Virtual Dimmer / Group Dimmer Control

dt3 · March 19, 2015, 4:42am

I have two zones, upstairs and downstairs.

Upstairs I have two hue bulbs, a and b.
Downstairs I have two vizia rf dimmer switches, again a + b.

Upstairs hue lets me group bulbs a + b into a third device, device c. This third device lets me control both lights at the same time while still maintaining some individual control.

Surprised I cant find a way to do this with the zwave dimmers. Is there really not a way to create group control and assign it to a virtual dimmer (which I can than control with my 3rd party home automation system)?

garrettwp · March 19, 2015, 9:28am

You’ll have to create a plugin to allow for this or use something like pleg.

Garrett

Z-Waver · March 19, 2015, 12:22pm

[quote=“dt3, post:1, topic:186495”]Is there really not a way to create group control and assign it to a virtual dimmer (which I can than control with my 3rd party home automation system)?[/quote]While reading your post two “group” concepts came to mind.

Some Z-Wave dimmers, such as Cooper or the Linear WT00Z-1 support associations. Associations are Z-Wave device groups, programmed within the device not Vera, that act in unison. Using associated dimmers would cause the activation of one dimmer to simultaneously control both.
Though not a virtual switch Vera scenes can set the dim level of any number of Z-Wave dimmers.

An application could also be written for Vera to do what you describe, as @garrettwp stated.

dt3 · March 19, 2015, 4:28pm

Thanks so much for your guys response.

You’ll have to create a plugin to allow for this or use something like pleg.

I have looked into pleg but im not sure if that will help me accomplish my final goal. I am integrating the vera system into a 3rd party automation system. When I pull up this room I want to have sliders for light a, light b, and group. Will pleg let me create a virtual device like that?

What language would you use to write up an app/plugin like that? I have a couple of good friends who are programmers so I might see if I can interest them in doing me a favor before I start asking around here.

In my (extremely naive and uniformed) opinion something like this would be very easy to make. Create a virtual dimmer that when it is adjusted it sends the number to 2, 3, however many different lights.

If I ran into an application where I desperately needed something like this is there a place where I can start soliciting others for help in putting this together for me? What would something like that cost?

integlikewhoa · March 19, 2015, 4:49pm

[quote=“dt3, post:4, topic:186495”]Thanks so much for your guys response.

You’ll have to create a plugin to allow for this or use something like pleg.

I have looked into pleg but im not sure if that will help me accomplish my final goal. I am integrating the vera system into a 3rd party automation system. When I pull up this room I want to have sliders for light a, light b, and group. Will pleg let me create a virtual device like that?

What language would you use to write up an app/plugin like that? I have a couple of good friends who are programmers so I might see if I can interest them in doing me a favor before I start asking around here.

In my (extremely naive and uniformed) opinion something like this would be very easy to make. Create a virtual dimmer that when it is adjusted it sends the number to 2, 3, however many different lights.

If I ran into an application where I desperately needed something like this is there a place where I can start soliciting others for help in putting this together for me? What would something like that cost?[/quote]

To actually have slider bars your gonna have to either create a virtual dimmer switch like was talked about or you can always sacrifice a real switch. And by that I mean use a switch you already have that you never want to have control of separately or buy a 40.00 aeon micro switch (or similar) and put it in the attic or in any box that has power (even without a load).
Now you’ll have a unused dimmer that you can then use PLEG or scenes to tell all the lights in group “A” to copy the level of this switch. Make sure everything is instant status if you want them to happen at the same time.

dt3 · March 19, 2015, 7:56pm

hmmmm… If someone can let me know if I am heading down the right path it would be greatly appreciated.

I found this article here (http://faq.mios.com/content/2/40/en/how-to-create-virtual-device.html) and if I follow its instructions and then (in addition) copy/paste the device type info ( urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:DimmableLight:1 ) from one of my working dimmers into the device type space on this new virtual device I appear to get a dimmer device added to my UI, though it does give me an “invalid service/action/device” message if I try to operate it at all. Im going to go ahead and get PLEG installed now and start playing with that, hopefully I can find a way so when dimmer c (the virtual device) is set to X% it can send that same X% command to dimmers A + B.

For the life of my I cant figure out how/why this isnt already an app of some sort. Isnt the idea of being able to control a group of dimmers while still maintaining individual control a feature many would want/like?

Make sure everything is instant status if you want them to happen at the same time.

Ive seen this advice before and I dont understand why that would matter. I ask not to bust your balls but so I understand the system and how it works better. I believe the dimmers I currently have in this zone are IS capable though (vizia rf+)

I dont need dimmers a+b to ever be reporting their info back to dimmer C (or for the gateway to ever be polling their info and reporting back). If dimmer C falls out of state (I adjust dimmer C to 100% which in turn adjusts A+B to 100%. I then adjust half the room, A, to 10%. Dimmer C continues to display 100%) Im fine with Dimmer C now being incorrect until the next time it is adjusted to X% when it will then join both zones back at X%.

Again, thanks for any help/advice.

integlikewhoa · March 19, 2015, 8:53pm

[quote=“dt3, post:6, topic:186495”]hmmmm… If someone can let me know if I am heading down the right path it would be greatly appreciated.

I found this article here (http://faq.mios.com/content/2/40/en/how-to-create-virtual-device.html) and if I follow its instructions and then (in addition) copy/paste the device type info ( urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:DimmableLight:1 ) from one of my working dimmers into the device type space on this new virtual device I appear to get a dimmer device added to my UI, though it does give me an “invalid service/action/device” message if I try to operate it at all. Im going to go ahead and get PLEG installed now and start playing with that, hopefully I can find a way so when dimmer c (the virtual device) is set to X% it can send that same X% command to dimmers A + B.

For the life of my I cant figure out how/why this isnt already an app of some sort. Isnt the idea of being able to control a group of dimmers while still maintaining individual control a feature many would want/like?

Make sure everything is instant status if you want them to happen at the same time.

Ive seen this advice before and I dont understand why that would matter. I ask not to bust your balls but so I understand the system and how it works better. I believe the dimmers I currently have in this zone are IS capable though (vizia rf+)

I dont need dimmers a+b to ever be reporting their info back to dimmer C (or for the gateway to ever be polling their info and reporting back). If dimmer C falls out of state (I adjust dimmer C to 100% which in turn adjusts A+B to 100%. I then adjust half the room, A, to 10%) Im fine with Dimmer C now being incorrect until the next time it is adjusted to X% when it will then join both zones back at X%.

Again, thanks for any help/advice.[/quote]

Instant status switches report instantly and don’t wait for polling. Other switches take more time to poll and check the switches status then report and make the change.

With z-wave if you have 3 lights and 3 switches and you want all to come on when the first one does (as if they were on the same switch) there is lag involved. Without instant status it could be up to a min later (polling time) that the other lights come on. This is where associations come into play. Expensive switches can associate with one another and bypass the controller complete. This works great but doesn’t seem to fit the bill with what your doing. I also think that if your only sending commands from vera to change the lights instant status might not matter as much since VERA is sending the command directly vs. watching for physical switch to be turned on.

I don’t know much about the link and creating the virtual device so i might no be much help, but I’m thinking its going to be much harder then it looks to do that. Especially with ui7 that post disconnected errors if it has problems reaching a device.

knaack · December 31, 2016, 2:52pm

I know this is an old topic, but I had been trying to figure this out myself for a long time. This may not be 100% what the original post was looking for (ie virtual switch), but hopefully to helps someone in a similar position who wants to group a set of dimmers.

I had two dimmers which I wished to control together (primarily from one of the dimmers; the other is barely used, if at all). I always wanted the switches paired to operate together, as they both control lights on the outside of my house (one on the garage and one near front door). And I didn’t want to just control these via scenes, in case I needed to brighten the outside of the house to a certain level at night for friends to find the house, etc.

Essentially, set up a startup Lua code similar to the following:
– Set up variable-watch for porch lights #86 to set carriage lights #87
luup.variable_watch(“doChange86”,“urn:upnp-org:serviceId:Dimming1”,“LoadLevelStatus”,86)
function doChange86()
luup.call_action(“urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HomeAutomationGateway1”, “RunScene”, {SceneNum = 45}, 0)
end

The above script will monitor for any changes in the dimmer, then run a scene.

So then set up a very basic scene (45 in this case) that changes the level of the lights:
local level86 = luup.variable_get(“urn:upnp-org:serviceId:Dimming1”, “LoadLevelStatus”, 86)
luup.call_action(“urn:upnp-org:serviceId:Dimming1”, “SetLoadLevelTarget”, {newLoadlevelTarget = level86}, 87)

And that’s it. You’d lose any sort of individual control of one of the lights without having to run around and set them in a specific order, but it hopefully will help someone.

I wish I could take credit, but all of this was taken from the following source and used to meet my needs: http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,18679.msg217315.html#msg217315