Manual Light Switch Alerting Vera Question

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
1

I’m still getting my feet wet w/ my new VL, and one of my first projects integrates with my existing Arduino. In the master bath, behind the dual mirrors are 12V LED strips. Right now they come on either by a manual switch or timer in the Arduino. All works well.

Where VL comes in has to do with a z-wave light switch. I haven’t yet bought the switch so I’m not sure of the way this could work, but what I was hoping for was when the vanity lights are switched on like normal at the z-wave wall switch, that the event would update VL, which could take action and notify Arduino to trigger a PWM pin. The latter part about VL triggering Arduino is already worked out, just need to know if a switch when manually thrown will also notify VL of the status change.

Thanks.

2

It would seem that all you need is a switch which reports status instantly. This can simply be used to trigger a scene with your Arduino interaction.

3

That’s exactly my question. Will a, say GE/Jasco/other, on/off switch report status changes?

4

Sorry, can’t help you with that - wrong continent - we don’t have any of those makes here…

However, a search of the forum should make it abundantly clear after a bit of reading. There are always discussions going on about this. Search is your friend.

5

That’s exactly my question. Will a, say GE/Jasco/other, on/off switch report status changes?[/quote]

Yes, eventually not instantly. Frustratingly so.

The will be updated the next time Vera gets onto polling the actual switch. That time varies, but can be half a minute.

[quote=“akbooer, post:4, topic:181106”]Sorry, can’t help you with that - wrong continent - we don’t have any of those makes here…

However, a search of the forum should make it abundantly clear after a bit of reading. There are always discussions going on about this. Search is your friend.[/quote]

there are many alternatives which do instant update, as akbooer points out!

6

As has already been stated, the capability you desire requires the Instant Status feature in the switch.

This Homeseer Switch Matrix lists the features of the various switches. As you will see, the Leviton and Cooper switches support Instant Status.

GE/Jasco do not support Instant Status. That means that if you use GE/Jasco it will be up to Vera to poll the switch to determine its current state. Though this might provide near immediate results, the polling process can take up to a couple of minutes for Vera to become aware that you manually turned on the switch. Your scenes and actions will still work, but without Instant Status, they can be delayed by varying lengths of time.

7

The Leviton light switches have instant feedback to Vera and they would work to start an event. I have 2 of these switches and I use one to do exactly what you are wanting. I do not have any Cooper switches, but I believe they have instant status reporting also.