New home under construction. Trying to figure out some electrical rough-in items.
There are three wall sconces in the kitchen above the sink. All will be controlled by a single wall dimmer switch located to the side of the sink (along with the disposal switch). There are three windows on the sink wall.
We are starting to think about motorized roller shades, and these three windows are high on the list of likely roller shade locations. Currently leaning towards SmartWings z-wave roller shades. Due to the way the framing is done over/around the windows, I really don't want to try to hardwire the shades, so they will probably be battery powered.
I don't want to change the 2-gang switch box to a 3-gang box. I want to control the disposal with a single dumb switch, so I need a single device that can control the lights and the shades. At first glance, it looks like maybe the ZEN30 will do what I need. I know the dimmer can control the three lights. Can the relay button (used as a virtual device, along with some rules) adequately control the shades?
It would need to open and close the shades completely or partially, regardless of the current position. Does the Smartwings driver provide enough reporting to do this, e.g., the current shade position? What relay switch action(s) would cause the shades to go up or down, regardless of current position? What relay switch action(s) would cause the shades to go up or down, but not all the way, e.g., open or close the shades "a little"?
I'm having a hard time understanding if/how a single button can do all that is desired for the shades.
The relay switch on the Zen30 can report on and off, but it can also report 1-5 taps using a custom driver. I have one Zen30 that controls our vanity lights and an exhaust fan. It would be possible to use for your application, but remembering multiple button taps for shade positions isn’t the most intuitive way of controlling something like that. I know that my wife for example wouldn’t be happy with that setup.
You could use a Zen34 dimmer for that instead and it’s battery powered, so you can put it anywhere. I really like the ones I have after they worked out the kinks in the firmware. Also the batteries last a very long time.
Press the relay button once starts opening the shade if the shade is not currently opening or closing. Don't do anything if it is already open.
Press the relay button twice starts closing the shade, even if it is currently being opened. Don't do anything if it is already closed.
Press the relay button once while the shade is currently opening or closing causes the shade to stop at its current position.
If the button is not pressed while the shade is opening or closing, it goes to full open or full closed, e.g., I press the button only once to initiate opening, it goes to full opened.
I don't think I need anything like "open the shade to 40% open, regardless of its current position".
I'm pretty sure I can set up rules for the ZEN30 relay button that can trigger on the above events, but I don't know if the Smartwings z-wave driver can do its part on each event. For example, I don't know if there's something that a rule can check to determine whether or not the shade is currently being opened or closed.
I think that might be a question for @bcopeland . He’s the z-wave guy as far as I know. I would expect it to report it’s state back to the hub, but maybe not soon enough for your solution to be viable.
Yes everything you said sounds possible, might take a few different rules and some logic, but possible.
For this it is really going to come down to the driver itself for your shade device. Opening/closing is defined in the capability but the driver needs to send the event to the hub. I have created a driver for the Zooz ZEN53 shades motor and I have implemented the opening/closing states on that driver. I cannot speak to any other drivers out there.
If you use my driver for the Zoo ZEN30, you can use up to 5x taps, so you could potentially do a 3x tap to set to a predefined open %.
I also have another idea for the ZEN30 relay button. The relay button can make use of HELD and RELEASED events. So personally, I would make it so you could hold the button to start opening, and then when you let go it stops. You could still do the 1x tap to fully open and 2x to fully close.
I do also like the option offered of the ZEN34, I think you will get better control with having an up and down paddle. You could use the hold/release in both directions in that case as well.
The problem with the ZEN34 is the aesthetics. It would look like another single gang switch on the 8' long 9" tall backsplash under the three windows. It was hard enough getting my wife to accept single gang receptacles at each end and a double gang switch box near the sink.
Can HE do this...
Assume it takes 10 seconds for the shade to go from full open to full close, and vice versa. Set a 10+ second timer when the relay button is pressed (1x or 2x) and there's not another instance of the timer counting down, and start opening (1x) or closing (2x) the shade. If the button is pressed while a timer is active (which implies the shade is "rolling"), stop the shade immediately.
Since I can't look at the built-in driver code, I created a virtual shade device and assigned the "Smartwings z-wave shade driver" to it to hopefully get some idea of what the driver can do. When I look at the device, it shows the commands Close, Configure, Open, Refresh, Set Position (requires a number), Start Position Change (Open/Close), and Stop Position Change. It doesn't display any parameters. How can I find out what Set Position, Start Position Change, and Stop Position Change are supposed to do? Does the lack of parameters mean I can't set, for example, minimum and maximum positions or similar parameters?
The ZEN30 advanced features doc says for the relay...
1 x tap: load on / off; Scene 3, attribute 00
2 x tap: Scene 3, attribute 03
What exactly does that mean? I haven't read up on scenes, associations, groups, etc. Does it imply that I can't set up a rule that will trigger on a 2 x tap and do something different than whatever "Scene 3 attribute 3" does?
You could have the rule that watches for the button presses to open and close also set a Boolean variable to true, wait 10 seconds then set it to false.
Then in another rule, you could watch for the button presses and check the Boolean, if true send the stop command to the shade.
You wont be able to test much using the driver on a virtual device, because the device needs to respond to the driver to change the attributes. You could however use a virtual shades driver to test rules, usually the virtual drivers have buttons that allow you to change the attributes which works great for testing rules or apps.
That is basically developer info as to how the device reports the button presses to the hub. The driver takes care of translating that into something useful for you.
If you use the built in system ZEN30 driver you can make use of 1x and 2x button presses on the relay. If you use my custom driver you can use up to 5x taps.
