leviton scene controllers

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
1

So I know this has been talked about before but I’m adding more scene controllers and I don’t want any drama.

My older scene controller used the last tap in the settings and u added the scenes there and the scenes continued to work even if the vera was offline for some reason. the new scene controllers you need to use triggers vs scenes or the scene controller won’t work. also if vera is offline now the scene controller is useless cause the trigger is from vera vs a scene which is stored on the controller.

do you guys know about this and also is there any workaround. i will say when using the older scene controller it is way more peppy also. using triggers is fine but sometimes the scene controller hangs up and the scene doesn’t happen or i get freezes. i have to select a different scene and then select it again to turn it off.

also the triggers are a pain cause you pretty much have to do double of them one for on and one for off.

thanks,
jim

2

So I’ve got a couple of the newer Levitons. When you can actually get them paired, they work pretty well if the unit is online. That said, the scene controller is the first indication the Vera is locked up. Simple scenes still tend to work, but LEDs don’t match the scene state. The primary function of the scene controllers is to control two Fibaro RGBW units in tandem that illuminate a media room. That control completely quits when the Vera is locked up. Now that I have weekly reboots automatically running, the reliability has improved, but if I am accessing the system frequently, I’ll need to manually reboot.

3

There is an explanation for what is going on here.

When including a secondary controller, Vera will attempt to program that controller to do the things that the controller can handle, such as normal Zwave lights. Devices that cannot be controlled by the controller (such as the Fibaro RGBW bulbs) have to be handled by Vera itself, and is run when Vera receives the scene command from the controller.

In other words, when setup properly, the controller will directly send out the commands to devices it can control, and also sends a command to Vera. Vera in turn will send out the additional commands that are necessary for the scene.

I notice this with my Leviton wall switch scene controller. The Leviton scene controller only controls Leviton lights. So the response time on my Leviton lights is immediate, by my GE lights have a delay as their command is routed through Vera (and will not switch if Vera is offline).

Different controllers can directly control different devices, and the various Vera releases handle controller programming just a little differently too.

Hope this helps in explaining what is happening here.