Fade rate vs manual dimming rate

[Doug Meredith]

I had 28 UPB dimmers pop during a power outage, and I decided to begin a move to Z-Wave since I have to replace these dimmers anyway. After much research I decided that the WD100+ looked very promising, due to instant status and the double/triple click functionality. I have installed two of these devices as a test, and I've come across what I fear may be a fatal problem...

I'm very happy with how the dimming of the switches works. Holding the paddle changes the brightness at a very reasonable rate. The three second fade on and off, however, will absolutely not pass the WAF test. When we turn the light on or off, we want it to be instant.

I'm really hopping someone can tell me that I'm wrong here... The manual dimming rate and the fate rate for turning the light on and off seem to be controlled by the same pair of settings (Ramp Rate for Local Control). Is there something I'm missing? How can I maintain the default dimming behavior but have instant on and off?

Assuming, as I fear, that there is no way around this, is there any hope of a firmware update that will give me what I want? I'm currently using 5.16. I would argue that on/off fade rate and manual dimming rate are totally different things, and one shouldn't have to change one in order to change the other.

[jhearty]

There are separate rates for local control and remote control, configured on the root device of the switch Z-Wave tab Settings section. Ensure you have the latest release of the Z-Wave plug-in to see the extra configs for Ramp Rate for Remote Control which were added a few months ago.

Edit: If you want manual press/hold to be slow but single tap to be instant, you can write events looking for the Central Scene instant status and send an immediate On or Off command which will override the slower fade On/Off.

[Doug Meredith]

Thanks for the reply, John. How does one send an on/off to a device and have it be instant, rather than using the remote ramp rate settings? I don't see any way to do this through an event. Does it need to be done through a script? Any info would be welcome.

Still hoping for a firmware update to address the core deficiency, but if I can get a reasonable workaround in the mean time, I'll take it!

[randy]

The local ramp rate controls the rate at which it goes from off to last level or back to off as well as the rate at which it ramps up and down from the current dim level with local control. Thew two are interrelated and cannot be set separately.

The ramp rate for remote control sets the ramp rate when the switch is controlled by HomeSeer and has no effect on any local control.

There is no way you can have it go on or off instantly with local control, without also affecting the rate at which it dims up or down with local control.

If you want it to ramp slowly when controlling the dim level locally, it will also ramp slowly to Off when you turn it off locally.


I like a moderate rate dimming up and down and don't mind the same rate being applied to turning the light on to last level or off.

If you want a different behavior you will have to submit an enhancement request.

[jhearty]

Thanks for the reply, John. How does one send an on/off to a device and have it be instant, rather than using the remote ramp rate settings? I don't see any way to do this through an event. Does it need to be done through a script? Any info would be welcome.

Sorry for not being more clear. In the Z-Wave tab of the root device of the HS-WD100+ switch in the deviceutility page change "Ramp Rate for Remote Control" to 99 to be instant. Then write an Event with a trigger of "<HS-WD100+ device name> Multilevel Central Scene had its value set to Scene 001 Key Pressed", and a Then action to "Set Device <HS-WD100+'s light device name> to On". The instant remote ramp rate invoked with the On command will override the slower local ramp rate invoked with the single tap of the top of the switch. You can still do Press/Hold to manually dim at the slower local rate which won't trigger the Event since it is a different Central Scene for Press/Hold.

[Doug Meredith]

Thanks again John. I can see that as a viable workaround (provided Homeseer & Z-Wave are fast enough), at the cost of two events per dimmer. Not pleasant, but not the end of the world. Unfortunately there is a bug in the dimmer (at least with the 5.16 firmware) that would make this difficult to implement. I was about to describe the bug, but I guess I'll do it as a separate post.