Ive recently installed my new RGBW strip in a new part of my lounge, connected to the Fibaro RGBW controller. I use a vera 3 and this is my first zwave device to play with. I’ve added it and can see the 6 dimable lights, i understand one is the parent and 4 are RGBW but not sure what the other one is.
What I really want to do right now is to be able to store colour presets, then call them up when I want. I use iRule/Demopad to control my house and for lighting, I just want buttons that will send commands to vera to activate certain colours like a blue button, red button, white button etc. I know how to use demopad to execute scenes on Vera, but not sure how to set up these colour “presets” that I want. I tried using scenes for them but switching between, for example, red scene and blue scene, doesn’t work properly, it basically goes purple.
Is there an easier way to do this? Im pretty technical but have not got my head around the vera interface and how it related to the RGBW controller. I think its probably a hard controller to use as my first one! Can anyone help? I need to get at least basic colours working fairly soon.
Also i will be adding dimmers for the main lights as well as other devices and I want these to be in Scenes along with the RGBE controller, so I don’t think scenes are therefore the right thing to create these colour presets, i just don’t know what is!
Scenes are the right (simplest) approach for this, but you must remember that each of the RGBW channels is essentially independent. So if you have a scene that turns on RED, then red will be added to whatever else is already on. To get JUST red, then you have to make the scene turn OFF blue, green, and white, as well as turning on red.
Ok thanks. You say scenes are the simplest approach, but is there a better one?
Also I tried what you suggested about turning the other colours off first, but creating a scene seems to be really stupidly complex. If i start a new scene to switch to red, then i go in and select red, and then put it to 100%. How do i then tell it to turn off the blue and green and white colours, if they are already off and the sliders are at 0% etc? Thats what i struggled with.
Are you using UI7? I’m currently on UI5 myself, and I believe it’s rather different. From what I see, it’s easy to select, say, 50% green and OFF for the rest. The whole point of scenes is that you can select settings on multiple devices.
I am using 7 but it was the same on 5 before i upgraded. So i can select 50% on red for example, and then leave the rest on 0%, but by LEAVING them on 0%, that doesn’t have the effect when the scene is run of turning them to 0%. It almost seems like i have to put an action in to do the following for example:
Turn on RED Scene:
Turn red to 100%
Turn Blue to 10%
Turn Blue to 0%
Turn Green to 10%
Turn Green to 0%
Turn White to 10%
Turn White to 0%
As you can see, that is clearly not the best way and I’m sure I’m doing something wrong!
You seem, in your list of actions, to be specifying some sort of timeline. My confusion arises from, for example
Turn Blue to 10%
Turn Blue to 0%
The point I was trying to make is that an IMMEDIATE action can involve multiple devices - no time lag in between - you just select what you want on each control. I’ve actually used the OFF button when I wanted 0%, but I’ve just set up a scene which set everything to 10% just fine, as per the attached.
Just to say thanks for your advice, I got it working and I was looking at it from the wrong perspective. Got a few test scenes up and running and working as id like. The only thing is that on a scene that turns on a Fibaro dimmer and a Fibaro RGBW controller at the same time, there is a noticeable variable delay between the two loads turning on. often over a second. They aren’t configured with a delay, any ideas? Is that just how z wave is sometimes?
Are you sure there’s no programmed delay in the RGBW controller? They have all sort of ramp up / ramp down options, and Fibaro devices generally have MANY configuration options. Certainly they come with a significant ramp down by default. I don’t know what other lamp you are also switching, but if it’s LED there can certainly be a delay there too.
That said, it IS possible that sometimes Z-Wave delays can get in the way. But normally, not a significant issue.
hmmm ok well this is all new to me. The other load is just a standard fibaro dimmer behind a light switch dimming a normal lightbulb at this point. The ramp down times certainly are slow. Where can I find all these options?
They’re explained in the very fine print of the instruction sheet which comes with the device. Accessing them, even on UI5, from Vera is slightly tricky. I would have to install it on my UI7 system to see how it looks from there.
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