peterathans

We just finished a kitchen remodel and I'm using the Zooz Zen72-800LR dimmers to control outlets. Into the outlets I've plugged in these dimmable LED strip drivers. They work fantastic and can dim smoothly down to zero.

@Techman thanks for the link, but what I've found is that some of the information is out of date and sometimes vague. For example, this wiki was last edited 9/2020 (almost 4 years ago). In the section Scene Link Types, it lists Native, Default, Command, and Ignore, but these appear out of date (instead of Native, I see Z-Wave Basic MC S2 Auth, which I assume is the replacement and works equivalently, as the other options are the same). Also, the sub-sections after this talk about "Association between controller and responder", "Indirect control...", etc but doesn't describe how or when you'd want to use these different scenarios. And it talks about "Adding a controller" and "Adding a responder", but what about cases where you want two (or more) switches to act as both controllers and responders? If there are two (or more) switches in a Scene, do they all need to be configured the same way (i.e., Z-Wave Basic MC S2 Auth) for them to all work as a true n-way switch setup?

I'm looking for help from the community after several months of troubleshooting and frustration, hoping someone else has some suggestions. I've been trying to link two simple Zwave on/off switches together to use virtual 3-way switch behavior. Theoretically this is possible, using Associations (making them work like Scenes in the Insteon world). Unfortunately I've had limited success. I've submitted several trouble tickets to get help (both with UD and Zooz) but this hasn't led to definitive solutions. I'm guessing that the issue is possibly related to how I'm configuring the switches and Polisy, and am looking for a simple, straightforward procedure for linking two (or more) switches into a virtual group. There's a handful of posts addressing this topic, but they are either for unique scenarios (i.e., one switch linked to a motion sensor) or have a series of addendums as people learned how things work (i.e., follow this procedure in post #4, but in post #9 someone says the earlier post isn't 100% correct and a few steps should be changed), making it difficult to know if I've got the right steps. Does anyone have a clear, concise procedure I can follow?

I looked at the First Alert Zwave detectors mentioned earlier, but they are battery only - my house also has hardwired power to the detectors and I want to make use of that. My solution was to add a Zen55 at one of the alarms (it monitors the interconnect circuit, so will report smoke and CO alarms but can't tell you which specific detector is tripped). The nice thing is you can use any brand of smoke/CO alarm, and then write your own programs to take whatever actions you like. I just send myself and my wife a text and UDMobile alert, but may do more in the future.

I think I agree - the shifted clock reading affects both the sunrise and sunset times, and so is "baked into" the averaging calculation.

I think it's more complicated that that, mostly due to time changes (Daylight Savings Time). I suppose if we had a flag available that reports whether we're in DST or not, we could adjust the rise & set average by an hour?

Funny, I have been thinking about this lately too - we're doing a kitchen remodel that will include new Smartwings shades. The windows are on the west wall and I'd like to lower the shades after we get direct sunlight (shortly after the sun is directly overhead). I'm interested in any solutions that come up!

I certainly hope not, as I'd like to migrate entirely from Insteon (where scenes work quite well) to Zwave. Hopefully as long as the standard can support this behavior, then UD will find a way to have ISY support it too.

Thanks everyone for your extensive research on this. If you can find a way to get Group 2 Associations working using the Zooz stick, we should present this to UD (as their promise was to have associations working under eisy or Polisy the same way). I too suspect there's something missing in their application.

Something my manager used to say - "Version numbers are cheap". Rather than playing games with hidden subversions (5.7.0_1, 5.7.0_2, etc) that can't even be seen by the typical user, why not just bump the version (5.7.1, 5.7.2, ...) with each change?

I have a general question on controlling Zwave devices - if I have programs to trigger several Zwave devices at the same time (say, multiple lights turn on at sunset), how should I command them? Is it acceptable to trigger all programs at the same time and let the Zmatter interface handle any necessary communication queueing? Or would it be better to add staggered delays to each program, so the commands are sent at slightly different times? It seems logical that when developing a standard (like Zwave), one would assume this situation exists, and it's taken into account from day one - the communication protocol should be able to handle situations like this. But I don't know for sure. Anyone have background in this area?

I've been experimenting with Zwave basic associations using on/off switches, and yes there is a way to do it, but your device has to support it. When you add a device, if associations are supported, you should get one of the "Basic Assoc" nodes shown above, and these are what you use to directly link multiple devices in a group.

I've got several Zooz ZWave 800 series devices, and they're working great. They also seem to play nice with my older 700 series switches.

Thanks for the post - interestingly, a few weeks ago I opened a ticket and worked on a remote session with @Chris Jahn where we discovered the same thing - the first time you press a switch, the other responds right away, but then they both send a bunch of back-and-forth traffic for a few seconds after (effectively stomping on any further button presses, or even commanding the original switch to return to its previous state). Just before the Polisy had the ability to assign Group 2 associations I had asked Zooz about the ZEN71 on/off switch abilities and whether there was any other magic required, and this was their response: "We had our technicians run some additional testing here. They have confirmed that you will not need to change any settings on either the remote or the main device, simply associate the switches in group 2. They confirmed that the associations worked right away and responded to toggles manually and through Z-Wave. They tested toggling from both the remote device and controlled device, and both devices maintained status accuracy while toggling from mixed areas (manual on the paddle or through z-wave)." (FYI I'm running the ZEN71 on/off switches, not dimmers) This seems to conflict with your suggestion to change parameter 7, and in fact the article you link to (How To Program 2 Zooz Switches In a Virtual 3-Way With Regular Bulbs) also says that only a Group 2 association needs to be set, there are not internal parameter changes.

Check the other thread in this subforum for people using SmartWings shades, they make both indoor and outdoor products. I'm planning on using these for some indoor kitchen windows, but haven't had any experience with them yet.