECONDARY_BUTTON_PIN-2, CHANGE" and switch the PRIMARY_BUTTON_PIN-2 to BUTTON_PIN-2 and it will work, but I'm wondering what the "-2" at the end of BUTTON_PIN is. Does the -2 do something on the function end that I'm not seeing. I want to make sure that isn't a number I need to fiddle with (I'm guessing not as both PRIMARY and SECONDARY are -2). Thanks.

Oh, and the Library API doesn't mention what that -2 does, I already checked.

Edit -- wait a minute, is that a minus?

@Koresh
Where on this knock-off version do I disconnect the regulator? The pic they give for that in the Build section is also for a different layout. I already bricked one pro mini because I cut both sides of the LED on accident (but don't worry, on my second attempt on a new pro mini, I got just the one lead and it worked) so I don't want to brick another

The serial gateway will restart sometimes, such as when you open a serial connection. The problem I'm having is that there doesn't seem to be any information propagated from the gateway when it starts up referring to nodes connected. I'm writing a controller and would like to determine which sensors are on after the gateway restarts. Is there a way to do this without pinging every possible sensor? If the node itself restarts, I see the info just fine, it reports a registration, etc, but not when the gateway restarts. Thanks ahead of time.

@tekka
That's good info, thank you. Quick question if you have a minute, what is the difference between CHKUPL and SANCHK? Based on the docs, they both seem to accomplish the same goal.

The picture in the Battery-Powering section of the site shows a different layout for the pro mini than I have. Mine looks like this:

Can anyone show me where to cut the power LED at? The LED is just to the left of the Atmel in the middle. Also, what kind of tool are you using for such a small task?