Zooz ZEN32 Scene Controller & IoP

[kzboray]

Just wanted to test out a ZEN32 (z-wave 700) for it's scene capabilities.




While it doesn't support native z-wave scene control, it is very similar to, but not as flexible as a 6-button Insteon controller. Each of the five buttons is individually programmable. I used the word programmable because you  can only access the 4 scene buttons through programs! Their functions are not available via the buttons themselves.

The five buttons shown as controller buttons (top red box) 10,2,4,6,& 8 and can only be queried. The same is true of the group of the same buttons. Buttons 1,2,3,4, & 5 (bottom red box). Why they are split into two groups I don't know. You can't make any changes to any of them except through programs. Only the button labeled as binary switch (green box) can be controlled directly or added to a scene. The other four have to be controlled via programs. The larger button can control a load as well.

There are a few parameters that you can change mostly dealing with the LED indicators on each button. You can set their color to red, green, blue, or white and change their intensity to high, medium, or low. You can also set them to come on when the switch is on, or on when the switch is off, always on, and always off.

Range seems to be decent. I put it on my test Polisy which only has two devices on it atm. I was able to move it downstairs and it worked OK, response times could sometimes be in seconds, but it worked. 30' with one wall proved to work well, anything more than that and I would need a better mesh. With only 2 devices this is truly a test bench scenario.

Each button allows you to capture double tap, triple tap, quadruple tap and even quintuple tap actions. Although I doubt anyone would remember all of that. You can also capture press and hold (fade up.)

Overall it has possibilities, but without native scene support in my mind its limited.

I only tested with IoP. I did no testing via Home Assistant or any other controller. Results might vary.

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by kzboray

[mmb]

1 hour ago, kzboray said:

I was able to move it downstairs and it worked OK, response times could sometimes be in seconds, but it worked. 30' with one wall proved to work well, anything more than that and I would need a better mesh.

I've been looking at this device, so this is helpful. I have a wall switch with power (previous owner's reno) but it doesn't actually control anything so something like this could be useful.

I find slow response times annoying, I wonder what's causing it?

[kzboray]

@mmb The slow response time was due to the distance from the IoP z-wave stick and having no other z-wave devices to repeat the signal. I was surprised it worked at all given I only had 2 z-wave devices on the entire mesh.

 

[lilyoyo1]

50 minutes ago, kzboray said:

@mmb The slow response time was due to the distance from the IoP z-wave stick and having no other z-wave devices to repeat the signal. I was surprised it worked at all given I only had 2 z-wave devices on the entire mesh.

 

Do you have the latest firmware on your USB dongle

[kzboray]

@lilyoyo1 Yes I updated to 7_17_1_344. These are real world tests, not open air. I'm sure I could get better distance if I moved the stick higher and away from all metal, but I prefer to be realistic about performance and test things in the way they would actually be used. 

[lilyoyo1]

1 hour ago, kzboray said:

@lilyoyo1 Yes I updated to 7_17_1_344. These are real world tests, not open air. I'm sure I could get better distance if I moved the stick higher and away from all metal, but I prefer to be realistic about performance and test things in the way they would actually be used. 

Thats good. Just wondering since the slowness was an issue with the older firmware. Generally, distance doesnt cause a few second delay since the signal is either getting there or not. If you're getting error codes then that would imply an issue but without that, im curious as to why its so slow as well.

[mmb]

22 hours ago, kzboray said:

@mmb The slow response time was due to the distance from the IoP z-wave stick and having no other z-wave devices to repeat the signal. I was surprised it worked at all given I only had 2 z-wave devices on the entire mesh.

@kzboray Just curious, have you checked the event viewer for repeated communication attempts by the controller to talk to the device?

Asking because my "slowness" was actually just the Status taking a couple of seconds to update.  Adding a program to monitor for Hail fixed the problem.

My zooz stick is on the latest fw (thanks to you) and I haven't seen any noticeable performance improvement.

[brians]

I have the Zen32 for testing and noticed that the four buttons have an internal on/off state regardless if you set the LED to stay on or off. When pressing any of the four buttons it also changes the state of the binary switch but does not actually turn on/off the relay... just the state changes in ISY on-off-on-off etc. The large button turns on/off the relay with each press. However, if you turn on the relay on with large button, then press any of the other buttons, the switch will toggle and make IoP the binary switch as off.. this causes the state to get confused with what is actual and what IoP things... also if you have the binary switch in a scene, it will get triggered upon any button press.

You can however make the large button not control the relay at all and just use the entire zen32 as a controller via programs which seems to work ok. All the buttons can trigger a program using control on, even the big button and there is no internal state in this case - buttons always report on when pressed.

I suggest upgrading to firmware 10.20 (mine came with 10.00) which allows you to adjust parameter 23 = 1 (documentation on this is incorrect in manual) to turn off the blinking of LEDs whenever a parameter is set - eg. you can change color of LEDs in programs via parameters, and make LED always on or off. Normally when you do this, the main LED blinks to acknowledge, but Parameter 23 makes it silent. One thing I noticed is that If LED is always set on the big button LED always stays on, but the other little buttons if set always on still blink a couple times when pressing them.

Is this equivalent to an Insteon switchlink relay? No! not even close. Maybe a different z-wave controller can use it better but at this time, IoP does not work very well with it unless using program hacks. If the internal relay state didn't get messed up by other button states, it would make it much better and could actually use as a switch with extra buttons for programs... but currently is not functional as an actual relay switch - disable the relay using a parameter and just use as a 5 button controller via programs.

 

[upstatemike]

Still curious why Zooz designed this device the way they did. It really needs 11 separate registers to track the state of the 5 buttons, 5 LEDs, and the load relay. Depending on the controller to keep track of things is bad design practice. If your controller has to reboot for some reason it can't just query the switch to get the current state of everything because there is no persistent place to store all the state values in the device.

[brians]

Gonna attempt to write some programs to make functional but not sure what I want to use for at this time since I have 6 switchlincs already and sort of used to those. Having the main button state get triggered by all the other buttons really makes it not realistic to use in a spot where it controls a load using its relay unless I don’t care about its status in the controller.  Maybe mine is not functioning correct - can someone else confirm it works this way. 

[kzboray]

@brians I can confirm your Zen32 is working the same as the one I have. It is my belief that this device is specifically designed to work with other controllers. I need to try it out with Home Assistant, and from what I have read it works really well with Hubitat. As for IoP or the ISY994, it's going to require multiple programs and variables.

[brians]

I experimented mine and had a combination of about 11 programs, 4 variables that would allow full updating of LED and status updates of local LEDs from other devices.

I thought I had working and would go up to it and turn on/off a button and had it linked with another z-wave appliance module and a keypadlinc key... turning any of these devices on/off would update everything else including the Zen32 button. But I don't know if it was something with my programs or limitation of timing in ISY but every now and then I would encounter a race condition where it would go into a loop turning my test device on/off and I would have to intervene and disable programs.

The main issue with Zen32 is that every button press has its own on/off state and it affects the reported on/off state of the binary switch back to ISY. It does not actually turn the relay on/off just the state. A query will read the correct state however and ISY will then get updated to the actually true on/off state of the relay. I attempted to work around this by doing a query of that binary switch whenever any of the five buttons were pressed, and I think that is where the issue was this method being unreliable. Even if it worked, this meant that the big button could never be used in a scene, because it would constantly be toggled on/off by buttons being pressed before my query would set it back to the actual state. I also set the relay to not turn on/off from the physical switch via parameter. I had a program that when press button 5 it turned the relay on/off... sorta a dumb roundabout way but all of this seemed to work 95% of the time and surprisingly turned on or off half second of pressing the switch. A drawback of this method is you lose control of a light in emergency if ISY is offline so this limits its use.

I would periodically test the Zen32 using my programs, by pressing buttons on/off and would work, but every so often it would get carried away and start looping programs.

I am not sure if ISY is not updating it correctly or reading incorrect on/off states from other buttons because other hubs don't seem to have this issue. I think it is because a custom device handler can be written to work around this and/or by looking at multiple z-wave events at once and making a decision, where the ISY everything is "locked" to a node and can only trigger programs/scenes off one z-wave node event at a time - what I am meaning is it is currently not possible for the ISY to ignore updating the binary switch node if it receives a control on from any of the other four buttons 1-4 (which happen to update that node internally in Zen32).

I ended up returning it. If they isolated the binary switch from showing on/off from the rest of the buttons then I would have kept it and recommended this switch. Right now do not waste time or money on it and wait for something else.

 

 

[kzboray]

@brians I'm not sure if you looked over the advanced programming for the Zen32, but it is possible to disable the relay using parameters 19 through 22.

 

Disable / enable control on the relay

Parameter 19: Enable or disable paddle on/off control (aka disable the relay). If disabled, you’ll only be able to control the connected light via Z-Wave. Scenes and other functionality will still be available through buttons.
Values: 0 – Disable local / physical control (from the button), enable Z-Wave control; 1 – Enable local / physical control (from the button), enable Z-Wave control (default); 2 – Disable local / physical control (from the button), disable Z-Wave control
Size: 1 byte dec 

Relay behavior with disabled local / Z-Wave control

Parameter 20:  Set reporting behavior for disabled physical control.
Values: 0 – report on/off status when button is pressed and change LED indicator status if Parameter 19 is set to value 0 or 2; 1 – DON’T report on/off status when button is pressed and DON’T change LED indicator status if Parameter 19 is set to value 0 or 2 (but the relay will always send central scene command) (default)
Size: 1 byte dec

3-way switch type

Parameter 21: Choose the type of 3-way switch you want to use with this switch in a 3-way set-up.
Values: 0 – regular mechanical 3-way on/off switch, use the connected 3-way switch to turn the light on or off (default); 1 – momentary switch, click once to change status (light on or off)
Size: 1 byte dec
Enable / disable programming on the relay button

Parameter 22: Enable or disable programming functionality on the relay button. If this setting is disabled, then inclusion, exclusion, manual LED indicator change mode no longer work when the relay button is activated (factory reset and scene control will still work) - that means you can now use triple-tap triggers on the relay button for scenes and remote control of other devices.

Values: 0 – programming enabled (default). 1 – programming disabled.

Size: 1 byte dec

ASSOCIATIONS:
Group 1: Main button binary switch (Z-Wave) / basic set (button) lifeline to hub
Group 2: Main button basic set (pressed only, doesn’t send anything when switch turned on via hub)
Group 3: Main button multilevel (held)
Group 4: Small button #1 basic set (pressed)
Group 5: Small button #1 multilevel (held) > in sequence > held = increase brightness, release = stop level, held = decrease brightness, release = stop level
Group 6: Small button #2 basic set (pressed)
Group 7: Small button #2 multilevel (held) > in sequence > held = increase brightness, release = stop level, held = decrease brightness, release = stop level
Group 8: Small button #3 basic set (pressed)
Group 9: Small button #3 multilevel (held) > in sequence > held = increase brightness, release = stop level, held = decrease brightness, release = stop level
Group 10: Small button #4 basic set (pressed)
Group 11: Small button #4 multilevel (held) > in sequence > held = increase brightness, release = stop level, held = decrease brightness, release = stop level

 

But it remains a PITA having to write programs for every conceivable on/off of each button press.

Edited April 14, 2022 by kzboray

[upstatemike]

On 4/7/2022 at 8:46 PM, brians said:

I experimented mine and had a combination of about 11 programs, 4 variables that would allow full updating of LED and status updates of local LEDs from other devices.

I thought I had working and would go up to it and turn on/off a button and had it linked with another z-wave appliance module and a keypadlinc key... turning any of these devices on/off would update everything else including the Zen32 button. But I don't know if it was something with my programs or limitation of timing in ISY but every now and then I would encounter a race condition where it would go into a loop turning my test device on/off and I would have to intervene and disable programs.

The main issue with Zen32 is that every button press has its own on/off state and it affects the reported on/off state of the binary switch back to ISY. It does not actually turn the relay on/off just the state. A query will read the correct state however and ISY will then get updated to the actually true on/off state of the relay. I attempted to work around this by doing a query of that binary switch whenever any of the five buttons were pressed, and I think that is where the issue was this method being unreliable. Even if it worked, this meant that the big button could never be used in a scene, because it would constantly be toggled on/off by buttons being pressed before my query would set it back to the actual state. I also set the relay to not turn on/off from the physical switch via parameter. I had a program that when press button 5 it turned the relay on/off... sorta a dumb roundabout way but all of this seemed to work 95% of the time and surprisingly turned on or off half second of pressing the switch. A drawback of this method is you lose control of a light in emergency if ISY is offline so this limits its use.

I would periodically test the Zen32 using my programs, by pressing buttons on/off and would work, but every so often it would get carried away and start looping programs.

I am not sure if ISY is not updating it correctly or reading incorrect on/off states from other buttons because other hubs don't seem to have this issue. I think it is because a custom device handler can be written to work around this and/or by looking at multiple z-wave events at once and making a decision, where the ISY everything is "locked" to a node and can only trigger programs/scenes off one z-wave node event at a time - what I am meaning is it is currently not possible for the ISY to ignore updating the binary switch node if it receives a control on from any of the other four buttons 1-4 (which happen to update that node internally in Zen32).

I ended up returning it. If they isolated the binary switch from showing on/off from the rest of the buttons then I would have kept it and recommended this switch. Right now do not waste time or money on it and wait for something else.

 

 

I had a similiar issue with a continuous on/off loop. Turns out I had some direct association set up that was in conflict with my programs. I complained to Zooz about how hard it was to get this device to do what I wanted and they were at least very receptive to trying to understand the details even if they can't really do much about it until a future firmware update or next hardware generation release of the product. I suggest you contct them because the more people they hear from the higher the priority they will place on fixing it.

[brians]

1 hour ago, kzboray said:

@brians I'm not sure if you looked over the advanced programming for the Zen32, but it is possible to disable the relay using parameters 19 through 22.

 

Disable / enable control on the relay

Parameter 19: Enable or disable paddle on/off control (aka disable the relay). If disabled, you’ll only be able to control the connected light via Z-Wave. Scenes and other functionality will still be available through buttons.
Values: 0 – Disable local / physical control (from the button), enable Z-Wave control; 1 – Enable local / physical control (from the button), enable Z-Wave control (default); 2 – Disable local / physical control (from the button), disable Z-Wave control
Size: 1 byte dec 

Relay behavior with disabled local / Z-Wave control

Parameter 20:  Set reporting behavior for disabled physical control.
Values: 0 – report on/off status when button is pressed and change LED indicator status if Parameter 19 is set to value 0 or 2; 1 – DON’T report on/off status when button is pressed and DON’T change LED indicator status if Parameter 19 is set to value 0 or 2 (but the relay will always send central scene command) (default)
Size: 1 byte dec

3-way switch type

Parameter 21: Choose the type of 3-way switch you want to use with this switch in a 3-way set-up.
Values: 0 – regular mechanical 3-way on/off switch, use the connected 3-way switch to turn the light on or off (default); 1 – momentary switch, click once to change status (light on or off)
Size: 1 byte dec
Enable / disable programming on the relay button

Parameter 22: Enable or disable programming functionality on the relay button. If this setting is disabled, then inclusion, exclusion, manual LED indicator change mode no longer work when the relay button is activated (factory reset and scene control will still work) - that means you can now use triple-tap triggers on the relay button for scenes and remote control of other devices.

Values: 0 – programming enabled (default). 1 – programming disabled.

Size: 1 byte dec

ASSOCIATIONS:
Group 1: Main button binary switch (Z-Wave) / basic set (button) lifeline to hub
Group 2: Main button basic set (pressed only, doesn’t send anything when switch turned on via hub)
Group 3: Main button multilevel (held)
Group 4: Small button #1 basic set (pressed)
Group 5: Small button #1 multilevel (held) > in sequence > held = increase brightness, release = stop level, held = decrease brightness, release = stop level
Group 6: Small button #2 basic set (pressed)
Group 7: Small button #2 multilevel (held) > in sequence > held = increase brightness, release = stop level, held = decrease brightness, release = stop level
Group 8: Small button #3 basic set (pressed)
Group 9: Small button #3 multilevel (held) > in sequence > held = increase brightness, release = stop level, held = decrease brightness, release = stop level
Group 10: Small button #4 basic set (pressed)
Group 11: Small button #4 multilevel (held) > in sequence > held = increase brightness, release = stop level, held = decrease brightness, release = stop level

 

But it remains a PITA having to write programs for every conceivable on/off of each button press.

I looked at that and I used parameter 19 to disable physical relay control. I did not see anywhere where I could make the four little buttons stop turning on/off the status of the relay.

[brians]

1 hour ago, upstatemike said:

I had a similiar issue with a continuous on/off loop. Turns out I had some direct association set up that was in conflict with my programs. I complained to Zooz about how hard it was to get this device to do what I wanted and they were at least very receptive to trying to understand the details even if they can't really do much about it until a future firmware update or next hardware generation release of the product. I suggest you contct them because the more people they hear from the higher the priority they will place on fixing it.

Ok I will, I had a ticket open already for firmware and button state issue, so will just respond and let them know I returned it because of this. Seems like other devices they make like a Zen17 has independent on/off control for both of its dry contacts (think of them as a button/switch) which can be set to not affect the relays - they have the technology and I think they could just make a firmware on the zen32 that does what we want!

[roberthleeii]

I started using these switches around the house and after coming to terms with all the drawbacks listed above came up with a system that works for me. 

Long explanation short: I program the the button press event to change variables to off or on (0 or1). That variable is what I use instead of the on or off scene status that seems to be missing in these controllers compared to the insteon controllers. It is a little more complicated and requires a little bit more work but I like them better than my 8button insteon switches. 

 

[arf1410]

My system is X-10 & Insteon... thinking of adding the Z-wave dongle to my ISY.  Can I replace the Insteon 6 button controller with this, and use the ISY to "translate" the zen32 signal, to control a insteon or X10 switch?  

[oskrypuch]

There are no issues with using input from one device (node) in the ISY, to control other nodes. That is the general nature of the node architecture of ISY, where it doesn't really care about the physical identity of the device.

But, there are some operational issues with the Zen 32 that make it more complex to use than the good old Keylincs. You can read about it upthread.

* Orest

 

[GJ Software Products]

How are you trapping the Scene Button Press Off?  "Is not switched On" doesn't seem to work and I don't get an option "is switched off."

[GJ Software Products]

Ok, on a re-read I see roberthleeii is trapping the button press and using that to toggle / flip-flop but what a PITA.  I'm just looking for something Z-Wave to replace my 8 button KeypadLinc(s) and figured I'd give this device a spin...  Not too impressed at the moment.

[GJ Software Products]

Well, I trap On for On and Fast On (double press) for Off but now I want to change the LED colors to indicate state, I.E. On or Off.  But I can't figure out how to update the Parameters of the ZEN32 to change the LED colors.  The only Set action I get on the ZEN32 in thr drop down is Query.

[GJ Software Products]

Ok, I got it.  Don't try to reach the the Scene Button but reach into the Binary Switch object, that's where the Parameters reside.

[roberthleeii]

4 hours ago, GJ Software Products said:

How are you trapping the Scene Button Press Off?  "Is not switched On" doesn't seem to work and I don't get an option "is switched off."

 

2 hours ago, GJ Software Products said:

Ok, on a re-read I see roberthleeii is trapping the button press and using that to toggle / flip-flop but what a PITA.  I'm just looking for something Z-Wave to replace my 8 button KeypadLinc(s) and figured I'd give this device a spin...  Not too impressed at the moment.

 

1 hour ago, GJ Software Products said:

Well, I trap On for On and Fast On (double press) for Off but now I want to change the LED colors to indicate state, I.E. On or Off.  But I can't figure out how to update the Parameters of the ZEN32 to change the LED colors.  The only Set action I get on the ZEN32 in thr drop down is Query.

 

1 hour ago, GJ Software Products said:

Ok, I got it.  Don't try to reach the the Scene Button but reach into the Binary Switch object, that's where the Parameters reside.

Lol.  Talking to your self.... 

 

I am using 7 programs and a state variable to use this switch to control hue lights, update status LEDs, use alexa, and keep ISY updated when using the hue app control (or any other non ISY control merhod).

You can control a device, switch, hue, lights, etc and change LED status with just two programs and a variable though. 

[GJ Software Products]

<lol>  Yea sometimes I'm the only one who will listen.  I really thought I had this down & working last night but this morning I began to work on the "relay" button.  I could turn the LED on and off using Parameter 1, change the color using Parameter 6, tested the "If" statements in my couple of programs, all worked as expected, then when I went live it got all jacked up and I've yet to get it back to where all the "Then" clauses worked like they did.  Has the feel of some kind of Race or Loop condition.  Fooled more with Parameters 19 & 20 to no avail.  I'm really spending quite a bit of time on this like the others speak of.  It doesn't need to be this complicated, button on do this, button off do that. 

I'm looking at an Eaton RFWC5AW Scene Controller.  Has anyone out there used the RFWC5AW?  Any other recommendations to replace me Insteon KeypadLincs?