Hi All,
I live in Australia and I’ve been having an ongoing issue trying to get the Fibaro Dimmer (FDG-212) to work in conjunction with Saturn Clipsal wall switches with in-built blue LED backlight.
I have recently installed a couple of Fibaro Dimmer FDG-212 in my living and dining room and can control them perfectly using the Vera Smart Home App. The problem here is, in order to turn off the lights manually using the Clipsal Switch, I need to push the button 3 times rapidly and then only will the lights turn off(see attached short video). Also trying to dim the lights manually at the Clipsal Switch, its either 100% bright or 10% dim but I can’t control the level of brightness when the button is pressed and held in (again it works fine using the Vera App).
It is absolutely driving my wife insane and has been giving me grief for having changed the switches and installed dimmers without her knowledge.
Any ideas and help how I can get all this to work would be much appreciated. Also I am happy to pay any installers in the Perth Area who can help configure this all for me.
First, check if the configuration of the Dimmer (see manual for configuration parameter numbers and values) match the switch type.
I have the older model (FGD-211) and it has three settings for switch type: monostable, bistable, and roller (one button controls increasing, and the other decreasing light level). For bistable switch you have another parameter where you can define if dimmer reacts according to ON/OFF position of the switch (turn on when you close the circuit and off if you open it) or change of its state (toggle to opposite state every time switch changes its state, no matter if it was previously ON or OFF).
The dimmer has also another setting for using it with corridor lights (more than one physical switch steering the light), but if you didn’t change defaults, it should be off.
I don’t know if FGD-212 has the same configuration possibilities, but basically I suppose that your problems are coming from mismatch between dimmer settings and the switch type. according to what you say and the video you’ve attached, I guess you have bistable switch and using it with default (monostable) settings in the dimmer.
If this won’t help, I would check if wiring is done properly (Fibaro dimmer has one output and two inputs, if you don’t use it with multiple switches or roller type of switch you should use only one input)
By the way, from my experience, those dimmers work best with monostable type of switches. If you set bistable type in parameters, you’ll loose ability to steer dim level (except the “double tap” function, which sets lights to 100%, regardles what dim level was set previously). If you use bistable switch with monostable settings, it may work, but will be very inconvenient: there is no easy option to just turn light on or off, pressing the button immediately makes it start increasing or decreasing light level. This is visible on your movie, you turn the switch, and the light goes from min to max level. If it was set up correctly it should just turn on with last used level.
This also explains why you have to switch it triple times to make the light off: 1st click is considered as monosable switch kept pressed (start increasing dim level), 2nd click: monostable switch released (stop changing the dimming level) 3rd click is considered as monostable switch pressed again (start decreasing dim level).
I have exact same problem with Clipsal momentary bell press switch. Works fine from Vera, but switch does same as you describe with clipsal saturn. Any luck fixing this ?
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