I am currently installing a system on a 92 foot yacht…we have 20 dimmers, four Leviton Zone controllers, and 2 Leviton Scene controllers. I tryed to save a buck in the beginning and used all GE dimmers (ZW-3001) from SmartHome.com. It took a while but I soon found out that the Leviton Zone controllers worked fine with the GE dimmers but something keeps the Scene controllers from working. The GE dimmers don’t send out the information as to their current level that the Leviton Scene Controller needs in order to set the scene into its memory assosiated with each individual button.
I switched to Leviton dimmers and all my problems went away. I kept a few GE dimmers in the system that didn’t need to be Scene controlled because it seemed to be a waste to throw them all away!
Now I have interfaced the Vera with our DSC alarm system which works fine if you stick with the old Firmware and started writing scenes with timers. What a cool thing…a motion detector triggers and anything you can imagine can be done with the lights. I started using timers which allow you to take the level of a light to a new value and the “return to it’s last value”. Now this is where it gets interesting. The GE dimmers when using this setting hang up the scene and it never ends. You have to exit and restart the Internet Explorer to regain control.
The Leviton dimmers can do it with no problem. I am in a unique situation since I have both dimmers it made it easy to identify the problem.
Conclusion: This applies only to the new GE dimmers being sold…I cannot speak to the older models, The GE dimmers have some bugs that make them incompatible with other ZWave devices.
Question: Could this also be the source of delays I keep hearing about in the Zwave networks?
MiCasaVerde! Please examine the GE dimmers…they could be the source of hours and hours of user frustration!
Food for thought!!
Regards
Tim Alls
AllSeas Yachts
I’m not sure that I follow that having to restart IE automatically points at a bug in the GE dimmers. Have you tried this with other browsers, just GE dimmers, etc.? I set up a scene that turns on a single GE dimmer, then 10 seconds later goes to the previous setting. Works fine.
This bug might be specific to the new GE Dimmers. Others have reported different results using dimmers from the Radio Shack.
The ones I am using were bought last month from Smarthome and I have confimation that they don’t work with Leviton Scene controllers. They don’t send out there current status as expected so the controller cannot log the dimmer value for the scene. That is one bug. The other is that Vera is unable to return them to their previous state in a timer function.
I believe the two bugs are related…that the new GE dimmers are not responding to an attempted poll or such. This is speculation but what I do know is that the bug is real!
I am hoping that someone who has the equipment to monitor the data on the ZWave Mesh will follow through with this bug report and let GE know their dimmers have strayed from the Zwave compatability…
I have already talked to Leviton and they are aware of the issue but have no idea why the two cannot talk to each other.
The bug in “My” GE dimmer could have other side effects if it not responding to polling requests as I suspect.
Lets see what the experts have to say!
[...]don't work with Leviton Scene controllers. They don't send out there current status as expected so the controller cannot log the dimmer value for the scene.
Did you set this up with the Leviton remote? Perhaps it failed at properly programming the association in the GE.
Yes I used the Leviton Remote to set it up. The assosiations work fine, and Leviton Zone controllers work fine with GE dimmers. The Scene controllers failed with the GE dimmers in the button programming mode…where you hold the button down 5 seconds, set the dimmers, and hit the button again to store the value. The Leviton dimmers work ok but the GE dimmers don’t respond to the scene. Leviton tech support knows there is an issue.
Tim