Zooz switches and hue lifts

The zen 27 allow you to control smart bulbs, that I can understand. Now how difficult would dimming be? I’m guessing a rule? Hold down deramp hue?

Thank you

A firmware update earlier this summer was supposed to add an option to disable the "relay" (or more accurately for the dimmer, disable local control). As you know, that would disable a tap up/down from turning on/off the light (load) directly but would still send button events to Hubitat to use as you see fit (probably turning your smart bulbs on/off). I never tried that to see what happens if you hold the paddle like you would to dim without local control disabled. My guess is that nothing would happen and you'd need to assign multi-tap events to do step-up/step-down dimming instead like you do for other switches that support these things. I'm pretty sure that's how the scene-enabled Inovelli switches work, but I haven't tried those yet, either (so you could do something like single-tap up to turn on, double-tap up to increase brightness, etc.--not quite as intuitive as a hold and release, but I'm not aware of any dimmer that supports that with local control disabled...but it would be super-cool to have those reported as button held and released events to get used for start/stop level change commands in Hubitat!).

However, a recent e-mail I got from Zooz support (I hope it's OK to share) said:

In the firmware we're working on, the switch will still report status and allow for remote bulb dimming so it will be truly smart bulb ready. We'll be in touch to confirm the release date to you early next week.

I'm not sure what they mean with "remote bulb dimming," but perhaps they are working on still allowing the switch to support level events so you can make it "mirror" real bulbs, which is the way devices like the Lutron Aurora and RGBGenie remotes have to work. Or perhaps they've read my mind and are implementing reporting of button hold/release events as I mentioned above. Either way, it sounds like something they're working on should be better than the way it works now, which has only been possible since June or so (and they didn't publicize it much aside from announcing in release notes and telling people on the forum here).

So...I guess we'll see, or maybe Zooz support (often active on the forums) will see this and clarify what they meant in that e-mail. :slight_smile: Myself, I'm just planning on waiting and seeing how the new firmware works...

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Thank you very much

This... very much this!!! This would truely be the only way that it would be "Smart Bulb Ready" IMHO.

The best intentions are not always what is possible in the end. So, I would not purchase devices based on what is planned for the future. Been burned too many times on that one. But if it all works out like they plan it should be very interesting to see.

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A firmware update earlier this summer was supposed to add an option to disable the "relay" (or more accurately for the dimmer, disable local control

I’m not sure what you mean. As of right now, can I disable the local control and have on/off control of my hue, no dimming?

Thank you

Is that a question? If so, yes, if you're on firmware since June or so (no guarantees based on when your switch shipped so you'd have to check the version). I think 10 quick taps up toggles this l but you'd need a scene driver to get button events and I'm not sure if Hubitat's stock one does. It may.

In either case, Zooz discouraged me from trying it until their even newer firmware next week. I don't know exactly what improvements they have planned.

The question is...how are you going to update that firmware? You would need a Z-stick or something to update it from your PC. Hubitat doesn't do firmware updates yet.

Zooz will lend out their Z-Wave stick if you don't have one, but yeah, it's still a pain: you have to exclude it from Hubitat, then include it to the stick and use their Windows-only utility (or technically any that works but this is all they've tested) to update the firmware (which you have to request from Zooz Support), then re-include it to Hubitat and put it back in any automations you're using.

Probably not something I'd do unless any of the changes are valuable to you. If they get this firmware out, I'll try it out and see what it really does.

O wow, I almost ordered one too

On the current firmware 2.03 you can disable local control but to get smart bulb control, you'd need to set up scenes for it in Hubitat. We're improving the firmware now so that it will not require you to set up scenes but you'll be able to create an easy mirroring automation that will allow you to control the bulbs as well as dim them remotely.

How? The dimmer would directly connect to the hue app?

You would be using an automation in the Smart Lighting app that would mirror the behavior between the Hue bulbs and the dimmer. We're changing the way the dimmer reports button presses when the relay is disabled to allow smooth smart bulb control.

So the new firmware will still report switch and level to Hubitat? (I haven't tried it the current way, but I'm guessing it doesn't and you'd have to use central scenes, implemented in as button events in the Hubitat driver, for this purpose instead.) That's great news!

If you're looking for wishlist items, I alluded to one above but can spell it out more clearly here: basically, whatever it would take on the hardware/firmware side to get held and released events for up and down holds of the paddle (say, button 1 held and released for up, and button 2 held and released for down; I'm assuming what happens right now is various button pushed events for regular and multi-taps, so this would be an addition to those). Then we wouldn't have to worry about "mirroring" at all: a user could use these button events in conjunction with, say, startLevelChange(...) and stopLevelChange() (on held and released, respectively) functions in Hubitat to imitate what a "real" dimmer would do. Just an idea @Ryan780 and I seem to share. :slight_smile: (Mirroring is great but can get out of sync if you change the lights directly or have a "group" of smart bulbs but also sometimes make changes to individual members.) I realize this probably wouldn't work very well on a certain popular cloud-based platform (whose button model is also such that you'd probably have to implement an entirely new button number for some of these), but...I can hope, right? :smiley:

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I'm not sure what exactly they're changing about reporting but it will make it possible to control smart bulbs without the use of scene control.

Thanks for the feedback about held and release events, I'll pass it on to the engineers and will let you know if this can be implemented as well.

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What “smart lighting ap”

In Hubitat (that terminology was probably carried over from ST), I'd use the Mirror/Mirror Me apps. There is apparently no official documentation at the moment, but it's a pretty simple app and this post, a quote of the release notes, sums up about all there is (but do keep in mind it's a one-way mirroring, so I'd probably expose the the Zooz dimmer and not the bulb group in all your automations, voice control, etc. where you want to manipulate the smart bulbs to eliminate issues with things getting out of sync--except now that I think about it, I'm not sure how you'd handle color with that).

Is there a way to know when this is available? I've been looking into getting some Hue lights in a couple of areas but want to keep the wall switches as an option for guests and my wife. This sounds like it would be perfect. Until I had read this post, I had been considering the Zen21 and just using the scene control feature, and if someone wanted to dim the lights they'd need the app or a voice command.

Also, how are you going to distinguish devices with the new firmware from devices with the old firmware? For example, if I buy one from Amazon, it will most likely need the firmware update, correct? So, I would have to buy a Z-stick as well?

We hope to have the OTA file completed and released within the next couple of weeks. We'll keep you posted here!

This new firmware will not be available at least for another couple of month in mass production but with the current one you can already disable the relay and at least do on/off control for smart bulbs. If you'd like to update any of our devices and need a Z-Wave stick, we can always send you a loaner stick, just send your order number to our support and request it!

Couple of weeks? It was scheduled for this week I thought