Problem controlling Ceiling Fan Light with Red Dimmer via Hubitat Rule Machine

I’m having trouble with only one switch trying to control another light. The switch I am using is an Inovelli Red series dimmer, LZW31-SN. It is connected only to line and neutral wires. I am using a Hubitat C7 hub. I want it to turn the light of an Inovelli Fan+Light LZW36 on or off.

In Hubitat I used Rule Machine to create a rule for a button 1 push to turn the fan’s child light to 100% and a second rule for a button 1 held to turn off the light. It was working for a while and then stopped working. I could push the paddle to turn it on, but nothing would happen. Likewise, I would go into the room, turn it on from the fan/light switch and then go back out and the red dimmer wouldn’t turn it off. However, if I turned it on and off from inside a few times the red dimmer would start to work again for a while.

I’ve tried removing and then re-including the switch but it seems even flakier - i.e. it stops working even sooner that it used to. Any ideas on how to fix this?
@Eric_Inovelli
@EricM_Inovelli
@bcopeland

I may not always be able to answer everything amidst the chaos, but I’ll at least get the convo moving along so someone can pile on.

Can you let me know the following:

  1. About how many Z-Wave devices do you have?
  2. Are they included at the same security level or at the very least included not at S0?
  3. Can you open up live-logging and record what happens when you press the dimmer switch Button 1 (held and pushed)?
  4. Can you share how you have this setup?
  5. Are you using Rule Machine or the Button Controller App?

I would highly recommend turning info logging on for everything involved (including the rule machine child app), then trying to simply turn the light on then turn it off. Your logs are really the only way to start this diagnosis since the hub sits in the middle. You need to verify that the commands are being sent, and the resulting changes at the switch are being accomplished. Following that, I’d also recommend checking your Z-Wave details tab to see if either device is showing a problem. Post some screenshots.

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Thank you to both @Eric_Inovelli and @fatherdoctor for responding. I finally got the Hubitat Device Firmware Updater to run, and started with this Fan/Light dimmer. However, as I mentioned elsewhere it is crawling at an unbelievably slow speed - it has only done 24% in over 6 hours. (And as I mentioned elsewhere this switch is in the same room as my C7 hub). So, the bottom line is that I don’t want to do anything involving these switches until the firmware update is complete. So at this rate I don’t expect to be able to post anything more until tomorrow.

Stuart

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@skarden on the Z-Wave Details page, what does that device look like? You could be seeing the signs of a strained mesh. Here’s an example of a switch that is incredibly responsive, and another that is not so much due to the number of hops.

According to the the screenshots below both the fan/light and the red dimmer seem extremely similar to the one you describe as “incredibly responsive” as like yours, both of mine are S2 Authenticated, have only one hop and are going at 100 kbps. (BTW, my fan/light is the one that is literally taking a day for the firmware update). However, I do notice that your fast one has one route change while mine have 39 and 47. I’m not sure what that number means though. I have 20 red dimmers installed, 5 fan/lights and 5 black series switches. I never added more than 20 devices in a day and let them sit a few days between installs. I also waited about a day to do any automation - with one exception - which now I’m wondering may be an issue - When I did the last exclude/re-include for the red dimmer I set up the new rules right away. I’m wondering if that could be a/the problem. Once the firmware update is done (probably tomorrow) I’ll re-exclude the red dimmer, let it sit overnight and then apply the rules again.

Here is a screen shot of the Red dimmer that I am trying to use to control the Fan’s light:

I had tried Rule Machine, but thinking that might be the issue, I deleted those rules and created new rules with the Button Controller. Here is a summary screen shot of the rules:

I don’t know if it is safe to go into the Fan/Light device while the firmware is being update, but here is a screen shot of the parameters for the red dimmer:

Which might be easier to look at like this:

One last thing: I would be as happy, if not happier, to do an association between the red dimmer and the fan’s child light device instead, as that should be even faster, but I can’t get that to work. I believe they both have to be Inovelli drivers, but the fan’s child comes in as a generic dimmer. I’ve asked elsewhere what Inovelli driver to use for the child device but haven’t gotten a response. Also, someone suggested there could be a security mismatch, but both the fan/light and red dimmer are S2. I don’t know if the child device has its own security level or not.

Also I haven’t gotten a response at to what group(s) to do the association on as I understand the Fan/Light might have different #'s.

Stuart

Route changes are just the number of times the routing table has been changed for that device. My guest hall light switch is literally the closest switch physically to my hub, so I don’t understand why it struggles so much to connect, but that’s probably not an Inovelli issue. It’s crazy that your firmware update is showing that long. I’ve only updated via a USB stick, and my longest update was probably 20 minutes. 100kbps is a good sign though. I still need to try out the new update driver to see what all of the fuss is about, but I’m not sure I have anything left to update.

Z-Wave associations shouldn’t have much to do with drivers beyond initial setup as it’s routing commands without going through the hub. I personally do not like the built-in button controller, but use Advanced Button Controller on all of my switches. I would still be curious to see what your logs show if you turn logging on for all three items (switches and button controller).

If I had an LZW36, I’m sure I could help you untangle how the child devices are intended to be used with association, but I don’t.

Thanks. Strange to me too. This is also the switch that is closest to the the hub. It is in the same room. It is now at 30% and 7 hours 53 minutes.

At this time we can’t do an association with a red dimmer other than one that will control the fan and light at the same time. The best we could do is to association one lzw36 to another lzw36.

The first dimmer I updated using this method went as expected yesterday, but the red dimmer I tried today was running about the same speed you are describing despite being a solid direct connect to the hub. I gave up and aborted. There is something really funky going on. I’m going to try to firmware update using my Z-Stick later this week to see if it’s a mesh problem or a software problem.

I finally got it done using the Z-Wave Firmware Updater. BTW, I was told it requires the device to have no security. So this is what I did:

  1. Go to 3 vertical dots in upper right of Hubitat screen for Settings

  2. Once in Settings shut down the hub.
    a. I was expecting the lights to go off on the hub, or to get a message it had shut down. But, nooooo. :slight_smile:
    b. Instead, look for the light on the hub to turn red

  3. Unplug the hub

  4. Power down the modem

  5. Unplug the router

  6. Plug the modem back in and wait for it to get online

  7. Plug in the router

  8. Plug in the hub and wait a few minutes for everything to get back up

  9. If you have any Security at all on the device you’ll need to exclude it, then re-include it with no security:
    a. On the Hubitat screen go to Devices
    b. Discover Devices
    c. Click Z-Wave
    d. Go to your device and put it in exclude mode with button holding the correct button and doing the paddle clicks per what that device requires
    e. Go back to your Hub’s screen and click Start Z-Wave Exclusion
    f. Once excluded, go back to the device and put it in Include mode
    g. Go back to your screen and click Start Z-Wave Inclusion
    h. Once the Security screen pops up uncheck everything and say OK
    i. If need be put in the DSK and then name the device as you wish.

  10. If you haven’t already, install the Z-Wave Firmware Updater. Per these instructions:

    https://support.inovelli.com/portal/en/kb/articles/how-to-hubitat-firmware-upgrade-tool

    If you have already you can skip to Step 7 of the linked in instructions.

Couple of Notes:

  1. Have the link to the file copied so you can paste in the URL in Step 9 of the linked instructions.
  2. Once it was done (this only took about 12-13 minutes) it said it was flashing the switch. So I waited, and waited, and waited 20 minutes for that to finish. I found out it was finished and that never goes away.
  3. Of course, as the instructions tell you, you then switch the Type/Driver back to the “real” driver.

Hope this helps,

Stuart

The driver that @bcopeland created and you linked to doesn’t play nice with security, but the switch I updated yesterday is S2 authenticated as is the one I tried today. The Hubitat app he built for the C7 is definitely more compatible (it works at all with security), but I will try rebooting the modem to see if that fixes my current issue.

I had a 2nd Fan/Light that didn’t have security turned on and it updated just fine. However, I just went to exclude a 3rd Fan/Light to remove it’s security and for some crazy reason it won’t exclude. I did the range test and it turned green almost instantly. There are just a couple of walls between the hub and the switch, the blue lights flash when I hold button A and tap button B 3 times quickly, so I don’t know what’s up with that.

It is taking a rather circuitous route though:

BTW, any idea why a device will some times use it’s Node #, like 3C instead of its # (here would be 60)?

I used the Z-Wave Firmware Updater with a gbl URL. Does that mean I have the version that works with security? If not, I’d like to try @bcopeland’s one that does work with security so if I don’t have it already, can you give me a link to that, please?

Thanks,

It’s the built in app you access via that menu.

I was on 2.2.4 and that was the Device Firmware Update (“DFU”) app I could never get to work. Even after I got past the 26 hour non-update and it ran in about 20 minutes it kept telling me that the image didn’t match the target. (See below). That’s when I gave up on it and went with the Z-Wave Firmware Updater. I’m on 2.2.6 now, but I don’t think anything has changed in the DFU.

@bcopeland

Did you send the OTZ file to Target 0? I just rebooted the hub and started the firmware update immediately. It’s working much better than it did last time.

I was using the gbl

Ah. Forgot we were talking about the LZW36 in this thread. I don’t think you have to worry about targets on those.

All I know is that when I first tried to use it I kept getting errors and couldn’t even get to the page where you actually run it. I had to remove it and re-add it. Once I did that it ran but always gave me the error posted above about it not matching the target.