Looking for instructions for Red Series On/Off + always on power to smart bulbs

There is a detailed WIKI page on Z-wave association tool: https://support.inovelli.com/portal/kb/articles/can-i-install-multiple-smart-switches-in-a-3-way-4-way-etc

Hey thanks for finding this! We’re slowly adding in articles to the Knowledge Base. Another one that may be helpful for this thread is this one:

This one outlines the various ways to use a smart switch and a smart bulb using SmartThings.

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@Eric_Inovelli or others, as I move more deeply into this, I have a few questions:

  1. Is “disable internal relay” the same as toggling the “disable local control” in the switch settings to “yes”?

  2. Is there a way to show the % on the bar corresponding to the controlled device level or average? For example, if I am controlling 4 kitchen canned lights, I’d like 80% brightness to be represented equally to if they were dumb lights and I was controlling to 80% brightness.

  3. Is there a way to control on/off as if I was controlling dumb lights? I’d like my bar to light up 10% when the lights are “off” similar to “dumb” lights even though the switch is on.

Right now my bar shows as 100% on all of the time, which isn’t WRONG, per se, but it seems to be a “dumb” solution to a “smart” setup.

Yes, it means the same thing. There are two ways to, “disable the internal relay” as well – Remote and Local. Remote means that no Z-Wave commands will be sent to the switch to turn on/off/dim the switch. Local means that the relay is disabled at the physical switch so you won’t be able to turn on/off/dim from the switch itself.

There are two different areas in the menu where it says, “Disable Local / Remote Control”:

I wish. We are looking to add this to an alternate firmware. The reason why it wasn’t added the first time was that we made these switches to reach as many people as possible who may have hubs where the parameters couldn’t be changed (ie: Ring, Wink, etc) and a lot of the memory on the switch was used up creating the config button options. In other words, you can change parameters directly from the config button (ie: change the ramp rate, min/max levels of brightness, etc) and this is useful for hub/gateways that you can’t do this in the app.

So, we couldn’t add this function with the base firmware – however, as mentioned, we are exploring an alternate firmware where we remove the config button options and add in some of these other features such as a syncing LED bar.

I THINK there may be a workaround for this though where you can create an automation that will make your LED bar match the level of your bulb via an automation, but I also could’ve dreamt that as I can’t find it in the forum.

Are you saying that you’d like the LED bar to act the same way it does when the switch controls dumb bulbs and the relay is enabled? I think that’s what you’re saying, but thought I’d ask.

I suppose what you could do is have your LED bar set to a default of 10% and then set a notification that says, “if Smart Bulb X is on, turn the notification to 100% (or whatever brightness you want)”. I know it’s kind of janky so let me think more about this one.

Tagging @EricM_Inovelli to see if he has any suggestions and/or can add it to the alt-firmware sheet.

Thanks for the responses. Everything above makes sense. To clarify the last request, I am looking for the “off” behavior to resemble the switch when in the off state with relay enabled, which I have set to be 10% for the “glow” and ease of finding the switch in the dark. To date I haven’t found a way to change parameters via WebCore.

Perhaps @EricM_Inovelli showing us how we can add a child device for settings (like the disable local control) would be beneficial, then I could change LED bar level and color (would like to change color to red for alarm on, cyan for rain expected, etc.) dynamically by just changing the parameter.

Typing out loud here…

Edit: And as I go to customize a child device what is this I see? AWESOME!!!:

Edit2: Ohboy, ohboy, ohboy, ohboy, ohboy, ohboy, ohboy,:
image

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LOL, I was just about to respond with "well, actually . . . " but it looks like you figured it out. I’m not 100% sure about WebCoRE, but Hubitat lets you send a level with the setColor command so you can change it to any color and change its brightness. The device handler does the math for you so the level in the setColor command should be between 1-100 and the driver will convert that to the 1-10 that the parameter accepts (i.e. Math.round(level/10)).

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I have an Inovelli Red Series switch in a 3-way configuration with a GE aux Add-On switch hooked up. I would like to have the smart bulbs that the switches are connected to powered 24/7, but still allow both the Inovelli and the GE Add-On control the bulbs. I have “Disabled local control” via the SmartThings app, and associated Button 1 Press/Hold with On/Off for scene control of my bulbs.

However, my GE aux switch is unable to send commands to the bulbs when local control is disabled. My interpretation of the Red Series capabilities was that the Inovelli could tell when the GE Add-On is pressed, and then could activate a scene to turn on smart bulbs. Is this incorrect? Is there no way that the GE Add-On can send signals to the Inovelli to turn on smart bulbs if local control is disabled?

Additional info: My wiring setup is like this: https://desk.zoho.com/DocsDisplay?zgId=691830694&mode=inline&blockId=k4wwh437a820318ff497da86f135e3829acb6

Very interested to see this answer because I am literally in the middle of setting up a 4-way configuration with the exact same setup. I had the expectation that the 2 auxiliary GE switches could be made into scene controllers for the Philips Hue bulbs.

If you get it to work, please let me know.

The only way I was able to get a smart bulb to work in a three way is with a zwave bulb (ilumin) using association. I can use the aux to turn on/off or dim.

There is a feature request open to enable scenes at the aux switch which would allow other smart bulbs to work on aux switch (ie hue) but I have not seen any updates on this. I would be very interested in it as well.

Two other options which I see coming up on inovelli roadmap… The BFF zwave remote which could replace the aux switch or could wait for the zigbee version of the switch which should be able to talk to hue bulbs directly. And I assume the aux can as well?

I spent my day screwing with this and I am coming away frustrated. I have not been able to get this to work and I don’t expect it will work with the existing firmware.

My setup for this circuit is based around the LZW31-SN Red Series dimmer. It’s a 4-way with line/load in the same box, which contains the dimmer. On the circuit I have two auxiliary switches specifically from the supported aux switches list. I have one GE Enbrighten Add-On #12723 in the middle position and one GE Enbrighten Add-On #46199 in the terminal position. All of the switches set up exactly as represented in the provided wiring diagram.

I have updated all relevant device handlers to the newest versions, notably including the 2020-05-06 version of the LZW31-SN handler, which includes the relevant feature update “2020-05-01: Correctly distinguish between digital and physical on / off.”

The load on the circuit is a single fixture containing 5 Philips Hue bulbs which I want to have constant power.

I have created the suggested SmartApps to allow for the dimmer to be used as a scene controller by following the instructions for “Setup #2: Switch to Bulb via Z-Wave Central Scene Control” from the Smart Bulb How To:

The “Switch Type” setting is set to “3-way Momentary”, which per my understanding is the correct setting for a circuit containing the auxiliary switches.

My expectation from reading the developer comments and threads in this community was that, once I set the “Disable Local Control” setting on the switch to “Yes”, a button press on either the dimmer or either of the auxiliary switches would trigger my SmartApps to control the Hue bulbs. This has not been the case.

When “Disable Local Control” is set to “No”, everything works as you would expect. All three switches can be used to turn the fixture on and off. SmartThings works as well. I assume my SmartApps are also being triggered, but the effects cannot be observed because the whole fixture turns on and off.

When “Disable Local Control” is set to “Yes”, the dimmer buttons themselves work as intended. They do not modify power supply to the fixture as the relay is successfully disabled and instead the SmartApps are diligently executed, causing the Hue bulbs to turn themselves on or off. However, the auxiliary switches do nothing. Button presses have no effect.

I expect a firmware update in the switches is required to make an auxiliary button press function in an identical fashion to a button press on the dimmer itself. @EricM_Inovelli, can you confirm or tell me if there is something I have missed here?

Thanks, and sorry to bear disappointing news. The good news is maybe this can be fixed with software, and without digging into the walls again. Trying to stay optimistic on that front.

Good evening @datavortex – sorry for the frustration here :frowning:

The dimmer and aux switch should work if you have an ilumin bulb paired as @rbf suggested above via Z-Wave Association.

However, since you’re using a Hue bulb, as you correctly setup, you’ll have to use scene control. The unfortunate thing about this is that the auxiliary switches will not provide scene control (ie: double/triple tap, etc) as noted in the following threads:

I do, however, see the miscommunication in the KB Article and I will clarify it to prevent further frustration. That article was written for a single-pole setups, but I will go back to clarify this in the KB Article.

The good news is that we are about to submit a request to the manufacturer for the alternate version of firmware that hopefully they can figure out the multi-tap (scene) control from the aux switch. More to come here – we’re just trying to get the normal dimmer firmware completed.

Sorry again for the frustration.

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Thanks @Eric_Inovelli for the followup and the additional details.

Still deciding what to do here but probably will have to replace the aux switches with Red Series switches. Otherwise I will just wait for firmware updates and hope. Have a good evening.

Just to be clear, cause there is lots of talk about double an triple taps on the aux switches, it is currently not possible to have a GE Aux switch, connected to a red series on/off with local relay disabled, in a 3/4 way configuration, tell the red switch the button was toggled and have the red switch trigger whatever scene is associated to a single button press, right? I figure this is the case since 1 or 4 taps are all scenes, but just wanted to check. I’m also trying to allow the end user to use the aux switch to turn off/on the smart lights when local relay is disabled. Since all the aux switches seem to do is bypass the 3/4 way, it would be cheaper to just bypass them via a rewire.

Are you able to use multiple red series switches, as @datavortex mentioned, in a 3/4 way configuration and make those other red switches fill the gap? If so, how?

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This is correct – an aux switch CANNOT send the scene command to the smart switch (or the smart switch cannot detect multiple presses of the aux switch, however you’d like to word it). We are working on firmware to see if we can fix this, but as of today (May 22, 2020), this is not possible.

This is possible if you use Z-Wave bulbs and I have this at my house with our Ilumin bulbs. How I set it up is that the aux switches can dim and turn the bulbs on/off (if connected to a smart dimmer) and then I’ll use the Red Series Dimmer to change the colors (via double/triple tap).

Yes, for sure :slight_smile:

Here’s a couple of KB Articles we wrote up for ya:

Hope this helps!

Any news on whether this update is in the pipeline?

Checking in on this possible firmware… have a GE Add-on connected to a Red Switch with local control off for LIFX bulbs, and don’t want to go back to wonky wiring and status mirroring…

Hey guys – sorry, this thread got away from me. As far as I know we’ve presented the alternate firmware to the manufacturer that solves a few outstanding issues. I think he was rushing so that we could get as much as we could in before production (which was a couple weeks ago) so I’m not sure where the status is.

Tagging @EricM_Inovelli to confirm.

For my part I just replaced my aux switches with LZW31-SN. A bit more than I wanted to spend but the extra notification bars are handy.

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Any idea if this would be customer flushable firmware or require a new hardware revision? Just trying to decide how to proceed in the meantime.

Thanks for the response on this! New to Inovelli products but so far love the 3 switches I’ve replaced with red series!!!