I can’t wrap my head around the following limitation, when using “Method #2” (‘Vera’s special way of handling scene assignments’) to connect the remote/handheld controller to Vera:
“If your scene control has one or more ‘scene off’ button, you can generally make those trigger a scene by adding an event with button 0. Note that if your remote control has more than one ‘scene off’ button, Vera cannot know which one you pressed and all ‘scene off’ buttons will trigger the event tied to ‘button 0’.”
Does this limitation arise from the way handheld controllers (e.g. the Intermatic HA09C) broadcast the “Off” position for each button? I would have thought multi-button controllers had unique codes/addresses for each position of each button; otherwise, how could they function the “normal” way?
I personally don’t use any scene controllers managed by Vera (method #2), but from another page it seems “all Off buttons are treated as button #0” is common. Not sure who’s limitation is it - Vera’s or Z-Wave controllers…
The 4 scene buttons on the scene controller can be pushed to the left or to the right. The left is the normal way to trigger a scene. If you press any of the scene buttons to the right, it is treated as ‘button 0’. You can create a scene as described above, and in step 6 choose button #0. But this means that no matter which of the 4 scene buttons you press to the right, they all trigger the scene for button #0. See ZWave_Add_Controller method #2 for an explanation. Also, the scene controller only triggers button #0 when you press the button to the right if you already pressed the button to the left. If this is confusing, just stick to the normal usage of buttons 1-4 by clicking the button to the left. The scene up an down functions do not do anything.
It’s a further shame when you consider that plain vanilla X10 controllers from 20 years ago - which often had 8 buttons - could accomplish so much more than these Z-Wave controllers!
Once paired with a “scene controller” like the CM11A, an X10 remote’s buttons can each perform a “virtual action” on any number of actual X10 modules. In short, the ‘On’ could do one thing, and the ‘Off’ could do something else, if that’s what you wanted … and there never had to be a one-to-one correspondence between, say, “Button 5 ON” and an actual device #5; it could instead activate any X10 “scene” that had been programmed into the CM11A. Ditto the ‘OFF’.
Since the latest Luup release of Vera, which supports X10, I aim to get my system to a point where I involve my old X10 devices (including several remotes and sensors) to see whether I can accomplish what’s lacking in the current Z-Wave remotes.
I’ll keep everyone posted via my earlier “X10 Devices With Vera” forum topic.
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