Hey there everyone, looking to get some information on any experiences and or recommendations.
I have a manual rotary dimmer (no neutral, house was build in 1969) hooked up to old valance set up that I have 8 LED bulbs in.
The wife wants to keep a rotary dimmer in this location if possible.
I picked up 2 Qubino ZMNHHD3 Mini Dimmers for this location and another similar one in the house.
Thanks in advance!
I searched here but didn’t find anything about using a manual rotary dimmer in this sort of setup, all the smart manual rotary dimmers I saw mentioned were not for the US.
Does anyone use a dimmer module (any kinda) or have experience using one with a manual rotary dimmer?
A different option that crossed my mind was using the Hue tap dial switch with the Qubino ZMNHHD3 Mini Dimmer.
It sounds like you are in the USA? Preference for Zigbee, Z-wave or other? It isn't clear whether you want an actual dimmer switch, or just a battery powered knob/button.
This no-neutral requirement will be quite challenging,
Evalogik is the only knob dimmer I can think of, the ZKS31. It is Z-wave. I have no idea how well it works, or whether it is compatible with Hubitat. I can't remember anyone mentioning these on this forum, but I didn't do much digging either. Trouble is, it requires a neutral.
Would it work to keep the existing rotary switch and put a smart switch of some kind behind the existing switch? Remote power on/off, but local only dimming.
In the UK we can get various ones from Candeo, iolloi and Tuya.
Try doing a search in the US and see if any turn up.
I'd be surprised if you can't get them in the US.
I can send you some links for the UK if you wish so you can see what I'm talking about.
All these apart from the Tuya can be taken of their existing plate and replace a non smart device should you want to. (which I suppose you would in the US as you use different plates).
Hmmm, thanks for finding that, that stinks for what I hoped to do.
I have a Lutron Aurora smart bulb dimmer in another room, it’s ok. I couldn’t ever get the dial to work well, haven’t tinkered with it in years though.
The issue with trying to use the Aurora dimmer is that I’d need to put in a regular switch, then use smart bulbs. Or at least that’s all I can think of.
Kinda don’t want to go the route of the Hue smart dial controlling the Qubino, but that may be the only option if I can’t get the wife to want anything other than a rotary dial dimmer.
The Aeotec nano dimmer says it works with momentary switches or toggle switches, not sure if a rotary dial switch mimics a momentary switch or what.
My wife said she wouldn’t hate a swipe dimmer like the Aeotec WallSwipe, but prefers a rotary dial.
She adapts pretty well to tech stuff I dump on her so I might get the Aeotec combo.
I may revisit getting my Aurora dimmer dial to behave properly as far as dimming is concerned.
It’s in a spare room we hardly go into so I never cared really.
But as I’m moving everything from my C4 to a C8 right now, it makes some sense to try that while I’m at it.
Does not. I’d recommend running a neutral - usually this isn’t too difficult or expensive. And then use the EVALogik dimmer that @neonturbo recommended.
It works amazingly well on a Hue bridge with Hue lights. For controlling lights on Hubitat, I setup a Simple Automation rule to toggle the lights on/off when the button is pressed, and setup a custom Mirror instance to only mirror the dimming. This is the best and fastest method I have found.
That’s definitely the best moderate to longer term option, this no neutral junk is really limiting everything overall in the house. Should have done it a long time ago.
For I think I’m to see what I can do with any of the devices I currently have. I know I have a few unused Zooz, Hue, ERIA AduroSmart battery powered switch/dimmers, so those are a last option if I the Hue Aurora dial doesn’t work out.
Then I’ll think some more on tackling the neutral wire situation.
Talked to my wife about the EVALogik dimmer and she is old with it, the knob is a bit small, not sure if it’s replaceable or not.
She said now that she doesn’t really care too much, but also said she is tired of hearing me talk about it too.
If it was up to me I’d go with the Aeotec setup with their WallSwipe.
When you say “mirror” you mean the bulbs mirror to the Aurora?
The valance has 8 LED bulbs so I’d like to not replace all of those. But I suppose mirroring the Aurora to the Qubino dimmer module would do the same thing.
It should work with anything that is dimmable. I setup a custom Mirror that only follows the level on the rotary and then use a Simple Automation rule to “toggle” the light off/on because I also use Alexa and Siri to control the lights. This avoids sync issues since the Aurora shows an on and off state in the driver.
If you have a Hue bridge, there have been multiple firmware updates for the Aurora dimmers since they came out. Currently on 3.8. I don’t know if Hubitat has the updates as well since I originally connected them all to the Hue bridge.
It looks like this on HE:
