I’ve been waiting for backordered Red Series dimmers, and it looks like my first shipment will be to be used to replace Black Series dimmers. For WAF reasons I need double-tap up to turn on the dimmer to 100%, like our Maestro “dumb” dimmers do, and that requires the Central Scene feature of the Red Series. That got me thinking that perhaps this could be done locally on the switch.
On HomeSeer fan controllers (sorry, I wish I could have gone Inovelli on this one, but Project Windy City is too far in the future) there is a parameter to make double-tap up turn in to 100% without going through the hub. I think the Kasa dimmers also had a similar setting (but I don’t want to think about WiFi switches any more ). Either it’s because they both thought that double-tap for 100% is an intuitive gesture, or it’s because there is a HUGE installed base of Maestro’s out there…
Maybe Inovelli dimmers could do this someday if enough people wanted it, and if there’s space in the firmware. This would be easier to set up (instead of a little rule for each dimmer’s “button two pressed”) and run faster (especially for those of us still on SmartThings ).
Maybe a great mod for the V2 Dimmers. Use the Red Series para 51 when disabled send scenes to hub; if enabled keep locally, but make double tap process certain defined sets (e.g. 100% dim level).
Not sure if this would work for you, but you can configure it to instantly go to 100% with 1 tap up or press-and-hold to fade up if you don’t want to jump to full brightness. This is configured in the switch parameters and doesn’t require scenes to be set up
I thought of the first suggestion: default local level = 100, but that won’t work because I’m setting default local level based on time of day (and a different default Z-wave level if motion sensors are involved). The idea is that a single tap gives a “nice” level, and then you adjust it if needed.
That brings up the second idea: press and hold if the default level isn’t bright enough. That works for me as long as I make the ramp rate fast enough. But this is a WAF thing: she’s learned that double-tap means all-the-way-on from all our Maestro dimmers (there’s no top or bottom on Maestro), and wants the new dimmers to work the same way so she doesn’t have to re-learn how to make her home work . Remembering to double-tap the top is close enough that her motor-memory will still apply, long-pressing the top is not.
So, unfortunately, it’s got to be double tap, and that requires a Central Scene command. Hopefully, the button-automation won’t be too slow (I’m still on SmartThings, for now, so the custom DTH makes it run in the cloud)
Basically to do it right, I would need Red Series switches and Hubitat or HA. I’ll get there, eventually. But doing it on-switch would still be faster… and would eliminate the need for a dozen or so one-off automations of the form “if switch X button 2 is pressed, set switch X level to 100”.
I would love for the Dimmer x2 to be able to be hardware coded for instant on/off too. They would act exactly like my HAI/Leviton UPB Switches and wouldn’t depend on hub being up and running.
The key here is local/instant right? Because you can definitely do double tap up sets level to 100% through smart lighting on Smartthings. Button number might be off…
Yep. That and it might be something that the Black Series could do as well. (I’m thinking of future out-of stock situations .)
I’m already doing exactly that Smart Lighting automation in SmartThings. It is definitely helping in terms of WAF, but the delay is still an issue, what with the custom DTH pushing it to the cloud. (Yeah, I know… switch to Hubitat…) The list of Smart Lighting automations is going to grow really fast with needing one for each dimmer; I might see I can use WebCoRE to write a single piston that listens to multiple dimmers and sends the setlevel back to the device that sent the Central Scene command.
But that’s part of my point really. Those of us posting on the forums can do the automations to make it happen. But putting in the firmware, controlled by a parameter, would not only make it run faster and not bloat my list of automations, but it would make it accessible to more users.
All of this is assuming, of course, that double-tap for 100% is a feature that lots of people want in their dimmers.
First-time smart dimmer user here, chiming in to say that by default I expected single-tap up to go to the last used brightness, and double-tap up to go to full brightness.
I was disappointed that the Black series didn’t do this out of the box… would love to see this feature!
). Either it’s because they both thought that double-tap for 100% is an intuitive gesture, or it’s because there is a HUGE installed base of Maestro’s out there…
).
. Remembering to double-tap the top is close enough that her motor-memory will still apply, long-pressing the top is not.