Serial API#
The Serial Applications Programming Interface (Serial API) allows a host to communicate with a Z-Wave chip. The host may be PC or a less powerful embedded host CPU, e.g., in a remote control or in a gateway device. Depending on the chip family, the Serial API may be accessed via RS-232 or USB physical interfaces.
There are 2 available versions of SerialAPI:
SerialAPI Controller
SerialAPI End Device
The following host-based sample applications are available in the SDK:
Z/IP Gateway – Gateway application using Serial API features of the bridge controller API
PC Controller – Demonstrates Serial API features of the bridge controller API
The host-based sample applications are described in the respective SDK overview documents.
The Serial API leverages the Z-Wave Protocol API. The Serial API introduces additional messages related to inter-host communications.
Known Issues#
OTW Update#
The following update paths for Serial API Controller are not possible using the pre-built binaries because the defines ZAF_CONFIG_GENERIC_TYPE
and ZAF_CONFIG_SPECIFIC_TYPE
differ across these versions:
7.19 or lower to 7.20
7.20 to 7.21 or higher
However, it is possible to create a custom firmware that is compatible with earlier versions of the application by building the application manually after editing application_properties_config.h
.
If you want to update a device running the pre-built 7.19 or lower version firmware to 7.20, change both PRODUCT_ID_GENERIC_TYPE
and PRODUCT_ID_SPECIFIC_TYPE
to 0
.
If you want to update a device running the pre-built 7.20 version firmware to 7.21 or higher, remove the following conditional block from the file:
#if (ZAF_CONFIG_GENERIC_TYPE == GENERIC_TYPE_STATIC_CONTROLLER && \
ZAF_CONFIG_SPECIFIC_TYPE == SPECIFIC_TYPE_PC_CONTROLLER)
(...)
#endif
Changing these values will only affect the Product ID, stored in the struct sl_app_properties
. The application will still report the values specified in the defines ZAF_CONFIG_GENERIC_TYPE
and ZAF_CONFIG_SPECIFIC_TYPE
in its Node Information Frame.\ Note that these values can be changed on the fly using the Serial API command SERIAL_API_APPL_NODE_INFORMATION
.