What's te current position on 3 Way switches and 600W Dimmers?

[webpcusa]

Hi
On the board there was a lot of talk earlier this year about the release of 3 way switches and 600 watt dimmers/ relays due out in Summer 2004. I have done a bit of trolling around and cannot find any available.

Does anyone have any updates that are reasonable reliable as to when/ if any are going to be released or even better where I can get some?

Antony

[Rupp]

Rumor has it they are to be released in the 4th quarter of this year but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[tobad78]

Just to confirm they did send out an offical email saying 4th quarter. But didn't give a specific date. As you probaly know they had some problems keeping dates but this email was just sent out.

[Squintz]

acording to the act-solutions.com product list there is a Transmitter and a 600w Dimer already available. Why people arnt stocking it i dont know but you may want to try and contact martin on cocoontech.com and see if he can get them

[tobad78]

Just because they are listed doens't mean we can get them. I tried to get them and can't yet but should be soon. I, like many want them as soon as possible.

[dtom]

Anything new on 3-ways and 600W? It's seems like 95% of the things I want to automate right now exceeds 300W or is a 3-way!!!

Thanks

[tobad78]

Last I heard was 3-4 weeks roughly a week ago. But again their has been delays and they want to make sure their is plenty available on the market. I will post as soon as they are on the market.

(Update 9-30-04) I just talked to my supplier he stated he should be getting them in a month. And their on backorder already. I will update this post every time I hear anything.

Also the 2 wire will follow shortly.

[tobad78]

3 way switches are shipping out end of next week. This was confirmed today by my distributor.

Here is a link about the 3 way switches.
http://tech-home.com/store/index.php...1&item=1134045

I can't wait for more Zwave products.

[Squintz]

BrianD,

This switch can be used as a three way but i do believe it is miss labled on that site. I just dont want you to get disapointed if you order one and its not what you think it is.

This is really nothing more transmitter that you can programm to controll scenes. In other words you can use it to send command to upto 5 other swithes at one time. i think you can do this for 3 scenes. a total of 15 switched.

I will check my numbers later when i have more time but i know 5 is right.

If you read the technical manual you will notice that this switch needs to be hardwired. It needs constant power. If you insert this in place of an existing 3way switch it will not start working as is. You are going to need atleas one regular z-wave switch. Either a dimmer or relay will work.

You will need to wire the current three way to act as a single pole switch and then install the transmitter where the other switch would normally go.

Not really a problem but it will still act like a 3 way switch if you can wire it properly but it is not a true 3way switch.

[mbreeden]

Let me understand this. If I had a three-way switch. 1 master and two slaves and I wanted to install the Z-Wave solution, I would need two dimmer switches(or non dimmers) and one of the new ZTW100 switch. Is this correct??

[Squintz]

Actually you would need 2 of the new ZTW100 and one dimmer or relay.

Reason is you will have to wire you lights to work directly off the dimmer or relay switch only. So the actual circuit including the light will now only use one switch. In place of the other two slave switches you would put in two transmitters. Each transmitter would have to be programmed to control the Dimmer/relay.

In homeseer you would only see one switch and that would be the relay/dimmer. The transmitter act just like your handheld remote. They can only control other switches. They are not capable of controlling a load(light) directly.

The transmitter will only contain 3 wires. Hot Neautral and Ground. This is to power the transmitter itself. There are no load wires.

[mbreeden]

Squintz:

Thanks for your help.

Mike

[Rick Tinker]

Squintz,

If I follow what you said properly, it is not accurate.

The 3-Way Dimmer or 3-Way Relay switch support hard-wired slaves AS WELL AS the new Z-Wave transmitter. Slaves switches can be AS101 or AS001.

If you had a light that you did not wire as 3-way but wanted to make it a 3-way, THEN you can use the transmitter device. The transmitter device supports the Z-Wave associate command and allows it to "proxy" if you will the on/off/bright/dim commands to another device (or device group). This is how the Z-Wave motion detectors will work - it is not a device that you can turn on or off, but it is a device that through association with another Z-Wave device can turn that other Z-Wave device on or off. Using this transmitter, it is even possible to turn on a group of switches, so now you can install a switch, using nothing but power and neutral, that can be an emergency "all on" switch. The transmitter can operate several groups based upon the number of "taps" on the top or bottom of the switch. Pretty nifty IMHO.

The ZRW103 (3-Way Relay switch) has a yellow lead for connection to an AS101 slave switch, and a brown lead for connection to an AS001 slave switch. They operate much like the hardwired slaves of today's X-10 switches.


So did I read your message wrong or did I clarify things?

[Rupp]

Rick,
Are the ZRW103 (3-Way Relay switch), AS101, or AS001 available?

[Squintz]

Rupp,
I dont think they are. I have wrote to act several times in the last year and everytime they have pushed back the date of their release. The last i heard it was to be released by early january.

Rick,
What i was saying is that the ZTW100 is nothing but a transmitter. It in itself can not physically connect to a three way slave. I was saying that the transmitter is nothing more than its name implies. Its a transmitter that can transmit RF signal to control other switches. I was not saying that you need 3way slave switches or anything like that. My point that i was trying to make is that the sight that BrianD listed says "(3WAY)" at the top of the page. Some people may be very disapointed to find out that this is not a true three way. How ever it can act as a controler for a group of switches.

In other words. If you have one Z-wave Switch. Well call it a relay switch for purpose of discussion. You have one normal z-wave relay switch. You can install that switch to operate you light. If you want to control that light from a remote location other than where the relay switch is installed you will need one Transmitter for each remote location.

Each transmitter allows you to control upto 3 groups of 5 switches. So if you wanted you could use the same Transmitter switch to turn on you Three Way hall light as you would to turn on your bathroom light and any other lights up to 5 at a time.

It would be better if everyone interested in z-wave would read the technical documents instead of me trying to interpret them

Rick... please let me know if you still think i am wrong. I very well may be wrong but then again maybe we are just misunderstanding each other.

At this point in time True 3-ways and slave switches are not available so i am not talking about those at all. I dont know anything about them so until i read up on them im not going to assume how the work.

http://www.act-solutions.com/pdfs/Ho...W100_instr.pdf