Zooz Zen21 switch - Wiring and setup questions

I'm new to Hubitat and HA in general. I've got a Zen25, which has 2 Zwave outlets. I was able to add it to my HE without any issues and seem to be able to control it. I'm starting out really simple. The goal is to control mine and my wife's bedside lamps that are mounted to the wall, 1 on each side of the bed, and just plug into an outlet under the bed.

In the bedroom, there are 2 light switches when you walk into the room. When we bought the house, 1 controlled the fan and one controlled the fan light. We have since replaced the fan with a unit that is controlled via a RF remote. So the unit as a whole is either powered or not, so it only needed to be wired to 1 of the 2 switches. The second switch currently does nothing. This is where the Zen21 comes in.

I've been told that a scene controller would be better for this, and maybe that's true, but I haven't been able to find one that I like and that I think my wife would find acceptable. Maybe at some point in the future I'll get one and move this switch somewhere else. We'll see. But the idea is to have 1 switch that controls the fan and another switch to control the lamps.

  1. Since all this switch is doing is sending commands to the plug, how should I wire it? Should I just cap the load wire off and leave it behind the switch? Just wire in the line and neutral? I'm assuming this is the correct answer, but I'm not really sure.

  2. I want to set it up so that a single tap turns on 1 of the plugs and a double tap turns on both of the plugs. Off will turn off both. I assume this will be fairly easy to setup in HE, but since I've never set anything up like this before, I'm not sure how it would be done. Would I setup something using rule manager?

  3. I've read that it's possible to associate zwave devices directly so they don't need to use the hub. Is there an advantage to this, other than the obvious one of the switch still working if the hub dies? What are possible disadvantages?

As a side note, if anyone knows of a Zwave+ scene controller that is like this Insteon one, I'd love to know about it. I like that there is a big on/off buttons at the top and bottom and a few smaller buttons in between. It's basically exactly what I want; a button for each light and a bigger button to turn them all on or all off.

Since the plugs are already smart, you could cap all the wires in the box and use a battery-powered switch. I have one of these https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07HJHJWGT/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_BY-xDb7YE73TT but there are other similar switches. These switches have a mounting plate that screws to the box allowing a standard decora faceplate to cover both switches. The mounting plate is magnetic so you can easily remove the switch if you want.
The batteries should last for years. You can assign each button to a different task. Some of the buttons can also do a push and hold.

The Zooz might work with no load attached, but you could probably just wire it normally, make sure you have updated firmware and that this feature is supported on this model (their support can verify), and then use a relatively new parameter they introduced to disable the relay--then the switch won't actually cut power to the load, but it will still send "scene" (button in the Hubitat device model) events to the hub that you can use to do whatever you want. (In the past, people have also wired line and load together to achieve a similar, less-easily-reversible result.)

In the past, Button Controller would have been the easiest way. That is still an option, though I'm not sure if they'll keep the standalone app long-term. The functionality--plus a bit more--has been folded into Rule Machine if you create a Rule 4.0 with "Button Controller" (not plain "Button") as the trigger capability. This lets you assign a set of actions (exactly like Rule Machine) to each type of button event for each button number. So you could do "button 1 pushed" to turn on something, and "button 1 double-tapped" to turn on something else. (Stock Hubitat drivers don't usually go beyond double-taps; I'm not sure about these, but some scene switches support 5 taps, in which case you'll need a custom driver and they usualy work around this by assigning different button numbers to the multiple taps.)

As suggested above, you could also simply use a wireless switch (not sure what they intended to link to--maybe the Eria?) in this location, but if you already have power running here, this is one less battery to worry about. :slight_smile:

Theoretically, it might be a bit faster since it takes the hub out of the equation, and it might be more reliable since it will work if your hub happens to be off at that moment (say, you're rebooting for a firmware upgrade). However, most people who have hubs don't set things up that way-- Hubitat (or at least most device drivers) doesn't make it easy, but it is possible.

Disadvantages are mostly related to the fact that it takes the hub out of the equation: you get a bit less power (the hub can do pretty much anything you want, but association is often limited to just turning the other device on/off or similar). It also makes troubleshooting more difficult since if you forget that you set this up and want to change it, you might be scratching your head for a while wondering why this is happening since Hubitat won't offer much in the way of clues.

Zoozes newer Switch and Dimmer (26 & 27) are Scene controllers.

But my suggestion is to e-mail ask@getzooz.com. They are quick to respond and can answer a variety of wiring questions with regards to their switches. Tagging @agnes.zooz who may be able to shed some light on setting up your circuit/plan....

S

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If you're putting the switch in place of an existing switch that controls a load and you want that load to be disconnected completely, then just use the line and neutral for ZEN21 to power it and cap the load wire. The switch just needs power and neutral to work as a remote control / scene controller. For anyone else reading this thread, only the ZEN21 will work well without load, the ZEN26 model won't work without load connected to it.

If it was just single tap, then a simple mirroring automation could work but since you'd like to use a double tap to enable the other outlet, then you'd need to enable scene control on the switch (it should be enabled by default on Hubitat actually) and program the triggers in the Button Controller app. If you need help programming the triggers, please get in touch with our support to receive detailed instructions.

You wouldn't be able to trigger the plug the way you intended using direct association. This is a simple link that was really designed for single triggers like turning lights when motion was detected. I think in the past association was also used to trigger scenes but Z-Wave since moved on to the central scene command class which is what's used in the latest version of our switches to handle scene control.

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This is what I had assumed; thank you for the confirmation. The switch it's replacing does not currently control a load connected. If I remember correctly, we capped it off at the fan since the new fan unit ran off a single switch instead of 2 like the old one did.

For anyone else reading this thread, only the ZEN21 will work well without load, the ZEN26 model won't work without load connected to it.

Just curious, why wouldn't the ZEN26 work? I see nothing in the documentation that seems to indicate it wouldn't. In fact, I see a quote on the product page that says "Say goodbye to flickering and minimum Wattage requirements." that seems to imply the opposite.

If it was just single tap, then a simple mirroring automation could work but since you'd like to use a double tap to enable the other outlet, then you'd need to enable scene control on the switch (it should be enabled by default on Hubitat actually) and program the triggers in the Button Controller app. If you need help programming the triggers, please get in touch with our support to receive detailed instructions.

I plan on wiring it up this weekend, hopefully. I'll play around with it and if I need help I'll reach out to support. Thanks!

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Agnes, if you wanted to use this switch zen21 as a remote/scene controller and you are using smart bulbs can you connect the switch to line and neutral and the smart bulbs load to line? Wouldn't that power the bulbs but let the switch turn them on and off?

I think that you're referring to ZEN27, which is the dimmer model, and that works well without load. The ZEN26 uses a double relay and its switching capability is dependent on current sensing, if there's no current running at all, then it doesn't know what's going on and doesn't update correctly.

Yes exactly. That's what we usually recommend, it's the simplest way to automate smart bulbs with our switches. But some users would like to have the ability to cut power off to the bulbs to reset them or for other reasons so they have a choice to disable the relay on demand and enable it if needed.