I cannot figure this out for the life of me and i’m not sure what is triggering this to happen.
I have one outside light (side light) that just randomly turns on and it is completely random sometimes it will go a full month with no problems at all and other times (like this morning) it has turned on 5x’s this morning for absolutely no reason.
came on at 5:24, 5:44, 6:05, 6:18, & 6:51 (set up notification to let me know when it came and each time I remotely turned the light off)
I have 4 zwave devices all in the same room
1 (2) button scene controller VRCS2-MRZ
2 GE dimmer switches (coach lights & side light)
1 Mi Casa Verde Z-Wave SmartSwitch
coach lights in the same room don’t have any issues at all nor do I have any problems with any other GE dimmer switches in the house but I’m not sure why this one is just coming on whenever it
wants.
I’ve got a vera 2 with UI5 and this was also happening on UI4
attached is a screenshot of all the devices in the same room.
could it be a bad dimmer switch?
just not sure what is triggering that to send an “on” command
Dave,
With Vera, rooms are used to organize things for our sake. There is no organization at the network or component level to reflect rooms. There may be all sorts of things in a room, but they don’t have to be logically connected.
I need a little more clarification to help you find out what is going on:
Is there some sort of motion detector or day/night switch still in the circuit? (I know this is obvious, but I’ve gotta ask
What is connected to your blinking side light? Is the dimmer a GE/Jasco 45609 or a GE/Jasco 45612 or something else? Is the other switch a GE/Jasco 45610? Is this a 3-way switch configuration? Does the other switch control the blinking light also, or is it for something else?
What scenes involve this light? If there are scenes that control it, can you tell us what triggers them?
Is the remote control programmed as one of the triggers to control your side light?
I need a little more clarification to help you find out what is going on:
Is there some sort of motion detector or day/night switch still in the circuit? (I know this is obvious, but I’ve gotta ask no worries I understand the need for asking - no there is no motion detector or day/night switch
What is connected to your blinking side light? Is the dimmer a GE/Jasco 45609 or a GE/Jasco 45612 or something else? Is the other switch a GE/Jasco 45610? Is this a 3-way switch configuration? I will have to check when I get home but I think it’s this one GE 45614 Does the other switch control the blinking light also, or is it for something else? no, it is not setup as a full 3 way switch and only controls that one side light
What scenes involve this light? If there are scenes that control it, can you tell us what triggers them? not setup in any scenes at all just basically added it to the network as a standalone switch with the zwave control if need be
Is the remote control programmed as one of the triggers to control your side light? sorry might be confused here but I’ll answer the way I think. by remote what I meant was Homebuddy or cpui5.mios.com not a physical remote control
Thanks for the help
edit
strange I just got notified that the side light just turned on again 2x’s for no reason
12:58 (logged into HOME BUDDY APP and turned off ) & 1:09 (logged into HOME BUDDY APP and turned off)
after the last time this morning at 6:51 they stayed off up until just now.
It sounds like this switch may be faulty. Turn the breaker off for the switch and than back on again. See if that fixes the problem. I have a feeling it could be a bad switch.
[quote=“garrettwp, post:4, topic:170387”]It sounds like this switch may be faulty. Turn the breaker off for the switch and than back on again. See if that fixes the problem. I have a feeling it could be a bad switch.
Garrett[/quote]
I was thinking is could be his not connected traveler wire… This is a 3 way with nothing connected to the yellow wire. Is it possible that the wire is touching a ground or metal box and getting some transient voltage (enough to turn on the light as if an AUX was doing it?)
Was it a two-pack GE/Jasco 45613 three-way dimmer kit? (A 45610 auxillary switch and a 45606 dimmer switch (or a 45612 dimmer))
When you get home, try power cycling it as garrettwp suggests.
But before throwing out your switch, check your wiring.
First check the 45606 wiring (if you are using a 3-way dimmer switch). It should be connected to neutral, ground, traveler, line and load.
If your kit came with a 45612, it won’t have a neutral connection.
Then check the 45610 auxiliary switch wiring. The 45610 should be connected to neutral (not hot), ground and the traveler.
Is your traveler wire connected properly? An open traveler, or one tied to hot can cause weird things to happen.
If there were no wiring errors, then it’s probably a bad switch.
[quote=“kgrr, post:6, topic:170387”]Was it a two-pack GE/Jasco 45613 three-way dimmer kit? (A 45610 auxillary switch and a 45606 dimmer switch (or a 45612 dimmer))
When you get home, try power cycling it as garrettwp suggests.
But before throwing out your switch, check your wiring.
First check the 45606 wiring (if you are using a 3-way dimmer switch). It should be connected to neutral, ground, traveler, line and load.
If your kit came with a 45612, it won’t have a neutral connection.
Then check the 45610 auxiliary switch wiring. The 45610 should be connected to neutral (not hot), ground and the traveler.
Is your traveler wire connected properly? An open traveler, or one tied to hot can cause weird things to happen.
If there were no wiring errors, then it’s probably a bad switch.[/quote]
I’m not using the auxiliary switch just the dimmer I am going to test what garret suggest as well as what aschwalb suggested and taping off the traveler wire and make sure its not grounding somewhere.
Thanks for the suggestions I will post back after I try these and let you know
How could you guys even think about using this for locks!!!
an update.
ok so I don’t get this and I’m going to go thru every single scene I’ve written just to make sure this isn’t showing up somewhere.
I didn’t get a chance to try the suggestions from last night once I got home from work I had to turn around and go back out and got home later than I expected.
after I got home yesterday (around 4pm) the light was off and stayed off all night with not a single problem. then this morning around 5am, guess what the light came on on its own and I turn it
off at the switch or via web and within 10mins it comes right back on… I can’t see it being a bad switch or getting some type of ground via the traveler but strange that it was off yesterday evening and stayed that way til this morning leads me to believe that something is triggering it to turn it on…
I should have time tonight to work on it and try those suggestions to “hopefully” rule them out before replacing anything just think it’s very odd that at 5amish it starts coming on for no reason.
Is it always the same exact time frame? Vera would not turn on a device unless it was added to a scene or some type of trigger. I would try to comb through your configuration throughly.
I’m combing thru them now. I may have accidentally clicked it by mistake but not sure what would cause it to just keep coming back on after it was turned off even if it was added to a scene.
only scene I have that runs that early is the hot water heater
so I went thru all my scenes and only have 2 that are associated with the light that is causing the problem.
“All On Whole House” & “All Off Whole House” I wrote these for my wife that when I travel (not very often anymore) if for any reason at all (she gets spooked or hears something in the middle of the night) she can hit one button every light comes on inside and outside and then an off scene.
no delays are set in either of those scenes.
the other thing I noticed is that when the side light was coming “on” if it shut it off immediately it would come back on in about 10mins. today I decide to just leave it on and for about an hour then I turned it off (via home buddy app) and that was about an hour ago and it has not come back on yet.
I’m totally confused with this. I think I’m going to exclude the switch and turn the power off to it (via circuit breaker) and reset it up to see what happens or maybe.
Yes it is the 45613 3way but I am only using the zwave switch not the aux.
I removed the switch and taped the traveler wire to make sure it was grounding out (per aschwalb’s suggestion)
I looked thru every scene I have and just not sure what causes this one to do random turn ons I’ll post back and let you know if taping that wire helped
Possibly an easy thing to try is to exclude the device and include it again, so (hopefully) the nodeID and deviceID change to something else and see if the issue persists.
Don’t forget to check your wiring to your switches.
What is going on is symptomatic of a floating traveler wire. If the traveler wire is not properly switched to neutral at the auxiliary switch, the dimmer will turn on and off randomly.
Also, the wiring diagram(s) in the GE/Jasco 45613 3-way dimmer kit (if that is what you are using) seems to have some errors in places. The auxiliary switch has to switch neutral, not hot.
Sorry for the long reply I wanted to give it a couple days seeing how it is not consistent.
Before I excluded the device and re-added it I followed aschwalb’s recommendation and clipped off the traveler wire and taped it off with electrical tape.
The verdict… Dun dun dun… So far so good no issues with it randomly turning on.
I hoping that’s all it was but if it starts up again I’ll post another update.
Thank you guys for all the help I really appreciate it!
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