Just installed three Heatit Z-Dim rotary dimmers with Vera Plus. Having some issues with them, the most important is that the dimming scale is way off, if that is the right term. I’ll try to explain:
The scale in Vera goes from 0-100 dim level. So I expect the light to be at 50% brightness when I tell Vera to set the light at 50%, naturally. This works well with all other dimmers I have from Fibaro and Qubino. But not with Heatit. They do not respond to 50% at all, instead they go to full power when set to 50%.
So, it seems like the Heatit dimmers start dimming when Vera is at about 30%. Everything above 30% is 100% power/dim level.
They will dim quite ok from 30% down to 0%. So they reach full brightness at 30% in Vera.
Any help very appreciated!
(Heatit customer support just says it works fine in Fibaro. Helpful as always. )
Not familiar with these dimmers but have you read the user manual for them. Is there some kind of calibration routine you have to run like on the Fibaro Dimmer 2 modules?
Yes, I read the manual and perfomed the calibration. It is very manual, not like the Fibaros.
Basically like this: Manually set the lowest dim level on the switch. Set parameter 2 to lowest desirable dim percentage (I entered 1).
Then do the opposite for maximum level, set parameter 3 accordingly. I entered 99 and saved it.
For every save the lights go off. Then the dim level using the physical dimmer changes according to the settings, default is min 20% and max 80% or something. So the parameter settings does change the physical dimming using the switch, but not the GUI dimming.
I’m sure we can circle in on the underlying problem/solution together, but first I have to mention a parallel situation involving a toggle dimmer switch that controls my chandelier, in which I’ve installed 10 LED bulbs.
If I instruct Vera to dim that switch to ANY level below 30-ish, the LEDs do come on very dimly, but you cannot tell the difference visually. Dim=1 looks exactly like Dim=29. Same thing at the top end: Dim=70 looks no different brightness-wise than Dim=100.
My Vera naturally thinks there are 100 different possible brightnesses So does the dimmer switch. But I, the user, only perceive 40 of them. The fault, of course, lies with my choice of dimmable LED bulbs, not the controller or switch (or my eyes!). In fact, when the light fixture originally had incandescent bulbs, you could readily tell the difference from Dim=1 all the way to Dim=100!
Makes me wonder about the efficacy of the calibration routine your device employs, since all it apparently does is “map” a range of brightness (subjective) back to empirical values (objective) at the device level, which do not get communicated in any meaningful way back to your Vera.
NOTE: If my theory is in the ballpark, then setting your HeatIt dimmer’s max brightness “Parameter 3” to “30” should result in a better mapping of the full range.
But I am afraid setting parameter 2 to 30 didn’t change anything.
There are other issues with these devices as well. They become unresponsive from Vera, they fail to configure, they flicker now and then, and they don’t dim linear from the GUI.
So it adds up, and I decided to just return them.
I dim the exact same bulbs with Fibaro dimmers, they work without issues.
Too bad, as I really wanted rotary dimmers at this location. So going back to ordinary dimmers for now.
Sorry it didn’t work out. Dimmers and LED bulbs are the alchemy of the home automation world. I’d suggest (for fun!) replacing one bulb with a traditional incandescent (or another brand of LED) just to see if the response curve problem is not entirely the fault of the HeatIt switch.
On the other hand, you clearly know what you’re doing, so this suggestion of mine is just grasping at straws (before you go unwiring things).
I only have LEDs here at my vacation house, but I will try one with incandescent load when I get back home. Also with HomeSeer 4, which is my primary controller at home. Have an old Vera there so I can compare results.
