I’ve got a caseta switch. You can use a pico remote or you can use it as a 3way if you want to, with a regular toggle switch (or an existing 3way, just ignoring one of the wires)
what is also really nice is using the pico for a 3 way dimmer configuration giving you dimming controls at each location. I have 1 room that has 5 picos each controlling the dimming for the room. with hard wiring you are limited to switching the dimmer and contolling dim from the load location.
In experimenting with the RM polling process I came to the realization that it seems that too frequent polling will put undue stress on the hubitat system making automations and responses for all events happen less instantaneously.
For instance, if I were to take all my Z-Wave switches/dimmers (about 20) and put them on a 10 second poll a simple automation to turn on lights with motion will go from instant to about a 3-4 second response time.
So I, instead, reduced the number of Z-Wave devices on this rule down to 1 as I have one device that I critically rely upon for physical events and automations are once again instant.
Here is my question: are there recommendations for setting a polling rule for the Z-Wave switches that I don’t necessarily rely upon for automations triggered by physical events. I say this because, this morning, I realized hubitat thought my bedroom light was on when in fact it was not. The cause of this seems to be related to the fact that I turned off my bedroom light manually last night and nothing updated in the hub.
1 Like
Whatever you feel comfortable with, I guess. There’s some work being done in the drivers which may help, so polling might become less necessary.
You could setup a 5 min poll for half your devices and a 6 min for the other half and they’d only overlap twice an hour.
Could I ask you guys a really basic design question? Why are you trying to get physical responses out of your switches? Are you running your automations from switches? Have you considered other approaches?
One use case for me: I have a fan on a GE fan switch, normally activated by motion. When I want to turn it off and keep it off, I hit the switch which tells (sorry, that’s still on ST) the webCoRE piston to ignore future motion events for a period of time. I wouldn’t want it to do that if it’s a programmatic “off”.
I have a few "no load" switches that when physically or digitally toggled, other switches in that room are also toggled. I also have automation in my bathrooms where the exhaust fan turns on when the shower light is physically turned on. Automation takes care of turning it off after X minutes after the shower light is physically turned off; I also have automation in place that turn off the shower light after X minutes if it was accidentally left on. But this all starts by the physical on event.
I got into home automation originally because I grew tired of changing the time on those dumb plugin in timer devices every spring and fall and after power outages. Then I expanded its use because my wife and cleaning lady are terrible at turning off lights. So my primary use case today is knowing which lights are on so I can turn them off. I have automated this where I can, but I don't have sensors in every room to automate these. So when we leave the house for a meal or extended period of time I usually scan my devices to see which ones are still on and turn them off.
I am certainly open to ideas, but physical events are still a must have for me in many use cases. I'd love to hear from others that have completely automated their homes because I struggle how to avoid physically pressing certain switches in my home.
Use case for me: the house goes into night mode when my oldest goes to bed and his bedroom light is turned off. His room is also on a motion sensor that turns the light on with motion except for night mode. So, for instance, if he is not in bed but not in his room at 8pm at night and the automation causes the light to automatically turn off the house will go into night mode. This is not optimal. Instead the physical pressing of the off switch triggers night mode and works beautifully. This is the only current use case.
I did want to add a simple second use case where I could physically press the off switch on my closet light (Z-Wave) and have it turn off an OSRAM lightify strip. My closet goes off after no motion for 1 minute but old habits (ie. light switches) are hard to break and pressing the switch should, optimally, turn off all lights in the closet.
I put motion sensors in my showers. I too have a fan that turns on when the shower is used, and turns off later, but all of this is motion driven. That's all secondary though. The main reason I have for motion sensors in the shower is to prevent the main bathroom lights from turning off due to no motion while someone is using the shower.
Consider a bedside Pico or Minimote to turn off the lights and trigger night mode. As it is he has to go from switch to bed in the dark. Not a big deal, but he could do it from bed also and you could blow off "physical".
I have "physical" in a few places in my system. But in each case I used an instant reporting Leviton device that does not need to be polled --- it reports the events.
Glad I’m not the only one that does this. Took the family a while to accept a motion sensor staring at them…
I use physical as a delay. If a light normally turns off after 2 minutes, but someone wants it on for longer, they press the switch, and it set’s a variable which becomes a restriction of sorts, that keeps the light on for 30 minutes instead. Once it shuts off, it resets the variable.
It’s a very user friendly “keep it on a little longer” option, that prevents users from hitting the disable motion via Alexa, that they always forget to turn back off.
What are you using for the shower motion? I'm considering getting one myself so I don't have to use doubleTaps on my zwave switch (my wife always forgets to doubleTap when leaving to reset the automation).
Any motion sensor will work, so long as you don’t get water directly on them, I’ve used Iris, NYCE and some generic zwave ones, none of them seem to be effected by the humidity present.
The NYCE devices have humidity sensors that can be used to drive and or augment control of the fan.
Is this just an issue with older Jasco devices? I have the 5 Jasco Fan Controllers (14287) and I see both the on and off events whenever the paddle switches are used. I’m also using a DTH handler written specifically for them which I think is doing the polling itself. I’ve a couple of cases where I’m using the fan switches to turn on lights and they always work both on and off.
I suppose this is accomplishing the same thing as the refresh rule, that is if I get the point of the thread.
Really? I’m referring to installing it in the shower with direct contact with steam. I have an iris in the bathroom above tge sink but assumed it could not withstand the kind of humidity it would get in the shower.
yup, two years, no issue...
1 Like
yes
All this driver is doing that's special is mapping the levels into speeds and creating events for these 3 speed settings.
Same as @mike.maxwell. Iris Motion sensors, I did tape them with clear packing tape, I slit it to remove the battery (once so far) and tape it back up. Obviously I’m over doing it, but never had an issue.
That is not only GE/Jasco issue.
I have Linear’s (WD500Z) dimmers and WS15Z switches, Leviton switch , Enerwave ZW20R-W outlet, none of them report physical events.
If it's not a steam shower, then it's not "steam" at all (as in H₂O > 212°). For tubs I place them at the far end away from the faucet. For walk-in showers, I do a ceiling mount as far from the water as possible that will still pick up motion in the shower, but not from elsewhere. Usually, these places stay pretty dry, and the humidity from the shower won't really bother them.
1 Like
