Vampire load switch

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
1

Several rooms in my house have the same basic configuration. There is a light switch and an outlet switch. I have replaced both light switches with a GE/Jasco 45609-Z-Wave-Wireless-Lighting-Control Switch. I also have two GE/Jasco 45605 (or 45636) Z-Wave Wireless Lighting Control Duplex Receptacles in each room.

I want to be able to turn off certain appliances such as cellphone wall chargers, stereos, games, etc that don’t need to be on with a single flick of a switch or with Vera’s schedule.

What I would like to happen is …

  1. The light switch operates the ceiling light as before.
  2. The outlet switch operates the outlet. And through an act of “magic” the Z-wave outlets operate in concert with the outlet switch.
  3. I want to have Vera scheduled so that at 8:00 am Monday through Friday the ceiling light and his outlet operated by the wall switch, and the other two z-wave outlets are turned off. At 3:00 they can turn on again.
  4. I want my son to have his own GE/Jasco 45600 Z-Wave Wireless Lighting Control Remote that he can operate the ceiling light and the wall switches from the comfort of his bed, or from anywhere in his room, or in the house for that matter.

Right now, I’m working on #2. Here is what I have done so far …
I have done all the installs and included all the devices.
I have created four scenes. Two to operate the ceiling light and two to operate the outlets.

Now the question. I might be a bit confused here. I wrote what I think was a trigger reading the state of the outlet switch. When the outlet switch is on, it triggers the outlet on scene. And the other trigger reads the state of the outlet switch. When the outlet switch is off, it triggers the outlet off scene. Neither seem to work right.

2

I had a tiny error in my program. Here’s how I solved it in one room.
The outlet switch on the wall has to control all the other Zwave duplex outlets on the wall, including the main outlet switch. This way, if an external event triggers the scene where all the outlets are on, the main outlet switch is turned on too. If any duplex outlet or wall switch is already on, it does not affect the scene; all of them are brought to an on state. The same thing happens with the scene to turn all the duplex outlets off and the wall switch off.

I created one scene with the duplex outlets and the wall switch on and another with the duplex outlets and the wall switch off. I tied the outlets on scene with a trigger that when the wall switch is turned on, the scene with all of the outlets on and the wall switch on is activated. When that same wall switch is turned off, the scene with all the outlets off and the wall switch off.

Now my son can flip on the vampire load switch in his room and the corresponding outlet and the rest of the zwave duplex outlets turn on. And, when he leaves his room and (remembers to) flip off his vampire load switch, the corresponding outlet and the rest of the outlets turn off.

I will come back to the part helping him not have to remember to flip off his vampire load switch later.

3

Create a virtual switch by downloading the virtual switch plug-in. Change it’s name on the advanced tab to Vampire Switch and save.

Then add a new trigger to each of the vampire scenes on and off.

Now, you have a whole-house vampire load switch.