First of all, I am very new to home automation so this could perhaps even have been posted in the noob-section, but since it is light related I guess this might be a good place to post the questions I have. I am still only doing research to what hardware I need.
The idea of controlling everything from my phone and having different light scenes is what got my interest into this.
At the moment I am leaning towards going for a vera lite, with a few zwave switches to turn off/on different ligths. For additional lighting I plan to add some phillips hue/living white lamps that I want to include in the different scenes.
Starting the different scenes from the phone I assume is no problem, but can I use the wall switches to trigger scenes as well?
example: light switch in living room turns on main lights and sets assorted hue/living whites lamps to a default settings defined by me. if the default scene is active I would like this switch to turn off all the lamps in the room when triggered. Another light switch sets the lighting to “dining”, “cooking”, “romantic” perhaps even toggles between the different scenes.
Are there issues with a setup like this and the above mentioned functionality that I am overlooking?
I would like the setup to be kid/mother in law proof. So it would be nice that I got things to work also without me sitting with the nose planted in a tablet/phone.
To answer your question, yes it is possible but you will need to make sure the switches you buy are instant status capable. This is needed for vera to know the status and run the scene almost instantly. I highly recommend that you search through the forum as this has been discussed before.
Thanks Garrett, for a quick and clear answer. I now have a lead for what to look further into. The problem when everything is new is that you almost don’t know what to search for. I’ve been reading up on this forum and other websites for some weeks now, I suspect I am getting to the point where I have a bit of information overload.
Also, there may be dedicated scene controllers available, so a set of buttons that can trigger a Vera and/or Z-Wave scene. (If you’re in North America, you could look at Leviton for example.)
When using a light switch, it will drive the light directly, so if it also is to trigger a scene that involves the same light, you may notice the light first doing what it is told by the switch and then by the scene in Vera.
Also, if you had scene-capable devices, using a light switch (as opposed to a scene controller) to trigger a scene, wouldn’t make use of the scene capability.
I am located in the Netherlands so after doing a bit more reading using the pointers from Garrett I assume that Fibaro switches should work for my purpose. Finding a list of instant status capable devices in europe proved to be somewhat a challenge as I keep stumbling over lists of controllers that are not available in the local webshops.
You do touch into something else though that is exactly what I was a bit confused about. Let’s say I have one fibaro switch behind the lightswitch for the lamp in the ceiling, right next to the door. What I then want to do is to have one switch turn on the ceiling light and trigger a scene that turns on a bunch of other phillips hue/living white lamps. If the scene or any of the active scenes are (not off), and I press the button that should turn off all lights in that room. Hitting the switch again within say 2 seconds toggles to the next scene. (typically a selection of the default lamps set to a chosen intensity value/hue.
Will I hit some obstacles that I cannot overcome if I try to setup something like this? Or does it for some reason that I cannot think of sound like a very stupid plan? I should be able to do some simple programming if needed, but I am a bit afraid that I end up having a ceiling light that turns on or off, and that my idea about using the phillips lamps which are far cheaper than a zwave switch or plug will just mess up everything.
I guess I should just order a vera lite and start playing with it, though I always prefer this research period when I think everything is possible and easy compared to when I sit with the gadget in my hands and realize what a pain in the hindparts it is to actually make it do what you want.
You can use a Program Logic Event Generator (PLEG) plugin to respond to switch on/off/on sequences. I use this trick on my bathroom fan. For this to work, you need to have switches that report instant status. The other thing you can do is use the second switch on a Fibaro module as another signal - to step the lights, for instance.
The Fibaro FGS211 (1 x 3kW) switch is instant status on its main switch but not on the auxilliary one. The FGS221 (2 x 1.5kW) is instant status on both switches. It is the same size and same cost as the FGS211 so I now fit them even if I only need one relay and/or switch.
@RexBecket, thanks. This is exactly the stuff that I have been trying to wrap my head around. I’ll make sure to buy the 2 x 1.5kW ones. Not sure I understand what you mean with the auxilliary switch, but I assume you mean if I add a sensor or the binary input thingy.
The FGS211 (1 x 3kW) switch has one relay but two switch inputs. The first switch (S1) directly controls the relay and reports instant status via Z-Wave. The relay can also be controlled via Z-Wave. The second switch (S2) reports its status via Z-Wave when polled so can be used as an additional (auxiliary) input provided you don’t need instant response.
Right, that is my assumption, as AFAIK, the FGS211/FGS221 have their relays hardwired to the buttons, i.e. they really are two switches (with some scene controller capabilities, as opposed to 2 switches plus a scene controller with 2 buttons).
So, if you did an on/off/on sequence (and have Vera detect this ‘double click’) there would be a (presumably small) period where the attached device is off. @RexBeckett, correct?
I just received a new Fibaro FGS211 with V2.1 firmware. The included datasheet gives no clue as to what was changed from the V1.9 switches I already have. A quick check revealed all: The S2 switch now reports instant status to Vera! Now it can be employed as a practical way to trigger scenes. 8) OK, I was already doing this by using FGS221s but the update does make it possible with a 3kW capacity switch.
Looking at the log, Vera does appear to transmit the command when I change the state in the UI. Given that S2 is just an input, though, I’m not sure what it achieves. It might do something if there was an association to S2, I suppose…
It might do something if there was an association to S2, I suppose...
I tried it - it doesn't! The associated device switches in response to the S2 input but does not respond to changes in the S2 status on Vera's UI. So it's still an input. ;)
