Hi there - Starting to look at phasing out insteon in my home and moving fully to zwave. So this fan switch and radio is perfect. However, the master bedroom is a three way switch (two swtiches). Is this setup supported? How would you go about it?
Thanks
David
I’d buy a Red series dimmer and rewire to send line and neutral to three way switch. Then use scenes to enable fan or light control.
If you are talking about the LZW36 for your fan and light.
And currently you have two switches setup as a 3-way.
And you wish to replace one of the 3-ways with the LZW36.
I will call the non LZW36 position the alternate location.
You could use a Red or Black dimmer or switch in the other location and “associate” it with the fan and light control switch. This would allow the fan and light to be controlled by the Alt location device. I would recommend you use a switch if pairing it with both the fan and light.
Or you could use a Red dimmer or switch and use scenes as @harjms mentioned. Scenes are really only the ability to use multiple taps of one switch to control different things.
For instance 1 up tap could light the light and 2 up taps could start the fan. This works fine but often other users become frustrated with the multiple tap scheme.
There is also a short delay with scenes that doesn’t exist with associations.
Question for you then JohnRob…
Is there a way to have the LZW36 act as control for the fan and the light, but have the Red switch act as the on/off for the light only?
How does that work? I’m guessing the LZW36 doesn’t actually kill power when everything is off?
I think it would be possible with rule machine or like configuration. I’m not sure if switch associations just yet for the 36 model.
I see two ways to accomplish what you want. However I don’t have a LZW36 and I am assuming the fan and light sections have individual Scene and association capability.
Association:
You would use Eric’s association tool. He may have to identify the “Groups” the fan and light use.
When a switch is “associated” with another, it reacts as if the one switch is connected to the other. i.e. it mimics the switch. In your case the LZW36 Light would be associated with the Red dimmer. When the Red Dimmer is turned ON, the LZW36 Hears it via the Z-Wave link and turns the light on. Off is the same. This does not include the hub in the transaction so any delay is minimal often unperceivable. This is probably the best way. My experience the ON/OFF works great, the dim is a little choppy due to the multiple Z-Wave commands required.
Scenes
In the Scenes mode, the hub would sense the Red Dimmer was operated and will send a command to the LZW36 to follow. Includes the Hub so there can be some delay.
The Red Dimmer does not support multi-channel association, so it has no way to control just the light or just the fan directly. If you set up association that way, it will end up controlling the fan and light at the same time. I think you will need to use scenes to accomplish what you are trying to do.
I wasn’t sure how the LZW36 was setup and I’m not deeply familiar with associations but when I look at the LZW36 I see a table that I would have thought allowed association to the fan or light alone.
Like I said I’ve not done much with associations so I’m not an expert here.
John
Maybe I misunderstood the question. I though @texx was attempting to use a Red series dimmer to control the light portion of the LZW36. If this is the case, scenes will need to be used because the Red series dimmer cannot associate with the Light component of the LZW36 directly (it will control both the light and fan at the same time)
If the intent is to use the Light button on the LZW36 to control a Red series dimmer, then yes, association can be used (group 3 for on/off, group 4 for dimming)
You understood the OP’s goal.
Pardon me if I’m dense. The issue is I don’t understand the implications of:
So, if I used Eric’s Association tool and I associated:
Node ID and Group2
and
Node ID and Group4
That would cause both the fan and light to both be controlled?
John
Hopefully this screenshot of my setup will help clear things up:
Node 26 is a red series dimmer
Node 31 is the physical (root) device of the LZW36
Node 31.1 is the Light endpoint of the LZW36
Node 31.2 is the Fan endpoint of the LZW36
In order to control just the light endpoint of the LZW36, I have to send commands to node 31.1. If I send a command to Node 31 (without the endpoint after the decimal), it will control both the fan and light at the same time.
Since the Red Dimmer does not support multi-channel (multi-endpoint) association, it is not able to send a command to endpoint Node 31.1, and will instead send the command to root node 31 (which controls both the light and fan).
The only solution I am aware of is to use scenes and have the hub send the command to the proper endpoint
Aha… I see said the blind man!
I’m using Hubitat and apparently there is some code in the Inovelli driver that allows the user to get around this problem. See Z-Wave Association In Hubitat
@EricM_Inovelli Because @jtronicus is using a different system than I am (I’m using Hubitat) and although he has been patient with me I still cannot see why a Red Dimmer cannot be Associated to a LZW36 Light ONLY. ie the goal is to have the Red Dimmer control ONLY the LZW36 light and not the fan.
Looking at the group description of the LZW36 It would appear to me this could be accomplished, however jtronicus with a different system doesn’t seem to.
BTW I don’t have an LZW36 to test my assumption. Can you help us out?
John
Thank you both @JohnRob and @jtronicus, you’ve both given me a bunch to think about and I think there are a few paths forward on how to procedd. Sadly, the three-way switch that I want to setup is also our bedroom switch and the WAF would plummet to the basement if I took our bedroom offline for more than a few hours.
Hopefully @EricM_Inovelli has some insight on how to setup a Red dimmer as the remote switch for the LZW36.
As mentioned the switches and dimmers do not support multi-channel associations. We can definitely look at adding it in the future. If you are using something local like Hubitat then you can use scenes. That would give you pretty responsive results.
If you have a second LZW36 (which does support multi-channel associations) you can associate the 2nd switch to the 1st switch to have real time on/off and dimming. The light up/down and fan up/down will send on/off (single press) and dimming (hold down). I need to setup a user interface for this in Hubitat and SmartThings, but it is possible.
The light & fan on/off buttons will need to be setup as scenes in your hub if you want to use them to control the 1st switch. This is because Z-wave does not have any “toggle” commands in the available command classes for those buttons. It is pretty simple to setup your hub to toggle the 1st fan + light switch though.
Here is an example of my associations in the setup I have described above:
If I were to use a second LZW36 in order to create a virtual 3-way, but I dont wire up the canopy module for the 2nd device, will that cause any problems? Will the switch continuously attempt to locate the non-existent module?
I’ve done a lot of my testing on the z-wave switches that are paired to canopy modules that are not plugged in and I haven’t had any problems yet. Everything works as expected.
Eric, Apparently I was confused regarding associations.
But could you give me a little hint on why this is different that say associating to another Red Dimmer?
Specifically:
Red Dimmer to Red Dimmer Group 2 (on / off) and Group 4 (dimmer?)
This being the case then how is it different from:
Red Dimmer to LZW36 Group 2 for on/off and Group 3 for dimming. Or is it a situation the Red Dimmer must talk to all three lighting related Groups 2,3 & 4?
I’m using Hubitat so I don’t see (nor understand) your screen shot.
Thanks
John
Your welcome.
In case you felt our (jtronicus and I) were in a heated argument, I can assure you we were not. We were simply discussing a technical point and In this case I was the one to benefit. I learned something I didn’t know.
Getting back to your issue, I don’t recall what hub you are using.
John
I dont think you are looking at association groups the right way.
Associations work on one direction. If I press the “on” button on a red dimmer, it will send the command to any devices listed in group 2 on the red dimmer (the groups on the LZW36 are irrelevant at this point). The problem is that the Red Dimmer does not know how to talk to the specific endpoints on the LZW36 (the fan or the light individually), and can only speak with the device as a whole. In order to maintain some sort of backwards comparability, commands sent to the root device control both endpoints.
Thank you for the explanation (and your patience).
I see the larger picture but still struggling with some of the details. This is not surprising as I’ve never has occasion to go this far into the details. However in this case my curiosity got the better of me.
John
