Fan Control Shows Up As Light

I have a Jasco 12730 Fan Controller that I just installed. It is detected as a dimmable light (Cat2, Subcat0) and falls into the category of “light” as it pertains to the dashboard for All Lights On or All Lights Off control.

Is there a way to change the cat/subcat so that it does NOT get categorized as a light? I would like to be able to hit “Turn All Lights Off” on the dashboard and NOT have it turn the fan off.

Incidentally, I had to modify the DIM URL for the bridge device as I control this with Alexa. For some reason, it only supported On/Off even though it saw it as a dimmable switch. Odd.

[quote=“ember1205, post:1, topic:193133”]I have a Jasco 12730 Fan Controller that I just installed. It is detected as a dimmable light (Cat2, Subcat0) and falls into the category of “light” as it pertains to the dashboard for All Lights On or All Lights Off control.

Is there a way to change the cat/subcat so that it does NOT get categorized as a light? I would like to be able to hit “Turn All Lights Off” on the dashboard and NOT have it turn the fan off.

Incidentally, I had to modify the DIM URL for the bridge device as I control this with Alexa. For some reason, it only supported On/Off even though it saw it as a dimmable switch. Odd.[/quote]

There is a thread specifically for the “All On or All Off” control. But the end result was everyones all on and all off are different and use a scene instead. When you start playing wiht cat/subcat is creates more problems then it fixes. And You may even have lights (attic basment or others) that you don’t want on that group anyways. I have hotwater heaters controled by relays and they show up as lights also. Pretty much every on/off or dimming device does. If I find that thread I’ll post it here.

Found it here.

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,37280.msg278346.html#msg278346

Thanks.

Nice that they added the “All Lights Off” and “All Lights On” function but made it so that’s it’s basically useless since you have no control over what is or isn’t included.

I have no issue programming scenes to do work. The gripe I have about it is that a) this is a Dashboard control that’s very convenient (you can’t put scenes on your Dashboard OR in your Favorites) and b) scenes are nowhere near as quick and easy to access from the app. One other aspect is that using a scene requires that I add every new light that I add to Vera in order for it to be part of the scene while the auto control picks them up WITHOUT any programming / editing.

Yay for useless functions!

In my shop … the order of turning on/off lights is important as well.

I have 24 Lights in a 6 x 4 grid each individually controlled. 23 are controlled by Z-Wave plugs in the ceiling.
I have one Wall Switch (Actually 3 Way setup near each entry way)

When I turn on the Wall Switch it remembers the Lights I had on before and turns those lights on.
When I turn off the Wall Switch it turns all the “ON” lights to “OFF”.

To change the “Set of Lights” to be turned on or off, I change an individual light while the Wall Switch is on.

The UI7 All On/All Off would play havoc with this setup.

RTS:

I’m guessing you’re using local device variables to store information as to whether the status of the light was manually turned “on” or “off” and then relying on that information when you toggle the light switch to determine which ones come on? And, I’m guessing you’re writing to the variables per light when the “off” scene runs (it polls each light prior to sending the OFF command and also writes the previous status)?

If that’s your setup, I can see how the All On/All Off would interfere, to an extent. All On would force you to turn back off all of the lights that you didn’t want on. All Off would not save the “current” data, but the previously saved states should still be there. Unless your “On” scene would still kick in and re-set the lights for you. You’d still lose the state data if you used All Off.

But this further drives home my point of being able to identify which devices get controlled by an All On or All Off switch. In your scenario, you would exclude the 23 individual devices and allow only the 24th device that is switch-controlled. The All On and All Off commands would control only that one light in your shop and it would still trigger your scenes to operate as they do otherwise.

While I like much of what Vera is able to do, I’m disappointed in the level of configurability that we have in many areas. It’s difficult (if not impossible) to change icons in the web interface, icons can NOT be changed in the mobile app, you can’t enable/disable scenes (not without programming and needing a virtual switch, anyhow), scenes can’t be saved to Favorites, you can’t specify whether a switch is a light or not (I have Aeotec Smart Switch 6 devices that Vera insists are lights even though I do not use them for lights), etc.

I’m going to have to look around at other options to see if other solutions provide more flexibility like this. In very small deployments, Vera does a nice job. As you start moving toward more and more automation and control, it falls flat pretty quickly and turns into a support nightmare because you have to do so much programming.

Actually my ALL ON scene … turns all the lights on in the Grid EXCEPT the master … and master comes on after a delay.
That way it does not change the configuration.

My All OFF scene turns off the master first … then after a delay it turns off ALL the lights in the grid … in case they were ON but not part of the current config.

So it’s not just a marking what to include, but also the order, and in some cases prescribed delays.

[quote=“ember1205, post:4, topic:193133”]Thanks.

Nice that they added the “All Lights Off” and “All Lights On” function but made it so that’s it’s basically useless since you have no control over what is or isn’t included.

I have no issue programming scenes to do work. The gripe I have about it is that a) this is a Dashboard control that’s very convenient (you can’t put scenes on your Dashboard OR in your Favorites) and b) scenes are nowhere near as quick and easy to access from the app. One other aspect is that using a scene requires that I add every new light that I add to Vera in order for it to be part of the scene while the auto control picks them up WITHOUT any programming / editing.

Yay for useless functions![/quote]

Problem is everyone is different and we all need different customization. It’s more of a newbie or beginners tool then it is for someone who has a house full of mixed device.
Things like having to add new lights to your scene should not be a hard task for you, nor should it be an everyday thing. And the new light you add may or may not be needed in that one scene or control anyways. I have unused bedrooms, attics, crawl spaces, garages, plus the things you recently found, like hot water heaters, pumps and other non lights that I don’t always need all on or off command even if they appear to vera as a light.

Then you have the useless Vera app, that many users end up not using after getting used to vera anyways. I use Imperihome or Homewave which I can put a scene button anywhere even on my home screen of the phone. It also doesn’t have the all on or off that vera is using. So I never see that button anyways. And the geofencing doesn’t work right or with multiple phones and people so after awhile you do your own thing anyways also requiring a different app then Vera’s.

Bottom-line is that works great out of the box with a few lights and simple setup (beginners), but alot of people will grow beyond that after a short time like yourself and want more control. They usually then move on to a more complicated solution that actually works for their specific needs. You will also get to a point like myself that literally every switch in the house is now z-wave (it wasn’t 4 years ago for me) and I’m no longer needing to do everyday changes and additions like when I first started and was changing out one room at a time every few weeks.