If I can't get a working Button Control my wife may leave me!

I've had a miserable time with button controllers.

When we moved into the house, there was a barely functional RA system, older generation stuff. For whatever reason, they located the physical switches for 8 different lighting circuits in the pantry and then had RA remotes at various locations in the kitchen for scene controls. It about 1/2 worked.

So, figure Hubitat to the Rescue. Gutted that stuff, put in GE Dimmers and Switches in the pantry. And figured that I could use button controllers in the kitchen to give my wife physical buttons in a useful location.

Its been a total failure. First, I tried Cooper RFWDC's. Those were terrible, maybe 1/3 of the time a button push led to the desired action.

So, I gave up on those. Next, Leviton VRCS4's. A little less terrible.

So, now trying Zooz Zen 32's. Still, not reliable.

Clearly, I'm doing something wrong to be having this miserable of a time.

Now, the setup I'm looking for right now is drop dead simple. I have:
GE Dimmer Switch - Undercounter Lights
GE Dimmer Switch - Recessed Lights
GE Dimmer Switch - Nook Lights
GE Dimmer Switch - Bar Lights
GE Dimmer Switch - Stove Lights
And a few more

And, what I'm trying to setup here to start with is really simple. For example, on the button controller:
Button 1: Push to turn on Undercounter Lights. Double tap to turn off
Button 2: Push to turn on Recessed Lights. Double tap to turn off
etc.

Like, really simple things here. Not even talking about having a button control multiple devices. Just ONE!

Right now, I've been trying to do this using the Button Controllers Application.

Is that the problem? Should I be setting it up completely differently?

So what isn't clear by any of that is if it is the button missing events, it is the way your rule is set up, or if there is something else going on.

In each button controller, you can turn on logging. I would do that, open logs in a new browser tab or browser window, and pus the button various ways. You could then see what is bombing out.

If you go to one of those device settings page (devices tab) for a particular device, you should be able to see the "states" in the upper right corner. Every time you push a button, it should change there. If it doesn't work there, it won't trigger a rule either.

You also could (should) do some screenshots of your button controller for a device, and see if someone spots something off there.

2 Likes

Well, found 1 nice little gremlin. The numbering of the buttons in hubitat does NOT correspond to the way that the buttons are numbered in the Zooz package insert!

Zooz numbers them
1 (the big button)
2 3
4 5

In Hubitat, they register as
5
1 2
3 4

So, when you've only programmed like 3 buttons, you can get some wacky results! I'd programmed Zooz, 1, 2, 3. But, those corresponded to 5, 1, and 2. The commands I'd put into "Button Controller" for 1 and 3 ended up not doing anything. And what I'd programmed for button 2 was executed when I was pushing Zooz's number 3.

DOH!

2 Likes

Yeah this kind of thing comes up a lot. Sometimes the numbering makes sense, sometimes not so much. I've made similar mistakes before. Now I make it my practice when installing a new model to go into the device page and press all the buttons to be sure I know which is which.

1 Like

Manual: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0218/7704/files/zooz-z-wave-plus-scene-control-switch-zen32-online-manual.pdf

Per the Zooz manual the big button is "Scene 5" and the small buttons are 1-4. I know for sure the custom community driver which allows up to the 5x button taps follows the Zooz spec. I think the Hubitat built in driver does as well and allows you use the single and double-tap events.

1 Like