I’ve installed 4 pairs of Blue Series (VZM31-SN) dimmer/switches, each pair in a 3-way configuration to control a corresponding dumb LED light. Binding doesn’t work properly in that the pairs lose sync.
Example: Initially, Load Dimmer (LD) is OFF and Non-Load Dimmer (NLD) is OFF. LD is turned ON manually. NLD does not show that it is also ON (which it should via binding sync). Manually turnng NLD ON does nothing (except change the indicator LED bar to appear to be ON). Turning NLD to OFF does nothing (the controlled dumb lights stay ON). Toggling NLD ON to OFF to ON once or sometimes twice more causes NLD to synce with LD and function properly – for awhile. Leave things alone for a some time (exact time not yet determined, but is likely over 1/2 hr) and the binding is “forgotten”, and NLD takes some toggling to get back into sync with LD.
Configuration:
- Hubitat C-8 Pro with 2.3.9.197 firmware (latest generally available).
- Driver: Inovelli Dimmer 2-in-1 Blue Series VZM31-SN
- The Non-Load Dimmers are connected to line, neutral, and ground. The existing traveler wire is not used at all.
- The Load Dimmers are connected to load, line, neutral, and ground.
- App used for binding: “Zigbee Bindings” (but I also tried manual binding and the nifty "Zigbee Binding Tool").
Here are the results in the Apps tab after using (and renaming) Zigbee Bindings 8 times (“Main” means load-connected dimmer, “Remote” means non-load dimmer):
- Switch Bindings - Entryway Main to Remote
- Switch Bindings - Entryway Remote to Main
- Switch Bindings - Hallway Main to Remote
- Switch Bindings - Hallway Remote to Main
- Switch Bindings - Laundry Room Main to Remote
- Switch Bindings - Laundry Room Remote to Main
- Switch Bindings - Stairway Lights Main to Remote
- Switch Bindings - Stairway Lights Remote to Main
In the App, here’s what the “Main to Remote” settings look like for each load-connected dimmer:
Here’s what the “Remote to Main” settings look like for each non-load dimmer:
NOTE: ALL of the dimmers show “numberOfBindings : 0”. Yet sometimes the pairs are bound.
So, what am I doing wrong??
What firmware are the Blues on? 2.18 is most recent AFAIK.
For all of my IB’s, fwVersion : 2.18
All of these units are less than a month old.
OK, cool -- there were some wonky binding issues is earlier firmwares, but I think those are all squared away in 2.18
My binding experience is just limited to binding a 2-bulb group to one of my Blues (I just use the binding option in the Blue driver to do that), so I'm unfortunately not able to help with a switch-to-switch situation.
Hopefully a fellow Blue user with wider binding experience will chime in.
The Zigbee Binding Tool works. You only create one app for all the switches you want to bind together (so you'd need four instances of the app). Here's an example of two Inovelli Blues bound together. It just works.
BTW, binding is all done wirelessly; it has nothing to do with how the switches are wired. Just make sure the switches that are bound together are all configured the same (dimmer vs. switch, min/max level, etc.).
So, further testing shows that in my setup,
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“numberOfBindings : 0” never changes, even though 4 different binding methods were used (the manual process provided in the Inovelli driver, using the "Zigbee Bindings" app recommended by Inovelli, the "Zigbee Binding Tool" app (better UI than the "Zigbee Bindings" app), and the "Switch Bindings" app (also better UI than the "Zigbee Bindings" app AND has a polling feature described below).
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The pairs of dimmers ARE bound, since they control each other (once sync is re-established if it has failed, by toggling the paddle up and down 1-4 times) even when the Hubitat hub is shutdown.
However, the non-load dimmers ALWAYS lose sync with the load dimmers after a few minutes (typically less than an hour, but usually more than about 5 minutes).
So I STRONGLY suspect a bug in the Inovelli firmware that times out -- for whatever reason -- and stops polling the state of each pair.
I did find a workaround: the "Switch Bindings" app has an Advanced Setting that allows a "master" switch to be selected (e.g., the load dimmer) and then the app periodically polls that device and synchronizes the bound devices (just a single non-load dimmer for each of my pairs set up in a 3-way light switch configuration). The default polling period is 5 minutes.
This is still not a perfect solution since the pairs can be out of sync for up to 5 minutes at a time (I could shorten the time but that increases the load on the hub). The out-of-sync issue is visually manifested in different LED states for the paired switches (a bit annoying) and is physically manifested in that the non-load dimmer must be toggled 1-4 times to restore sync (very annoying).
Hoping that someone from Inovelli can replicate the problem and provide a fix! But the workaround is decent enough that at least I don't have to return 8 dimmers!
Yeah, that's always been the case. As you said the binding works, and I never reported it to Inovelli. Don't know if it's the switch firmware or the driver not reporting it correctly.
Did you report it over in the Inovelli forums? I'll make a note to check the switches I have bound and see if I have the same issue. The switches that I have bound in 3 or 4 way configurations don't get used much.
I did "report" to Inovelli, in the sense that I posted the same follow-up text to my original issue (same as my original post here). I don't know if they have a formal "complaint" department!
Follow-up to original post:
The problem is mostly resolved by using the Switch Bindings app mentioned in my original post.
In addition, for the one difficult pair of Inovelli Blue dimmers, I swapped them both out for dimmers not being used in a 3-way configuration. After a number of sessions of factory reset, re-binding, testing, and swearing, the one difficult pair has mostly settled down and only occasionally loses sync.
