I know that many people love having the expanded capabilities that are included in the standard firmware but in my household the physical response of the switch is most important. We use the z-wave functionality for automation but still use the physical switch more often than not. That is where most z-wave switches fall down. I know there is a built-in delay in order to allow double and triple tap control but I was wondering if it would be possible to have a lightweight firmware which has the fastest physical response possible (and without the double and triple tap features which prevent it from being instant currently).
hi, (if I didn’t get it wrong) I think in your case, the black series switch is the one for you since that one doesn’t support double, triple (etc) tapping.
There shouldn’t be any delay at all at the switch regardless of setup. Are you saying that there is a delay to turn a load connected light on/off when you tap the switch?
Yeah, unfortunately there is a ~500ms (although this is widely debated in the forums lol) delay with both switches (Black and Red) when turning on the load. We are working on an alternate firmware right now to address this issue.
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It’s definitely an industry wide issue, I had a mixture of GE and Homeseer switches in my old house and it would constantly cause issues with guests. They would hit the switch and it wouldn’t be instant so they would hit it again within the 500ms, or they would accidentally double press and nothing would happen. Every time we had a dinner party it would happen at least once leading to confusion and having my wife exclaim “this is why I hate these smart switches!”. An instant (or near instant) activation and a firmware that turns on/off regardless if it was a double or triple press will go a long way towards improving the WAF.
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It’s so strange hearing this (not doubting it, I promise) – I’d just love to be a fly on the wall looking at people in astonishment that they are confused the light didn’t turn on in the same amount of time it takes to blink.
It’s great to hear these things though as I suppose I just got used to it (I was also coming from Quirky Tapt’s, which sometimes took 2 minutes to turn a light on lol). We’re always looking for ways to improve, so while we sometimes joke or get frustrated, at the end of the day, we want to make sure everyone is happy and if that means creating alternative firmware to do so, then we’re happy to do so!
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That type of responsiveness is why I decided to go with all Inovelli switches for my new house 
I personally don’t have any of the issues due to being used to it and having an understanding of the differences and benefits but for guests it’s a whole new thing. I think the fact that smart switches don’t actually flip and are just electronic button presses messes people up. When they feel the paddle coming back up after they try to switch the light on they instinctively press down again thinking it didn’t properly switch leading to a double/triple press. Of course when that happens the light won’t go on (unless you have a switch that supports it and you’ve set up the scene correctly) and then you have yourself a confused house guest in a dark room.
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Is it possible that we may see a firmware update that allows us to completely remove the delay in exchange for disabling scenes? Something configurable through SmartThings or other hub apps would be fantastic.
The biggest problem with the delay for me is where I am using a motion sensor along with these switches to turn on lights. The time I spend stumbling around in the dark is very inconvenient and is sometimes long enough that I can make my way to the switch before the lights turn on.
I have used a gen 1 switch in the same location and with the same automation. With the gen 1 switch, the lights turned on almost instantaneously when motion was detected.
@Eric_Inovelli what’s the main difference between how the firmware listens for scenes for gen 1 and 2? My gen 1 switches with scenes were nearly instantaneous when turning lights on or off both from the switch or remotely
We need “wife mode”. I hear this complaint about 2X a week…
I think your issue might be due to SmartThings’ local vs. cloud execution. You can try switching your dimmers/switches to the native Z-wave Switch/Dimmer devicetype to force it to execute locally.
You’ll also need to ensure you’re using a sensor that is executing locally and then automating it using one of their local automations (I know “Smart Lighting” smartapp will execute locally for motion and contact sensor triggers).
I thought I had an issue with time to turn on as well until I realized the first 20% of dimming was too low for the LEDs in a particular room. So that 500ms was actually more like 1.5s (an eternity for light switches). One setting the minimum properly, everything was good again. Wife approval included.
I suggest double checking your minimums. Especially if you changed bulbs. I find they very brand to brand and in my house that means pretty much room to room.
I have been using the local Smart Lighting smartapp and my motion sensor executes locally. The gen 1
switches with scenes are also cloud based.
With the switch being the only variable (same minimum brightness and ramp rate), the gen 1 switches were much faster to turn the lights on than the gen 2 switches.
I had a lot of trouble with SmartThings controllers…both cloud and local execution. I would experience a several second delay before lights would respond. Ultimately, I gave up on that and moved to a local ZWave controller and installed extra ZWave bridges to improve connectivity. I think SmartThings is okay if you have a smaller installation with fast uplink and downlink speeds.
Is it possible to add additional association groups via a firmware update? Scenes/multi-tap is great, but triggering direct associations from multi-tap (like Jasco) is even better. It’s the main reason I still prefer them.