PLEG and Caseta Wall dimmers

Plugins & Plugin Development Program Logic (PLEG)
#1

I have installed several Casetta Wall dimmers, via the Wink hub.

I can trigger the Caseta switch / Wink to turn off via a trigger from a native zwave switch (a dual eneverwave relay connected switch)

Before I bang my head against the wall, I wanted to check with the community…Will this switch ever show as a TRUE trigger event in PLEG status when manually turning on the Caseta Wall switch , or is there an incompatibility with the Wink hub in the mix ?

Thanks!

#2

I messed around with this, and something is definitely not working here. I have a Caseta Dimmer. I think it is because while the Wink Plug In is is creating the device correctly it is not setting the variables on the advanced tab for the device (which is where PLEG would be looking for it is my guess). In fact I am a little baffled how the Vera UI even knows the device is On. I have been able to control the Wink devices from a scene (which was sufficient for my needs), but haven’t tried using it as a trigger, so don’t know if that would work either.

#3

@ shallowearth : Thanks for taking a look. In general, do you know if any dimmers act as a PLEG trigger?

Also - Anyone out there have the Lutron Bridge that has tried to use a Caseta Wall dimmer as a trigger? Perhaps removing the wink hub is the answer. Clear connect in the vera plus/ pro would be ideal…

#4

Yes both the Leviton and Cooper ZWave Dimmers are Z-Wave dimmers that have instant status and can be used as PLEG triggers.

The Lutron Bridge can also be used with the LutronRA plug in but is a little more tricky to configure. I don’t know if status is instant or not, nor if it can be used with PLEG, but you could post on the LutronRA plug in thread most likely.

#5

The Wink plugin does set the device variables correctly for the Caseta Dimmers.

The UI determines that a dimmable light is “ON” by looking at the UPnP variable - “Service”: “urn:upnp-org:serviceId:Dimming1”, “Variable”: “LoadLevelStatus”. This variable represents the percentage of power that the dimmer is providing to the light… If it is 0 (zero) then the light is “Off” otherwise it is “ON”.

An additional UPnP variable - “serviceId”: “urn:upnp-org:serviceId:SwitchPower1”, “Variable”: “Status” is used by the UI only to trigger notifications. It is a binary value - “0” (zero) is “Off”. This variable does not seem to be updated by all device types (my Leviton dimmer does, my Jasco dimmer doesn’t). The wink plugin does not currently update this variable.

So for a trigger in PLEG, you should use a test for urn:upnp-org:serviceId:Dimming1 - LoadLevelStatus > 0 to determine if the dimmer is on…

Also note - The UI displays the status of the device variables using the two methods - for the main UI interface, the values of device variables are updated dynamically (and result in the changing state icons) - For device settings (The advanced tab or most flash tabs), the data displayed is static and reflects the state of the variables at the last browser refresh. You can not use the PLEG configuration page to do “live” testing of your trigger conditions.

PS: The next version of the Wink Connect plugin has changes to update the “Status” variable.

#6

Thanks for the fix Cybermage that is super helpful. Your right I missed that the loadlevel targets were being set.

MrAutomate, looks like you can use PLEG with Wink. I don’t know what value the PLEG trigger is looking at Loadleveltarget or Target for the Caseta Dimmer. But you can enforce that PLEG looks at the right value by using the Device Properties tab instead of a standard trigger and use LoadLevelTarget explicitly.

Or even better you can take the fix Cybermage just provided and see if that does the trick for the standard PLEG trigger for the Caseta Dimmer.

#7

It should not be looking at either of these variables… It should be looking at LoadLevelStatus or Status…

Think of it this way:

LoadLevelTarget or Target = the state you WANT the light to be in…
LoadLevelStatus or Status = the ACTUAL state of the light…

#8

cybrmage and shallowearth - outstanding, I did get it to work using the properties instead of an trigger input :). Thanks!

#9

Hello All.

I’m new to the Vera and home automation systems and need a little help.

Has anyone been able to use PLEG and send commands to Caseta dimmers that have the same controls as the Telnet commands? Specifically I have a schedule that runs and when some of the lights turn on i would like them to come to the desired set point over a period of time. For example, in the morning i have the bathroom lights come to 35% load level over a period of 10 min at a certain time. I have this working using device properties and a schedule but cannot set the on time to take 10 min to go from 0 to 35.

Using Telnet here is an example of the command that I use.

#OUTPUT,2,1,35,01.00

Thanks in advance for your help.