Hi! I have a GE/Jasco on-off switch, with 4 remote triggers.
I have it set to turn on another light in my house if it gets turned on, and off through scenes.
Here’s where it is working - when I turn of the switch at the GE/JASCO (main switch) the scene executes perfectly. If I turn it on/off through the UI, it executes perfectly…
However, when I use any of the remote trigger switches, it turns on and off, but it doesn’t trigger the scene, because the Vera unit doesn’t “see” that it has turned on and off.
Even with Instant Status devices, often if you have one device trigger another (like through direct association) in those cases change status is not sent out.
This is a common complaint on the Cooper 3-way switch that you pair with the main switch. The main switch supports instant status, the 3-way slave switch does not. If you use the slave switch to turn on the main switch… the instant status notification doesn’t happen. There is no way to work around this that I know of. You are probably facing something similar with the Jasco’s.
I don’t know of any practical workaround for the instant status issue, but there is a workaround called Niffler that solves this problem on a different Z wave platform. Perhaps someday we can figure out how to make this or something similar work with Vera.
[quote=“shallowearth, post:3, topic:194129”]What do you mean by “remote trigger”?
Even with Instant Status devices, often if you have one device trigger another (like through direct association) in those cases change status is not sent out.
This is a common complaint on the Cooper 3-way switch that you pair with the main switch. The main switch supports instant status, the 3-way slave switch does not. If you use the slave switch to turn on the main switch… the instant status notification doesn’t happen. There is no way to work around this that I know of. You are probably facing something similar with the Jasco’s.[/quote]
That must be it - The GE/Jascos work on the main switch for triggering the scene… it’s the slave or accessory switches that don’t do it. Even turning on the light with the accessory switches, Vera doesn’t see the status change. Weird, ya?
First, the GE/Jasco switches lack Instant Status. Without Instant Status, Vera is unaware of a state change on the switch until Vera polls the switch. This could be a matter of seconds or several minutes on a busy Z-Wave network.
However, Vera uses a trick to effect pseudo Instant Status with GE/Jasco switches, where Vera interprets a broadcast from the GE switches as a state change. This is what you are experiencing when you press the master switch. The pseudo Instant Status works pretty well, but only when Vera is able to “hear” the broadcast directly. The broadcast is not relayed through the mesh, so if Vera is a hop or two away from the switch, this pseudo Instant Status will fail.
The second issue is the one that is really impacting you. The GE/Jasco switches perform the previously described broadcast ONLY when the main switch is pressed. There is no broadcast when the remote/auxiliary switches are pressed or when another controller activates the switch. So, when the remote switch is pressed there is no broadcast and Vera can only become aware of the state change after polling the main switch. Again, this could take anywhere from seconds to minutes and there is no means of controlling this.
In order to use the switches and remotes as triggers for scenes, you’ll need to use switches that support Instant Status(Leviton RF+, and Cooper). This could be pricey so it may be desirable to find an alternative to using the switches as triggers, perhaps a motion sensor…
Z-wave explained it but the bottomline is you need new switches with instant status. And only the main GE 3 way switch acts some what as if it has instant status and only if its in direct communication with the controller not threw the mesh network. The add on switch wont even do this. So new switches with instant status is your answer.
Note I have Coopers, and even though coopers support instant status, the slave switch in the 3 way config do not, so you will still get the same flawed behavior, as the main cooper switch will not send an instant status update to Vera if it is triggered by the slave switch. So no better off there than the Jascos I don’t know if the Leviton aux switches have the same issue or not.
If you truly must have instant status on the slave switch, you probably need to use a scene controller instead, and have the scene toggle the master switch instead of using a slave switch.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:6, topic:194129”]Two related issues are at play here.
First, the GE/Jasco switches lack Instant Status. Without Instant Status, Vera is unaware of a state change on the switch until Vera polls the switch. This could be a matter of seconds or several minutes on a busy Z-Wave network.
However, Vera uses a trick to effect pseudo Instant Status with GE/Jasco switches, where Vera interprets a broadcast from the GE switches as a state change. This is what you are experiencing when you press the master switch. The pseudo Instant Status works pretty well, but only when Vera is able to “hear” the broadcast directly. The broadcast is not relayed through the mesh, so if Vera is a hop or two away from the switch, this pseudo Instant Status will fail.
The second issue is the one that is really impacting you. The GE/Jasco switches perform the previously described broadcast ONLY when the main switch is pressed. There is no broadcast when the remote/auxiliary switches are pressed or when another controller activates the switch. So, when the remote switch is pressed there is no broadcast and Vera can only become aware of the state change after polling the main switch. Again, this could take anywhere from seconds to minutes and there is no means of controlling this.
In order to use the switches and remotes as triggers for scenes, you’ll need to use switches that support Instant Status(Leviton RF+, and Cooper). This could be pricey so it may be desirable to find an alternative to using the switches as triggers, perhaps a motion sensor…[/quote]
Yep, I’ve pretty much given up on it. We just bought a house, and the kitchen lights had 5! yes 5! switches to turn them on and off. Being resourceful, I wired 1 GE/Jasco main switch, and 4 Auxs. That works perfectly. Where the problem is, when I turn on the kitchen lights, I want the kitchen sink lights to turn on. I thought I could accomplish this through a scene (and it did work, but only with the master switch). But it doesn’t work from the 4 Aux switches…because of a lack of instant triggering. So, is there a way to force 2 light switches to be utterly dependent on one another?
I think you need to describe what you actually trying to have happen. It sounds like you want a master and slave three way switch, that also triggers a scene to do some other action, but you really haven’t explained it enough to give advice. Can you explain the whole scenario of what ou want to have happen?
Yes, I have one master switch (Kitchen) that I wanted to use a scene to turn on another light (Sink). The Kitchen has 4! Aux/Slave switches. (because the house originally had 5 switches to turn on the kitchen lights…holy cow why…). The scene triggers appropriately when I turn the Kitchen on from it’s ‘main’ switch, but it does not trigger when I turn on the Aux Switches…in fact, it doesn’t even register that it’s been turned on or off on the Vera itself, unless I use the main switch.
If you switch to Cooper brand switches (or another brand that supports direct association), you will be able to do what you want. You can associate all the switches together so that they all work together in sync, they even work if your Vera is down or offline.
Oh, looking at the new Homeseer Dimmer, it looks like is supports instant status with the aux switches (and I think they work with the GE Aux switches), but I think Vera doesn’t fully support them yet. Something to keep an eye on anyway, might solve your problem eventually.
Some switches are firmware upgradable so features can be added later. Most switches do not though. The Homeseer Mentioned above are, but they don’t off much for vera users. Dragons are same as the homeseer (homeseer buys them from dragon, puts custom firmware, and rebox) but homeseer offers custom firmware updates that can only be installed over their original HS firmware. I would say firmware up-gradable is the future as you don’t want to throw away a 40-50 switch to add a new feature.
Besides Z-wave Plus, instant status, associations now double and triple tap to run scenes or other devices are being added.
But yes pay attention to what you get when you buy a 30-50.00 light switch there is differences. Ge is over due for an update to add some of these features.
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