Zigbee 2-1 Switch (On/Off & Dimmer) | Project New Horizon (Blue Series)

[kreene1987]

@Eric_Inovelli one thing that might be useful is a list of “community contributors” that can be tagged and/or messaged that consistently are helping others on the site for specific installs. I’d be more than happy to represent ZHA and/or HA and could be helpful on ST as well.

[Eric_Inovelli]

@exces6

Is using an aux switch preferred over two (or more) smart switches in a multi-way setting?

Great question and we get it a lot actually. It really comes down to preference. Some people prefer having the LED bar at both ends of the 3-Way, while others are content with having an auxiliary switch (and some are ok with a dumb switch).

Here are the pro/cons to both IMO:

Aux Switch

• Pros
  • Cost effective (saves you $20+)
  • Does basically everything the Blue Series does except it does not have an LED bar (with the Blue Series, you can multi-tap the aux switch for scene control, and all the other configuration parameters will be mimicked when using the aux switch – ie: if you set your ramp rate to fast, dim speed slow, etc, when you press the aux switch, the smart switch will still acknowledge those parameter changes)
  • Wiring is basically the same as it is with a dumb switch
    
    
• Cons
  • Not a cohesive look (very close, but not identical as there’s no LED bar)

2x Smart Switches

• Pros
  • Provides you with all features including animated notifications and an LED bar
  • Cohesive look/feel to your house
    
    
• Cons
  • Not budget friendly
  • As @kreene1987 mentioned, the re-wiring is to code, but you may have to climb up to adjust your light fixture lighting which is a pain if you have vaulted ceilings or a fixture that’s hard to get to – he’s exactly right in that you’re just rewiring it so that line power gets to both smart switches
  • Not all hubs support ZigBee binding which is required to have two smart switches (right now we’ve confirmed Home Assistant and Hubitat, but are working on SmartThings)

Me personally, I would go the aux switch route simply bc the extra LED bar is not worth the extra $20 – and despite my pickiness of ad copy and other marketing design, having an aux switch not match my smart switch isn’t that big of a deal to me. I know I’m shooting myself in the foot regarding sales right now, but I thought I’d give my honest opinion. As I said though, everyone’s tastes are different!

@exces6

Not sure of a better wording and maybe this is more just for my planning purposes than something that would be helpful to others, but there’s a part of me that just wants to buy a bunch of contractor packs of 2-1 switches and make everything the same. But the idea of changing wiring to a “non-traditional” way of doing things for the few multi-way switches I have just gives me a little pause if that makes sense.

Yeah, this is a good point and the more I’m thinking about it, I think this needs to live on both the product page as well as the instruction manual and wiring pages.

Maybe just a blurb or graph or something that shows the differences between the various setups. What do you think?

@exces6

Also the instructions to bind switches together seems missing from that section

Yeah still working on those

[harjms]

@Eric_Inovelli

Wiring is basically the same as it is with a dumb switch

Normally (or never) is the neutral wired to a dumb switch. The Aux switch will need a neutral or line on one leg of the switch and the other is the traveler.

[Eric_Inovelli]

@exces6 – something like this work to clear things up? Open to suggestions and tweaks. I’d put this on the product page, wiring page and manual.

1. Dimming available if 2-1 is set as a dimmer. If on/off, the aux will also be an on/off.
2. The aux switch will match all parameters that are set from the smart switch (less the LED Bar parameters) so that whatever is set on the smart switch, when the aux switch is pressed, the smart switch will keep those parameters
3. Requires ZigBee binding – as of today, this is only available on Home Assistant and Hubitat (SmartThings is a work in progress and we aim to have it completed by launch)
4. Make sure your hub supports ZigBee binding – as of today, this is only available on Home Assistant and Hubitat (SmartThings is a work in progress and we aim to have it completed by launch)

EDIT: I’d also specify that this is for the 2-1 switch only and make specific charts for each individual switch (as some are different).

[exces6]

@Eric_Inovelli I like that chart! I could also see value in a “similarities and differences” chart just to put front and center “choose this → get this”

Really anything like the above that makes all of the options clear is great.

And to your point 2, does the aux switch match all scene control options with its buddy 2-1? Meaning a triple tap on the aux elicits the programmed triple tap response programmed to the smart switch? I assume yes; sorry if I missed that. Just making sure the aux has more than a single input if that makes sense.

I also think it could be useful to pull the wiring diagrams for each type of setup together under a heading for wiring type. So both 3 way options for neutral are side by side. That might make it too messy but when I was reading it was kind of frustrating to keep scrolling from "multi-way (dumb) to multi-way (Aux) neutral to multi-way (smart) neutral. Maybe all of the neutral setups could be grouped together so people who know what they have in their home can see every available option in one place?

[kreene1987]

@exces6

“choose this → get this”

This is how I would do it. Red X’s and green checkmarks based on features gained. You could do $/$$/$$$ for price as well.

[harjms]

@exces6

And to your point 2, does the aux switch match all scene control options with its buddy 2-1? Meaning a triple tap on the aux elicits the programmed triple tap response programmed to the smart switch?

I believe that is so! I think it was mentioned above or another post, but yes, a triple tap up on aux switch will be recognized on the blue series.

[mraz.camren]

When will this switch and the aux switch be released

[exces6]

@harjms I believe that is so! I think it was mentioned above or another post, but yes, a triple tap up on aux switch will be recognized on the blue series.

Thanks! That was my initial interpretation as well, just wanted to be sure.

@Eric_Inovelli Speaking of the arrangement of the diagrams page, some of the links seem broken.
Multi-Way (aux) 3-way schematics and 4-way schematics link to the dumb switch sections. This is the same for both neutral and non-neutral sections. The headers under Multi-way (smart) do the same thing (link to dumb not smart sections).

And just to clarify what I was suggesting before: Since people know whether they have neutral wiring or not, so I was thinking maybe it would be nice to have a section for neutral wiring and a section for non-neutral, with all the various switch combinations under their respective headers. Most people coming to the site will probably be approaching it as “I have neutral wiring, where are all the options are available to me?”

[Bry]

@exces6

so I was thinking maybe it would be nice to have a section for neutral wiring and a section for non-neutral, with all the various switch combinations under their respective headers.

What you’re suggesting is here:

Resources | Blue Series Wiring Schematics

[ERIC REMINDER - NEED TO FIX HYPERLINKS ON THE SIDE] IMPORTANT: We cannot provide direct wiring advice due to insurance liabilities. If you are unsure of how to read a schematic and/or are unsure of what you’re doing, please consult a licensed electrician. Failure to install the switch properly will result in a voided warranty and could possibly lead to injury. QUESTIONS: If you do have questions regarding your wiring, feel free to post in the Wiring Discussion section in the community. We h…

[stu1811]

In a 3-way with two blue switches do both boxes have to have a neutral? I think it should work if the load switch doesn’t have a neutral and the non load has a neutral. It’s a weird corner case that probably doesn’t exist but you never know.

[Bry]

@mraz.camren

When will this switch and the aux switch be released

Eric’s lastest update is early July.

[stu1811]

The capitalization of Zigbee is wrong in a number of spots. The ‘b’ is lowercase.
Zigbee
Zigbee2MQTT

Zigbee

Home | Zigbee2MQTT

[exces6]

@Bry thanks! I guess that chart does fit the bill I was making it referring to possibly renaming the section headers/link tree to flow in kind of the same way. But all the info is there regardless and quite well explained so that’s great!

[Mith]

Funny, I think you explain it well in Resources | Blue Series Smart 2-1 Switch (On/Off & Dimmer) - Manual. I would and paste it into the smartthings guide. Also, I would edit the manual pairing to say “if you want to factory reset it or pair it with a hub at a later stage”.

[Eric_Inovelli]

@exces6

And to your point 2, does the aux switch match all scene control options with its buddy 2-1? Meaning a triple tap on the aux elicits the programmed triple tap response programmed to the smart switch? I assume yes; sorry if I missed that. Just making sure the aux has more than a single input if that makes sense.

Great question, yes it will match everything

It’s kind of buried in this thread, but here’s an example of the multi-presses from the aux switch: ZigBee 2-1 Switch (On/Off & Dimmer) | Project New Horizon (Blue Series) - #470 by Eric_Inovelli

@exces6

I also think it could be useful to pull the wiring diagrams for each type of setup together under a heading for wiring type. So both 3 way options for neutral are side by side. That might make it too messy but when I was reading it was kind of frustrating to keep scrolling from "multi-way (dumb) to multi-way (Aux) neutral to multi-way (smart) neutral. Maybe all of the neutral setups could be grouped together so people who know what they have in their home can see every available option in one place?

Yeah it also doesn’t help that the table of contents hyperlinks are all messed up. I think what’s happening is that since all the phrases are the same, it’s confusing the anchor text. In other words, since there are multiple, “3-Way Schematics” it’s messing things up. I haven’t had a chance to really dive into it, but I did notice it too (hence the note to myself at the top of the post).

Could you explain this further? My thoughts from a user experience perspective was to have you use the table-of-contents on the side to click and drill down to what you want (however, it’s broken right now so the user experience kind of stinks).

EDIT: Never mind, you explained it further below in a comment haha. I’ve responded to it.

@kreene1987

@exces6

“choose this → get this”

This is how I would do it. Red X’s and green checkmarks based on features gained. You could do $/$$/$$$ for price as well.

Yeah this is interesting – let me see what I can whip up. I like it.

@mraz.camren

When will this switch and the aux switch be released

Targeting mid-July. Things got kinda backed up with UL, but I’m trying to be very conservative here with this date!

@exces6

@Eric_Inovelli Speaking of the arrangement of the diagrams page, some of the links seem broken.
Multi-Way (aux) 3-way schematics and 4-way schematics link to the dumb switch sections. This is the same for both neutral and non-neutral sections. The headers under Multi-way (smart) do the same thing (link to dumb not smart sections).

Yeah, I’m trying to figure out why it’s doing that. It’s a plug-in I had to install (table-of-contents plug-in) so I don’t have a ton of control over it. I think I’ll likely have to rename things so they’re not the same.

@exces6

And just to clarify what I was suggesting before: Since people know whether they have neutral wiring or not, so I was thinking maybe it would be nice to have a section for neutral wiring and a section for non-neutral, with all the various switch combinations under their respective headers. Most people coming to the site will probably be approaching it as “I have neutral wiring, where are all the options are available to me?”

That’s an interesting assumption and I hadn’t thought about it. How I was looking at it was that many people actually don’t know what they have, but they know what they want (ie: I want to use two smart switches, or I prefer an aux switch, or I guess I’m good w/leaving my dumb switch).

Then when the time comes, they open up their gang-box and go… oh crap, I’m not sure what a neutral or non-neutral setup is. I better check the diagrams against what I ordered and just hope they can accomplish what they set out to do (ie: I want to just use a dumb switch, but now that I opened up my box, I realize none of these diagrams match up with what I have – now I need to understand if I have a neutral or not… I don’t, ok, well, I guess I have to order an aux switch).

Throwing the question back at you – how do you approach your projects? Do you know what your wiring is before you purchase things or do you kind of, “wing” it and see what happens? Genuinely curious as I’m a huge believer in user experience and making it simple!

@stu1811

In a 3-way with two blue switches do both boxes have to have a neutral? I think it should work if the load switch doesn’t have a neutral and the non load has a neutral. It’s a weird corner case that probably doesn’t exist but you never know.

Great question – I honestly don’t know!

@stu1811

The capitalization of Zigbee is wrong in a number of spots. The ‘b’ is lowercase.
Zigbee
Zigbee2MQTT

Ugh… I have gone back and forth on this. Looks like I’m going to have to make some changes haha.

Reminds me of the HUB all-caps error @BertABCD1234 called me out on a long time ago – I’ve never forgotten that haha.

[epow]

My pre-order is in!

[Eric_Inovelli]

Dang you guys are fast – Thank you so much, that really means a lot – I decided to do a soft release (ie: not tell anyone) until Sunday, but you’re on top of things! Honestly, I’m going to send you a mug as well as the guy who ordered 1 minute after you lol. I’m seriously impressed

We’ll send it out on Monday!

[jimhim]

He probably set up a Hubitat automation to keep checking your site for live pre-orders … Haha
I pre-ordered a couple to check out.

[rpulivella]

My pre-order is in too! I was so excited to see the updates today. Congrats to you and your teams!