Hi,
I recently bought some Linear WD500Z dimmers and a WT00Z accessory switch. I bought them because the specs say they support association. My controller says the dimmer does not do association at all and the switch only has one group instead of the four ones described in the manual. Does anyone use these features with these products? If so, how?
I sent several emails to Linear and to zwaveproducts.com (where I bought them) without getting a reply.
Thanks,
Jonas
Did you try using the Aeon Labs Minimote to do the associations? I have read in the literature that one is required to do this.
I have read a lot of posts saying that the Linear line does not function as advertised and I too, am trying to find some answers before I go down the same road as you and purchase them, only to find out that they don’t work as advertised.
Good Luck!
Are you using the Vera to set up the associations? I’ve installed several Linear WD500Z dimmers and a WT00Z accessory switches and used Vera to set up the associations. They all work fine. Once you include both devices in Vera, go to the Device Options tab in the accessory switch and associate it to the WD500Z device.
If you need more detail let me know.
[quote=“beerguy, post:3, topic:179397”]Are you using the Vera to set up the associations? I’ve installed several Linear WD500Z dimmers and a WT00Z accessory switches and used Vera to set up the associations. They all work fine. Once you include both devices in Vera, go to the Device Options tab in the accessory switch and associate it to the WD500Z device.
If you need more detail let me know.[/quote]
Would you be so kind as to walk us noobs thru this process? 
I have a Vera 3 en-route along with both a WD500 and WT00Z and want to ensure they work as advertised before buying more.
Have you had any success with associations in group 2,3 and 4 on these devices? This is the function I am interested to know about, as nobody on this forum to the best of my knowledge has had any success making this function work.
If you use an Aeon Labs Minimote, I can verify it is a very simple and easy process to associate the Linear WD500Z and a WT00Z together in a 3-way virtual circuit.
Here are some tests I just finished to see if I could address some of the questions re Linear devices and Associations/Grouping.
Test 1: Aeon Labs Minimote - Included a WD500Z and a WT00Z to network, include the WD500 1st, the WT 2nd. Associate each in the same order. Thats it, they are now associated directly to each other and you do not need a controller anymore. This is a virtual 3-way, or could be a multi-way with more WT’s I am assuming, but I did not try it.
Test 2: Aeon Labs Minimote - Included a GE 45605 receptacle and a WT00Z, again including the load bearing device 1st, the 45605, the WT 2nd. Associate each in the same order. Done, now the WT controls the GE 45605 receptacle directly. No dimming of course as the 45605 is a relay. Works good for putting in a light switch on the wall and having it control a lamp or appliance plugged into a wall outlet.
Test 3: Aeon Labs Minimote - Included a Linear PD300Z Lamp module and a GE 45605 receptacle to the minimotes network. Associated them both. Then Added them both to one of the scene buttons on the minimote. Now you can have a lamp module turning on/off a receptacle with your minimote, one button press. Since these are scenes, you can even set a preset dim to the PD300Z. This one might be used to turn on/off/dim a pair of lights (one plugged into the PD300 lamp module and the second plugged into the receptacle).
Test 4: GE 45601 Primary controller - I included a WD500Z to a key (digit 5) first, a GE 45605 receptacle to a key (digit 6) second. Then I added both keys 5 & 6 to group 1 (do that separately for each key/device) Now when you hit Group 1 key on the remote, both the switch’s lighting load and the receptacle will both turn on and off at the same time. Plus you also have individual control using the keys separately, so you can still have dimming for the WD500Z dimmer. You will lose the dimming option when using the group key because in a group all device are supposed to be the same type of device functions, so in this case you only get on/off. I am running tests so I didn’t care.
Disclaimer: I did these tests on my testing station in my office where everything is connected in a very small indistinct z-wave network. It is near perfect conditions so results may vary in a real world application. Direct associations require direct links to the nodes so I have not tested an assigned association.
Also, I have not tried this with a VeraLite or a Vera3 yet. It was very easy with the minimote and the 45601, they are both excellent troubleshooting/tools for your network, but I would assume that everything these two could do, the Vera should be able to do as well. I was simply trying to do some simple tests re the Linear devices.
PS: I did not try the Group 2,3,4 association per the manual. I simply did not have time, so maybe another day I will attempt that. I have successfully done this on the Evolve switches and they are just rebranded Linear’s but they could be a different firmware or version and I have never tried the Linears.
Hope this helps somebody!
Thanks for taking the time to explain the process of association to us, it is much appreciated and certainly makes things easier for us noobs!
I would love to know if you have any success with the other groups on the Linear, as this is the feature that attracted me to the linear in the first place, and there has been a lot of talk about it not working at all.
Please keep us posted, I am eager to know if your other groups work!
V
@haworld - In your informative post above, you are associating the WT00Z(a scene controller) to control the WD500Z. This also works when using Vera to perform the association.
However, according the the manual in the WD500Z, you should be able to control other dimmers or a receptacle from the WD500Z. That is to say, associate the WD500Z to the receptacle.
This has not worked fro the last three Linears that I have purchased, nor an Evolve dimmer that I also have.
I can’t imagine that the Minimote would really make a difference, but I don’t have one to test. Would you please try creating an association between the WD500Z and the receptacle or lamp module ? Can you make the WD500Z control anything else, as described in the manual? What about Groups 2 and 3?
@Z-Waver - No luck associating anything other than the WT to the WD! Been trying for hours, nothing so far. I can use the minimote as a scene controller and have the 45605 work with the WD but thats a scene not an association and requires a controller key press. Same for using groups and the 45601. So far cannot get the WD to control any other devices directly without using a key on a controller.
Also have tried everything and cannot get the WD500Z do anything at all with Groups 2 and/or 3 either, like it says in the manual. Groups no prob, scenes no prob, but other than with the WT, the WD won’t do any direct association with any other device as far as I can tell anyways.
Very frustrated, I quit for today lol.
Sounds like you are having the same issues with these devices that everyone else is having. Probably a good time for a break lol.
When you feel like going back to this, I was also wondering if you could try another scenario, namely an attempt at programming the group function on the WT, as opposed to the WD. It appears that you have confirmed @Z-Waver and his inability to make the scene controller and group functions work on the WD, but I’m wondering if the WT will work ‘as advertised’ and allow group programming beyond group 1. You managed to get it to associate, so maybe the group functions work too…fingers crossed.
Thanks again for all your efforts!
@Vodden - I am pretty sure the groups will work quite well with the WT00Z using associations but I will be happy to do some more tests with different products and devices. Give me a day or two and I will repost.
Btw, I will be taking this up with Linear as to why the associations don’t seem to work with the WD. I am a dealer and until I get to the bottom of this missing “feature” and find out why they are putting a feature that doesn’t work in their instruction manual OR get them to tell us how to make it work, I will not be advertising a feature that doesn’t exist. This isn’t over and I will get to the bottom of how to do it OR someone at Linear will need to tell me its a mistake. Either way it will be resolved.
[quote=“haworld, post:10, topic:179397”]@Vodden - I am pretty sure the groups will work quite well with the WT00Z using associations but I will be happy to do some more tests with different products and devices. Give me a day or two and I will repost.
Btw, I will be taking this up with Linear as to why the associations don’t seem to work with the WD. I am a dealer and until I get to the bottom of this missing “feature” and find out why they are putting a feature that doesn’t work in their instruction manual OR get them to tell us how to make it work, I will not be advertising a feature that doesn’t exist. This isn’t over and I will get to the bottom of how to do it OR someone at Linear will need to tell me its a mistake. Either way it will be resolved.[/quote]
Once again, much appreciated. Since you are going thru all the trouble of doing all this testing, I should return the favor and purchase my devices thru you if you do mail order. You may have better luck with Linear than the others on the forum since you are a dealer and all others are end users, so you maybe you’re what we’ve all been needing to get the answers we all have.
Best of luck with Linear and if you have an online store, put up a link so I know who to support with future purchases!
That’s Karma patting you on the back 
[quote=“haworld, post:8, topic:179397”]@Z-Waver - No luck associating anything other than the WT to the WD! Been trying for hours, nothing so far. I can use the minimote as a scene controller and have the 45605 work with the WD but thats a scene not an association and requires a controller key press. Same for using groups and the 45601. So far cannot get the WD to control any other devices directly without using a key on a controller.
Also have tried everything and cannot get the WD500Z do anything at all with Groups 2 and/or 3 either, like it says in the manual. Groups no prob, scenes no prob, but other than with the WT, the WD won’t do any direct association with any other device as far as I can tell anyways.
Very frustrated, I quit for today lol.[/quote]
Thanks for trying and confirming my results.
I will also be taking this up with Linear. I got them you respond once, but their response was ambiguous. Followup questions have not elicited a response yet.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:12, topic:179397”]Thanks for trying and confirming my results.
I will also be taking this up with Linear. I got them you respond once, but their response was ambiguous. Followup questions have not elicited a response yet.[/quote]
@Z-Waver - You’re welcome, I am happy to do this stuff anytime (when I have time lol) its easy for me as I have a test bench and it helps, I hope, all Vera users, Z-wave and HA enthusiasts which is the whole point.
I have a Linear rep and he has been trying to get me in contact with the right person in the company so I am hopeful that will happen someday, even if it takes awhile. They are such a big company, and really don’t seem too responsive if you ask me.
[quote=“Vodden, post:11, topic:179397”]Once again, much appreciated. Since you are going thru all the trouble of doing all this testing, I should return the favor and purchase my devices thru you if you do mail order. You may have better luck with Linear than the others on the forum since you are a dealer and all others are end users, so you maybe you’re what we’ve all been needing to get the answers we all have.
Best of luck with Linear and if you have an online store, put up a link so I know who to support with future purchases!
That’s Karma patting you on the back ;)[/quote]
@Vodden - thanks for the pat on the back but please don’t feel obligated to buy from us, that not why I am here and certainly am not here to spam my web site. I will send you a PM with a link but the store is my username which will come up on Google. Thanks again!
It’s obvious to me that you are doing this because you want to. One thing I’ve noticed about the VERA home automation community is the level of cooperation and commitment to helping each other out to achieve a goal that would be otherwise extremely difficult and in some cases probably impossible by oneself. Everybody seems to do whatever is within their power to help out. There are many noteworthy members of this community that have selflessly gone out of their way to make this forum as effective and informative as it is. You have proven yourself to me as one of them, as some of the questions I have had about Linear products are nowhere to be found on this forum, but now you are going out of your way to answer those questions for me specifically, but in the end will help everyone on this forum. AND, as an added bonus, the WT00Z-1 from your store is the best price I have found yet! WIN WIN!!! I just hope they work as advertised…
Have a great weekend!
V
@Vodden - Thanks for that, much appreciated.
Now, going forward…Just finished some more testing on these da** Linear switches. I still believe they are a valuable product but want to clarify/summarize this issue as best I can, in an effort to show that.
I did a bunch of testing with the WD500Z & WT00Z and some added devices…
- The group 2,3 and/or 4 association defined by a differing number of keypresses as per the manual, does NOT work on anything in any way that I can see. Epic failure!
- When the keypress functions failed I tried doing the associations within Vera referring to the Group ID numbers (1,2,3 & 4) when setting up the association. No number works at all that I can see when used with the WD500Z except when using Group ID 1 with the WT00Z.
- To clarify, associating the WD500Z to the WT00Z works great no matter how you do the association except when using a Vera - You must use group ID 1, when using an Aeon Labs Minimote, there is no issue as it always works using the minimote either standalone with the “association” button that also works if you “learn” it into your Vera. No problems either way with either controller.
- Associating the WT00Z with Vera using Group ID 2,3 & 4 (and presumably any other number) works great when associating it to almost anything else. I used various group ID’s to successfully associate the WT to a GE 45605 receptacle and to a PD300Z Linear lamp module, both separately and all three together, no problems, works great, no controller needed after the initial config.
Then I thought, ok if the Linear doesn’t work and since the Evolves are made by Linear, lets see if something didn’t get lost in translation along the way and see if the Evolve LRM-AS (which has the same instruction manual) and the LTM-5 (also same manual) as the Linear WD/WT, will work with this keypress group 2,3,4 feature. No it does NOT! At least not for me. Next since I had them hooked up, why not try some other association tests which should work the same as the Linear WD/WT.
Here are those results…
- I associated a Vision Motion Sensor/Temp ZP3102US to a GE 45605 with Vera. When the 3102 is motion triggered, it turns on the 45605 receptacle. When the motion trigger is reset, ie: no motion detected, it turns off the 45605. Works great! Than I added in an LRM-AS to the mix within Vera to the same group, voila! Now you could have the 3102 trigger a plug-in lamp AND a load bearing LRM-AS(WD500Z) turn on a light when motion is sensed WITHOUT a controllers. Thats how association is supposed to work.
- Next I added an LTM-5 to the mix using a different group ID with vera. and associated it with the LRM-AS, hoping this would allow me to use the LTM as a slave in a 3-way with the LRM as the master, and, if it worked then you would still have the group association intact from Test 1. It did!! Test 1 association using the 3102 motion sensor as the trigger, controlled a receptacle AND a Light load at the same time PLUS I now had that function and a 3-way virtual light switch setup between the LTM/LRM. Obviously this should work the same with a WD/WT Linear combo.
That was yesterdays efforts.
To summarize.
A: The Linear WD500Z only associates with the WT00Z as in a virtual 3-way circuit. Same for the Evolve LRM/LTM. Both work very well, and very easy to do.
- from what I can tell, the WD/LRM cannot associate with anything else except when being associated with the WT/LTM in which case it seems to be the controlling node, not the slave. The WD/LTM does work as a slave node of an association when you use a sensor as the controlling node. (I hope I have this terminology right but it seems to work for my purposes, please correct me if I am using the wrong z-wave lingo here. I was reading from the zensys/sigma specs)
B: The Linear WT00Z is a great device when used as a scene controller but as it lacks direct load control. It will associate with almost anything I used as above and probably lots more.
C: The whole point of this thread, was basically to discuss whether the Linear line of switches support direct association as per the manual, and I think the exciting part of this notion was that the WD as a load bearing dimmer could control multiple loads or devices directly without a controller simply by varying the amount of keypresses the user made.
IE; Press once (group 1 devices) are turned on along with a local light.
Press twice (group 2 devices) are turned on/off or dimmed without affecting the local load. Same for group 3 and group 4 (3 or 4 keypresses or taps)
The attraction here would have been multiple load/scene control from a one button rocker switch, as the instructions seem to infer, IF it worked. But it doesn’t - or at least I was not able to get it to work.
What I suspect happened is this…either the original HomePro z-wave switches which these are based on, had this function and somewhere in the Linear/Evolve/HomePro evolution it was lost. OR it still exists but the instructions do not adequately tell us how to make the function work. Either way it may only be resolved with Linear or Evolves direction in the matter and that may take awhile.
Hope this helps clarify the issue, please chime in if I missed something or if you want something else tested.
Again, I still think these are pretty good switches to use and have in your network, there are things they STILL can do that GE or Jasco cannot, and IMO are still a valuable addition to your system. At least now we know that what they do DO, and don’t DO. Use them for what they can do and in the meantime, lets hope we can get Linear involved and maybe someday get them working like their instructions say they do.
Regards.
(BTW it may also be that this keypress feature doesn’t work because the single tap NWI keypress also doesn’t seem to work. Classic inclusion on these is done by a double tap not a single, single is supposed to be for NWI and I cannot get that to work either - If the keypress function was initiated by NWI inclusion then it makes sense to me that that may be why it doesn’t work at all)
@haworld - Thanks for doing the testing. Your tests have confirmed my experience with Vera, but with Linear insisting on a Minimote for a controller, I wanted to be sure before I start fist pounding.
The manuals clearly state that the WD500Z-1 and the LRM-AS can control multiple associated(slave) devices. Those manuals make no mention of the WT00Z-1 or the LTM-5 wireless remotes(scene controllers). But even with the remotes the WD500Z-1 and the LRM-AS control nothing. No associations.
I will try to re-engage Linear on this matter on Monday. The dimmers do NOT operate as advertised.
@haworld - Sounds like you burned up the better part of your weekend working on this little project. It has definitely cleared up a lot of questions for me and many others on the forum judging by the amount of traffic this post has seen.
There were a few things I wanted to confirm:
Did you try and function the multiple tap function on both the WD and the WT? (It sounds like it, I just wanted to confirm) I am particularly interested in the WT, as I was planning on using it as a multiple scene controller, independent of the WD, to control 3 Aeon Labs micro-dimmer’s in 4 different scene configurations.
Was the ‘hold to dim’ function on the WT tested on this configuration? If the dim command was successful on the PD, presumably it should be successful on the micro dimmers as well.
It appears that you have exhausted any and every scenario in which these devices could be configured and your efforts are appreciated. (Linear should have tried this…)
Thanks again.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:16, topic:179397”]@haworld - Thanks for doing the testing. Your tests have confirmed my experience with Vera, but with Linear insisting on a Minimote for a controller, I wanted to be sure before I start fist pounding.
The manuals clearly state that the WD500Z-1 and the LRM-AS can control multiple associated(slave) devices. Those manuals make no mention of the WT00Z-1 or the LTM-5 wireless remotes(scene controllers). But even with the remotes the WD500Z-1 and the LRM-AS control nothing. No associations.
I will try to re-engage Linear on this matter on Monday. The dimmers do NOT operate as advertised.[/quote]
Agreed and thanks for the support with Linear. I am getting nowhere with them, I haven’t given up yet but won’t have much time this week. Good luck!
@Vodden - Sorry for the late response, I promise to check out /clarify your questions, I am just out of time for this week. I’ll post a response soon.
Other parts of my build came in this week so a security system set-up and install has occupied most of my time as well.
Thanks for the update!
V