Scenes

[david.delano]

I have a Hometroller-Zee with Z-Stick. I also can run HSTouch.

I have found where to set up a Scene, but I don't see any way to use it. I'm working on a new application with the same hardware where I need set up Z-Wave switches that control other switches, and need to be able to set up scenes for the entire mass. These are the house lights at church. The main switches are all in, the controller goes in this week, and I'm experimenting on my home setup to figure out what I need to do next.

I need Scenes for things like:

All ON (though one light needs to be at about 50% - maybe this should be All Max, with a max set for each switch)
Dim to 80% (keep the one light at 50%)
Dim to xx% (keep the one light at 50% unless xx is less than 50)
All OFF (or dim to 0%)

I'm then likely to need more.

What I need, though, is a user friendly way to trigger these Scenes, and I don't see that with either HS3 or HSTouch. What am I missing??

David

[mikedr]

Here's an easy way to do this: create a virtual device (under device management, click the plus sign to add a new device). Name the virtual device the scene you want to control.

Then, create two events -- when then virtual device is turned on (i.e., that's your trigger -- device value has changed and becomes off), perform the action "Z-Wave Actions/Activate a Scene." The second event is, when the virtual device is turned off, perform the action "Z-Wave Actions/Deactivate a Scene."

[david.delano]

I'll try that.....I have to figure out these virtual devices......

Where will I be able to turn the virtual device on and off? HS3? HSTouch? Eventually, this has to be an interface that a "normal" person can deal with.

I've actually thought about wiring a bunch of non-load Z-Wave switches to a panel and labeling them for general consumption.....but that defeats the purpose of flexibility.

David

[david.delano]

I tried the virtual device, but hit the same dead end I had hit before. I don't see a way to run a scene. The Z-Wave choices (for Hometroller-Zee) doesn't include activate a scene. Do I have to do something to turn that on?

David

[cheeryfool]

David

What sub-options do you see in the 'Z-wave Actions' group? I don't have a Zee, but I see 14 sub options including 'Activate a scene' and 'Deactivate a scene'. I guess it's possible the Zee has a more limited set of Z-Wave actions.

[mikedr]

I tried the virtual device, but hit the same dead end I had hit before. I don't see a way to run a scene. The Z-Wave choices (for Hometroller-Zee) doesn't include activate a scene. Do I have to do something to turn that on?

David

They should be there. I'm running a Zee at one house and an SEL at another. The Zee has a scene defined (see first screenshot). So under Z-Wave actions you choose activate a seen (see second screentshot). (Note our SEL doesn't have any scenes defined, so those actions don't show up -- you have to have a scene defined first.)

[mikedr]

I'll try that.....I have to figure out these virtual devices......

Where will I be able to turn the virtual device on and off? HS3? HSTouch? Eventually, this has to be an interface that a "normal" person can deal with.

I've actually thought about wiring a bunch of non-load Z-Wave switches to a panel and labeling them for general consumption.....but that defeats the purpose of flexibility.

David

You can turn on and off virtual devices either in HS3 or HSTouch. They'll show up in your device management tab in HS3, and will also show up on HSTouch.

The only thing weird I've seen with HSTouch is that they do not show up with a pretty picture, but rather you select "on" and "off" -- but I haven't played around with this much.

[mikedr]

David

What sub-options do you see in the 'Z-wave Actions' group? I don't have a Zee, but I see 14 sub options including 'Activate a scene' and 'Deactivate a scene'. I guess it's possible the Zee has a more limited set of Z-Wave actions.

No, they're definitely there on the Zee -- mine has them. However, the number of sub options is dependent on what "can" be done. So, if no scenes are defined, then the sub options don't include them.

By comparison, on our SEL, I have energy reporting devices (which I don't have on the Zee), and there are Z wave actions that show up on the SEL related to energy that don't show up on the Zee (similarly, the scene stuff doesn't show up on the SEL, where I don't have scenes).

From what I can tell, the differences between the SEL (full blown HS3) and the Zee (limited HS3) is performance (UI is snappier on the SEL), and with the Zee you cannot install any plugins beyond what you get with them -- but with what is already there, there are no limitations.

[cheeryfool]

No, they're definitely there on the Zee -- mine has them. However, the number of sub options is dependent on what "can" be done. So, if no scenes are defined, then the sub options don't include them.



By comparison, on our SEL, I have energy reporting devices (which I don't have on the Zee), and there are Z wave actions that show up on the SEL related to energy that don't show up on the Zee (similarly, the scene stuff doesn't show up on the SEL, where I don't have scenes).



From what I can tell, the differences between the SEL (full blown HS3) and the Zee (limited HS3) is performance (UI is snappier on the SEL), and with the Zee you cannot install any plugins beyond what you get with them -- but with what is already there, there are no limitations.

Yes, you are right on the context sensitive nature of the zwave actions options. I remember previously trying to set lock security codes and the options weren't there because the zwave PI wasn't correctly recognising the security class from my locks. Now that is fixed, the options include security code ones.

[david.delano]

I have a scene set up on my home Zee but I still can't get an action for it. Z-Wave will let me do all on, all off, poll a node, change the security option, suspend polling, and reactivate polling (not those words exactly).

I set up the brand new Zee at church. I can't even get a scene to add a device on that one. It's options for Z-Wave control are the above, minus the security option.

Restart the devices?

[david.delano]

Rebooting didn't help either situation......

[david.delano]

The newer Zee now lets me add devices to scenes, but I still don't have the option to run a scene from an event on either Zee. I've done the save and deploy, etc., but nothing seems to make that capability show up.

Is there a way to get anything other than on/off for a virtual device? A virtual dimmer would be nice. Or, just a push button rather than on/off. What I'm running into is this. I currently have two virtual devices. One sets on/off of the other devices (I'm just controlling each device directly for now, but it isn't pretty). The other sets Dim 50%, but it also has on/off. I guess I could turn the other virtual devices off when any one in the set gets turned on (I'll be adding more levels of dim).

Is there anything with event groups that would help out what I'm trying to do?

Is there any way, other than a scene, to group devices and control them as one?

David

[mikedr]

OK, I've thought about this a bit, I think I know what's going on. I believe that the way scenes work in Z-Wave is that a hardware Z-Wave scene controller tells all the devices in a scene to go to their presets. The scene functionality in HS3 lets you more easily define the presets, but you still need a scene controller to associate to the scene to actually use the scene.

So, unless you have a hardware controller (I have a Cooper Aspire 5-button scene controller at our other house) with a button programmed to a scene, you can't initiate it through HS3. That is, I think when you perform a Z-Wave action of scene on, it's turned on through the appropriate hardware controller.

Now, this means that you have to have a sufficient number of hardware controller buttons to support your scenes, which is a pain.

I think this could be why scenes aren't talked about much with HS3.

However, there is another way to do this functionality, but you're going to have to rebuild everything. Use events and virtual devices. Create a virtual device. It has two states, on/off. You can control these through device management, or HSTouch.

Now, create an event. The trigger will be the virtual device have its state turned on. Then, for the actions, list all the various devices you want to control (i.e., what you previously had done in a scene) at whatever level you want to control (on/off/dim level). You'd create another event for the virtual device turning off.

I believe that this is the preferred way of having multiple devices turn on/off in HS3, via events. As an example, at sunset every night, I have an event with the trigger (sunset), and three devices being controlled: driveway lights on, front porch lights on, back porch lights on. Another event at sunrise turns them off.

If I created a virtual device called "outside lights," I could also use that as a trigger.

Note that a virtual device isn't even really necessary here. You can manually execute an event -- and you can do this via HSTouch as well.

[david.delano]

This is the direction I was headed, and have already experimented with. I was hoping scenes would make the setup easier, and give better looking results.

I've also figured out that I can change the room/floor data for the virtual circuits and filter them out, so that I have a nice manageable screen to work with. From HSTouch, I could just use the events screen. And I also want to explore the JSON interface to use from Powerpoint, so that the operator doesn't have to know the lighting interface at all - the event would get triggered from the appropriate Powerpoint slide. This is all tying together with audio and video equipment, so my initial proposition is really part of a much larger solution.

So, here's what I don't like about the virtual circuit to event triggers.

The virtual circuits are really tied together. Only one should be on at a time. I could add actions to turn off all the other ones (a pain, but doable). Also, once I get an event figured out, I can copy it for the rest of the events.

I'm getting a large lag between turning on the virtual circuit and having all the circuits come on. I'm testing with 4 circuits. I'll really have 8-12 that I need to control. Ideally, the circuits would all behave as one circuit. Is there anything I can tweak to make this closer to happening?

Is there a way to have smooth transitions instead of abrupt one. When I physically hit a switch, I get a smooth ramp up and down. With the events, the circuits seem to jump to that setting. On/Off are probably ok for this (for this application, I'll likely go from the lowest dim virtual circuit to off), but going through the dimming sequence I'd like it to be smoother. The scenes have a transition setting, and that's what I'd like to mimic.

My physical setup, in case it matters for the lag, is the PC, Zee, and one switch at the back, the rest of the switches in the front. There is about 50' in between. I added a repeater in a socket about midway, just in case. These are the GE/Jasco (no common) switches. I tried to go with the Linear switches, but this building is old, and only has 2 wire plus ground. I think that part of what I'm seeing is the way the GE/Jasco switches work/don't work. Also, some of these switches are being detected as Sigma instead of Jasco, and they seem to be a little problematic and think they have a different feature set.

David

[mikedr]

For the transitions, yes, I think the only way to mimic that with an event would be to do something like: set at 10%; set at 20% after waiting X seconds; set at 30% after waiting Y seconds; and so on. It's a bit of a pain, for sure.

Z-Wave, being an RF protocol, can be finicky with when devices receive commands and act on them. I find that 90+% of my devices are nearly instantly controlled, but I have a couple of that do take a second or two to turn on (I get the sense that the command is "bouncing around" the mesh before arriving at the destination). I don't think you'll ever be able to get "perfect" synchronization, but you should be able to get something that is close to being imperceptible in most cases.

Also, make sure there are no 900 Mhz devices being used other than Z-Wave -- cordless phones, baby monitors, etc. Z-Wave will work in the presence of such interference, but it's going to take longer for the commands to slog through the interference I think.

Where you have your Z-Stick will make a big difference. You can use an Active Repeater to extend it an extra 15 or so feet. I also have one of two Z-Sticks that is 100 feet out using a Gefen USB2 extender over cat5 (not IP -- the cat5 is a separate point-to-point cable). My situation for that one is that we have a Z-Wave lock on an outside gate, and it just wasn't getting commands reliably, nor reporting commands back reliably, so I placed a Z-Stick on an outside wall a few feet away from the lock (in a weatherproof enclosure).

Before re-positioning things, though, make sure to optimize your next a few times, and then fully optimize a few times. This ensures that the best paths to and from the devices through the mesh to the Z Stick are obtained.

But, if there is any way to put a Z-Stick in the middle of all the circuits you're controlling (such as using a Gefen USB2 extender over cat5), that *should* definitely help.

I also run GE/Jasco for everything for which GE/Jasco makes a product -- I've found them to be most reliable. I just checked, and all mine do show up as Jasco, not Sigma (which is the chipset maker). For those of yours that are showing up as Sigma, try doing a rescan of the node -- it may not have been added correctly. Worst case is to remove it and re-add it from the controller interface on HS3 (or via the Z Stick), although this is a pain, of course. Rescan doesn't require the Z Stick to be removed from the Zee.