First off: this seems to be a very flexible, configurable and cost effective switch; big thanks to the Inovelli team!!
Below is my use case and the steps i took with the LZW30, if anyone has suggestions or can tell me what I’m doing wrong please let me know, or if what I’m trying to accomplish isn’t feasible with this switch. Thanks!
Here is my use case:
Ability to switch two lamps on and off from switch on wall (prefer to press up on switch to turn both lamps on and press down on switch to turn both lamps off, regardless of whether lamps are already individually on or off)
Ablity to turn the same lamps on and off individually from the lamp location
Solution must work with Hubitat (prefer z-wave)
Prefer wall switch to have the form factor of a wall paddle switch
From a user point of view:
I would like to walk into my master bedroom and press the switch to turn on two bedside lamps. Then when I am laying in bed and ready to turn out the lamp on my bedside stand I would like to press a button on my bedside stand. In the morning I might not turn the lamp on, but at the end of the day i would like to be able to walk into the room and press the wall switch to turn the lights on. I would think some button controllers and smart bulbs would work in this scenario; a 1-button controller on each bedside stand and a 2-button controller on the wall. I was really hoping to find a 2-button controller that looks like a wall switch and that seems to be a challenge. Z Wave smart bulbs and button controllers are easy to find and work well but smart switches all seem to have a built-in relay that requires the switch to be in one of two possible states: either “on” or “off”. I just want a button controller that doesnt maintain an on or off status so that I can turn it on at the switch, walk over to the lamp and turn it off using a button controller, then walk back to the wall switch and turn it on again. Enter the Inovelli product which advertises that the internal switch relay can be disengaged, I assumed it could be used as a 2-button controller that looks like a wall switch.
Here’s the steps I took when attempting to use the LZW30 like a 2-button controller:
Installed the LZW30 without a load (wire-nutted the line and load wires in the wall and ran a pigtail to the line-in on the Inovelli)
Installed driver code to Hubitat, scanned and found Inovelli, installed Inovelli in Hubitat
Created rule in Hubitat to turn on smart bulbs when Inovelli switch pressed
Tested and confirmed that smart bulbs turn on and off according to LZW30 presses
Disabled the relay using the instructions provided with the switch (press config button 8x; led strip blinks 3x to confirm)
Once the relay was disabled, button presses on the LZW30 no longer recorded in the Hubitat activity log
Enabled the relay by pressing the config button 8x
Button presses now record in the Hubitat activity log and turn on or off the smart bulbs
Again, I am looking for a wall switch that will send a command every time the upper part of the paddle is pressed and will send a command every time the lower part of the paddle is pressed. Can the LZW30 be configured like that?
Good morning @Random and thanks for joining the community and for your support!
Can you confirm which model you purchased? Was it the LZW30 or LZW30-SN (Red Series)?
Reason I’m asking is bc to do what you’re asking requires the Red Series as you will need the Z-Wave Central Scene Command to send the commands to your bulbs after the relay is disabled.
The base model (LZW30) does not have this feature and only has the disable relay on it for protection purposes (prevent people from turning on/off the load).
Thank you Eric!
I bought a Red Series switch and will reply again as soon as i receive, install, connect to hub and test. I really appreciate your time!
@Random … have you been able to do any more testing? I’m looking at something similar. Also, what kind of turn on speed are you seeing? I am looking for a switch to match my Leviton’s ‘instant on’.
Re Red Series - Doesn’t the relay have to be disabled in order to use the up and down tapping business. Otherwise the load gets turned on or off with each tap. Or am I missing something.
@EricM_Inovelli I just got my canopy module, and I’m disabling the relay in my LZW30-SN to make the canopy module work properly. I’ve used the 8x config sequence to disable the relay. Now my AUX01 switch doesn’t control the switch anymore. Is there any way to make that work with the relay disabled in the LZW30-SN?
No, you do not have to disable local control to use the switch to both control a wired load and send scene commands. Just don’t use single paddle taps for scene commands. The reason there is a delay setting is so the switch can determine if you are sending a scene command or trying to turn on the wired load. If you use a multi-tap, then it will know you’re sending a scene command and not touch the wired load.
Maybe I’m missing something, but since you are using the switch with the canopy module, you do not have a wired load. So why are you disabling local control?
If I don’t disable the relay, the fan turns off when I turn off the switch. The ceiling box only has one hot wire, so I need to leave the black wire powered. The light is wired with a three-way switch, so I have the LZW30-SN and AUX01 on either end. The canopy module just arrived this week. I set up scenes to control the light and fan from the switch, but I need to disable relay, so it doesn’t remove power from the fixture.
Is there another way to do this?
Yes, I think so if I’m understanding your situation correctly.
You have a Blue 2-1 which you want to use with the fan/light canopy module. When you do that, the only connections to the switch should be a hot and a neutral and the only powering connections to the module should be an UNSWITCHED hot and neutral. The 2-1 should not have a wired load, but it sounds like you might have that.
I’m guessing that you only have a 2-wire between the switch box and the fan box, or you wouldn’t be using the module. Where does power originate, the fan box or the switch box?
I had a blue 2-1 switch but it didn’t support the ceiling fan, so I swapped it out for one of my spare Red on/off LZW30-SN. Should I just wire nut the load to the hot side of the switch and use the Red On/off as just a scene button? That should allow the aux to work, without powering off the circuit.
Exactly! It sounds like power originates in the switch box. You can probably use the second set of holes on the switch to connect the load wires, hot and neutral. For the ground, pigtail to the bundle.
Do you still have that 2-1? It would be a much better companion to the canopy module vs the older red unit. You could bind the two together and not rely on the hub to translate scenes.
No, when I was told it wouldn’t work with the ceiling fan, I sold it for more than I bought it for on eBay. Plus, the LED color didn’t match the Red series switch next to it in the box, so that was annoying. I tried all kinds of RBG adjustments to get it to match and in the end I took it out and sold it. The rest of my house is Red Series Zwave switches because i decided Zwave before I knew zigbee was closer to Matter.
Understandable. I think you’re all set with the moving the load to the line port. You’ll just need to configure your scenes to activate the canopy module(s).
I think this was fixed with a parameter to make it match the older gen series; nevertheless, I think you should be good to go.
I added a pigtail and secured the load, and line to the line terminal, essentially bypassing the relay, and it works now.
Also, the ‘changes’ to help the colors match better, didn’t as well as it should have. That’s why I went back to the Red Series. If I could have changed both switches to Blue, it would have been better, but at this point, my next change (hopefully not too soon) will probably be to Thread/Matter. This functions just fine now.