hi all,
coming from insteon where flexibility was pretty much not existent, but execution was absolutly instant. like 50 dimmers all going off at the exact same time.
I understand zwave is different. hubitat gives me a world of flexibility and I love it! but responsiveness is not as good as insteon. and that fine. different product, different.. everything...
so am I doing things right? I have hubitat, welded an external antenna to gain more zwave direct communication. and only zooz dimmers (zen72) keypad (zen32) and relay (zen17).
im after gaining responsiveness when I press a keypad button that controls a scene. I have 7 keypad throughout the house and here are how they are all set. is it ok? could I enhance how i do it and gain speed is scene been applied?
a keypad:
sorry, it's french.
film = Movie time
2e on = second floor on
2e off = second floor off
sous-sol on = basement on
sous-sol off = basement off
so when I press "sous-sol off" (basement off in english) I have a button controler app that just calls the scene "sous-sol off" eveything else in this button controler app is by default.
the scene "sous-sol off" just all dimmers set to off. everything else in the scene is by default.
and I have a rule machine to have the keypad buttons led showing me the status of the basement lights.
if all lights in the basement are ON, the led will be on for "sous-sol on" (basement on)
if all lights in the basement are OFF, the led will be on for "sous-sol off" (basement off)
if some lights are on and some are off, then both leds will be off
I did it this way because if I go in the basement and manually turn all lights on, I want the led "sous-sol on" (basement on) to be on. same for basement off led.
(I have 2 keypad with sous-sol on and off)
If you have a keypad that supports associations (like Zen34) you could use that to directly link a device to a keypad button, bypassing the hub (just like Insteon). However the set up to do this is more complicated than on Insteon. The reward is instant triggering.
interesting!
I dont think anything can get as simple as insteon. no flexibility and no options = simple. and obviously all the flexibility in the world can only lead to more complexity. all good!
so I could do this direct association for 3 way switches (1 dimmer having the load to the light bulb and the other dimmer having no load) that would be instant? because right now I use a custom app called switch binding and it take like a second or 2 to execute
can I do direct associations to multiple devices? like my basement off button?
so I would not have scenes anymore. but my rule machine would remain working?
If I can briefly inject a comment to say that the complexity should not last.... At least that's what you / we should aim for.... Yes, there is a learning curve and a period of adjustment to dealing with the extra options available in a new platform, but ultimately you should reach a point where your setup is simple, it's just a matter of spending the time to find out how to achieve that, largely by asking questions here like you have done already.
I only have experience with the Zen34 and associations, as there is an advance driver available for Hubitat that makes association setup pretty easy. You enter a list of DNI's of each device you want to control and that's about it. Make sure to resync your button controller to accept the changes.
I only did changes on the dimmer NOT having the load and it works. both dimmers can turn on and off the light. according to zooz documentaion, group3 carry dim level too. and it works. if I hold the ON button on the dimmer without load, the light slowly dims.
How quick is the responsiveness? I have a lot of zwave devices and the responsiveness tends to be if not immediate certainly within fractions of a second. If you're seeing longer than that it may lead to some opportunities with your zwave mesh.
I have to put metering in the 200-300 ms otherwise it just act weird. like I ask all lights to go on and one does not go, or dim at 8% instead of been ON. or it goes ON, then 10 seconds later it dim. very frustrating... especially the log shows it dimed at 8%... WHY !?!?!?! I said ON! not 8% !!!
I did the welding of an external antenna, that helps, I have almost all dimmers going direct with the hub. maybe 5 needs one hop. before I had like 10 going though hops
and I did the hubitat and z-wave update.
im looking for guidance on how to improve that. I updated this post about it. giving picture of my devices signal 10-15 second delay
is there stuff people would recommend to do outside factory settings? I listed above what I do with scene, button controllers and rule machines. anything needs to be done outside what I mentioned?
can I really have a mesh issue when 95% of devices go direct with the hub?
