Button/Scene Controller - Save My Marriage!

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I've been using Hubitat for about 3 years, SmartThings before that. About 7 months ago we moved into a new house, so I got to set everything up again! Super fun, but went a lot easier the 2nd time around. I have about 55 devices setup right now, probably another 20 left to go.

However, Button Controllers are driving me, or more specifically my wife insane.

The main issue is that she can't turn the kitchen lights on and off and I'm afraid she is going to start poisoning my food. The previous owner apparently renovated the kitchen some time ago and installed a Lutron Ra system. Around the kitchen and dining area it had 4 locations where there were these pairs of keypads with 5-6 buttons each. They were supposed to work as scene controllers. The Ra repeater and all the switches were centrally located in the PANTRY. 12 separate switches for uplights, lights under the counter, 3 different sets of lights above the cabinets, lights above the stove, lights in a trophy case, a set of track lighting, lights above a dining nook, fireplace mantle lights. It was crazy. And very little of it worked. The system was not Ra 2, original Ra, FWIW.

So, I gutted the defunct Ra system and replaced the switches in the pantry that controlled everything with my favorite z wave switches (GE) and paired them to Hubitat. Fine, that part works.

Controlling some of these lights is working well with motion sensor triggers. I have several different automations for them also, but you know, sometimes you just want to turn the freaking lights on or off by hitting a conveniently located switch! So, I need to get some physical buttons in the kitchen that will work (so that I'm not murdered by my wife).

I've installed several of the Cooper Eaton Aspire RFWC5 and used Joel Wetzel's code:

But these things have just not been reliable. They are setup as virtual buttons with rule machine. Sometimes you push a button and the command gets executed, but sometimes not. Morever, after a power outage, which we have frequently, they seem to quit working entirely, have to be excluded and re-added to Zwave and the rules setup again from scratch.

So, what I'm looking for here is something EASY that I can install in the kitchen and dining room that will allow us to easily control all these stupid switches. If I can't figure something out soon, I think she's going to request that I go up into the attic and rewire these things so that the physical switches are no longer in the pantry and are actually in the kitchen, nook, etc.

Also, if my posts start getting really freaking crazy, please send someone to my house to get some of my blood and have it tested for arsenic or lead.

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I don't even want to tell you how I do it. I have a Lutron Pico remote that turns on all the various lights in the kitchen (they are all on Lutron Caseta dimmers or switches).

We had another forum member asking about button controllers yesterday, I think we figured the Aeon (4 button, Z-Wave) and Sylvania (4 button, Zigbee) might be two of the better options.

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I haven't experimented with those Cooper Eaton devices - odd that they are dropping out.

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I had one Cooper Eaton dimmer for some under cabinet lighting. Zwave, not Zwave+, though. But. It lasted less than a year. A Zooz in the same location works much better.

I don't actually know why mine failed, but it began having problems with the LED driver and was very oddly behaved. I first thought it was the driver, but decided to try the Zooz dimmer, and all the issues went away.

S.

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Geez that sounds frustrating. I haven’t had mine dropping out, and it comes back after power outages. A few questions I can think of:

  • are you getting any errors in your logs?
  • since it’s in button mode, when you push a button, does it light up and then immediately turn the indicator light off?
  • can you turn on debug logging and send me some logs from when it’s not working?
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  1. Errors in logs all the time
  2. Lights up and often stays lit. Most of the time the controllers have a random assortment of buttons lit. Not sure what the lights are supposed to mean. Assumed the lights were meaningless.

I'll try setting one of the 3 Coopers up again and get you some logs.

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I just set up a Nexia NX1000 LCD controller. You’ll get a 15 button scene controller with menu labels in one device. I think it could have a a high WAF rating. It’s worth a try. See this thread

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Erias look nice and are inexpensive - I have one paired for testing and seems to work fine - still playing with it though. It fits into a standard decora housing and the controller itself can detach. Looks nice.

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Oh yeah none of that is right. Shouldn’t be any errors in the logs. Lights shouldn’t be random. If you can get me the logs, I can probably tell you what’s wrong.

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@arlomiller Update: I previously only had one of these RFWC5s installed in my house. Last night I decided to install a second one. I possibly found a case where two of them could interfere with each other, so I made a fix and am trying it out. I'll probably have a driver update published soon.

A couple other things I experienced:

  • The first couple times I tried to join the device through z-wave inclusion, Hubitat would find the device, but it would get stuck on initializing and never finish. The device would get stuck with the lights flashing in order... light 1, light 2, light 3, etc... I had to move my Hubitat hub up really close to the device to successfully include it. I think because it's old z-wave and not Z-Wave Plus, it can't join through a repeater.
  • Even after I successfully included it the first time, the lights kept flashing repeatedly and wouldn't settle down. I then excluded it and re-included it, and then the lights stopped flashing.
  • Make sure to run the "Configure" command, and then wait 5 minutes before doing anything else.
  • Then run one of the commands to configure the child devices.

And if you can send me error logs, I'll take a look at them. Cheers!

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That would be an immediate "I'll take the house, but I'm knocking $10k off the price as I have to rewire the kitchen lights.".

Lol. But I'm weird that way - I hate scene controllers. I want switches that do what switches are supposed to do... Without having to read a bunch of labels on tiny buttons to figure out which one does what. Or rely on a hub. Switches need to work 100% of the time, in all scenarios, or it is a bad design in my opinion.

Your wife is nicer than mine. Mine would have put up with that for a few days, and then called an electrician to put in regular switches while I was out of town or at work. Lol.

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