Difficulties getting the Scenes right on Leviton 4-button VRCS4-M0Z

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
1

As part of our complete kitchen remodel, we had the electrical re-done including all new lights, switches, etc. Decided to go with a VeraEdge and Leviton switches for this first home automation set up. I was able to successfully add each Leviton switch and dimmer to the VeraEdge. I can properly control each device. I created 4 scenes:

[ol][li]All Lights[/li]
[li]Cooking Area Only[/li]
[li]Ceiling Fan[/li]
[li]Light Fixtures Only[/li][/ol]

All Lights scene is the one give me headaches. It controls the following switches dimmers:

[ul][li]Ceiling LEDs fixtures[/li]
[li]Two Light fixures (one is the ceiling fan light)[/li]
[li]Sink Light[/li]
[li]Under cabinet lights[/li][/ul]

If I trigger the scene via the Vera web interface, all of the lights come on. The Scene works as I want it. I programmed the scene to use button 1 on the VRCS4 scene controller and when I physically press it, everything comes on except the under cabinet lights. Button 4 lights up on the scene controller (not button 1 because the under cabinet lights are not on). Button 4 is for the two light fixtures and pressing that turns off those two but (as expected) doesn’t turn off anything else.

Not sure what I am doing wrong.

Initially, I had programmed button 4 to be All On and noticed that buttons 1 and 2 lit up. I am guessing that since the scene controller found the lights associated with buttons 1 and 2 on, the button light activated. I moved the scene to button 1 to see if that would alleviate that issue.

Feedback and guidance appreciated.

Al

2

I also had some inconsistent behavior from a related product, the Leviton VRCZ4-MRZ which is the same product but with built-in load control (on/off). I found a few interesting issues with this product, but have since resolved them.

  1. I found that the antenna in this product is terrible. When adding it to my z-wave network, I had to have the Vera controller within inches of the switch or it wouldn’t program successfully. Also, after healing my network with stress test, the switch only had a 1-star health rating (out of 5) despite the fact that it is only 6-7 feet from its nearest neighbor across the hallway (direct line of site). I have an empty outlet about 2 ft. from the controller so I plugged a z-wave repeater into that outlet. It still only has a three-star health rating, but it works reliably now.

  2. Initially, the scene that I had programmed and assigned to one of the buttons controlled many switches simultaneously (no delay). Often, several of the switches would not respond, but it was never consistent. After reading some forum posts by others having a similar problem, I reprogrammed my scene so that half of the switches would get activated, then I introduced a 1s delay, then activated the other 1/2 of the switches. This fixed my issue, but I suspect that the relay in my device was causing some interference if they relay was triggered while the device was transmitting z-wave commands. I’m not sure if this will help you, but it’s worth an experiment.