Maybe it is a driver or possibly firmware issue, but RuleMachine 4 has "Physical switch" and "Switch" both as trigger events. I'd love to distinguish these, but it seems the ZooZ Zen26 doesn't report physical events at all.
Is this something that a switch firmware update might fix? I've read the threads on firmware updating, and they sound rather messy and complicated (OTA firmware updates from Hubitat please?)
Or is this just hopeless? I'm using the "Generic Z-Wave Switch" driver. The "smart" version didn't act any better.
Physical vs digital is left to the driver to sort out based on what we can derive from the device, it's not an explicit reportable item in zwave or zigbee devices, so it isn't related to firmware versions.
If you have the Zen 26 it is Z-wave plus so you definitely want to use the Smart version of the driver. The non-smart one is designed for Z-wave non-plus devices.
Although, that won't help you with figuring out physical vs. digital. It's still the better driver to use.
Mike -- thanks, that's good to know. I wasn't excited about the idea of trying to do a firmware update on it. I see a couple of folks have tried to port the SmartThings driver for this device -- perhaps I'll see where they are with that...
My Zen 26 had the older firmware on it when they shipped it, the newer firmware has the Central Scene capability with it Version 2.1. Depending on whether you want that feature or not.
Updating isn't hard at all, you just need a separate zwave stick, If you message Agnes @ the smartest house they'll send you the firmware file and the zensy tools software for the pc at no charge. It's as simple as unpairing the switch from HE, and pairing it to the zensy tools software on the pc, selecting the firmware file they sent and click update. After it's done unpair from pc and pair back to Hubitat. In fact Agnes has even mentioned in this forum they will send you a loaner zstick if you don't want to buy one
Mike -- looks like in order to do what I want I'm going to have to dig into the driver for these switches. I have one on a motion sensor for my driveway, and what I'd REALLY like is to be able to make a RM rule that says "If I PHYSICALLY turn on the switch, ignore the motion sensor and leave the light on until I turn it off (or sunrise)" I can do that via the dashboard with a virtual switch, but my wife would think that unnecessarily complicated and would expect the light to stay on if she turns it on at the switch.
Would either have to make a user driver, or get Mike to add it to the inbox driver.
I distinguish between physical and digital on and off commands on my GE/jasco drivers. If you want to make a user driver, or port a SmartThings driver, and need an example that's a good place to start.
How you do it at the driver level is basically the same regardless of the manufacturer of the device.
Unless there's some specifics to this device being exposed in the dedicated driver that you need to change all the time, there's two others you can try that probably have more advanced physical detection, try the Generic Z-Wave Smart Switch first, then the Generic Z-Wave Switch
I have several old GE switches and dimmers that at one point in time under ST reported physical vs digital just fine. ST then did an update much later and we lost this ability, and my WebCore rules were all foobar, at least the ones that were basing actions on physical or digital...
Fast forward to HE, where I never had this capability... Time for the thinking cap to be utilized...
In every RM rule where I switch a light on or off via RM, I also explicitly set a corresponding virtual switch (VS). The same can as of late be achieved by means of a global variable (GV).
The switch state and the GV or VS state will always match if they are handled by RM.
This allows me, for example, to have a rule that will turn my lights off after 5 min if no motion and an On event occurs - the rule checks for both the light being on and the GV or VS both being on.
Should the light be manually switched on, the corresponding GV or VS will not get set, so in my case that means a physical On event, meaning there is no automated off.
Should the light be switched off, regardless of how it was switched on, the GV or VS is switched off, in effect resetting their states.
I was thinking this myself, and it would work for my situation. In fact, I was going to suggest to Mike that the Hubitat could 'fake' physical vs virtual in this way, internally. But if there were ever a direct device-device association that caused the switch to go on, it wouldn't work. I'm not likely to ever have one of these, so your suggestion may be what I end up going with. Fortunately, I only have 1 rule (motion) now for each of the switches where I'd want this kind of behavior.
I've tried both. With the "Smart Switch" driver, I wasn't getting (at least, not reliably) physical events reported back to the hub at all. I believe I tried switching drivers several times, and once it might have been OK. Seemed hit and miss somehow (I didn't take notes. If you want I can try to pin it down). The Generic Z-Wave Switch driver is what I have been using since I installed it months ago. Other than the physical vs digital distinction it works fine. Every change of the switch is reported in the logs with "[physical]". But if I try "Physical Switch" as a trigger in RM, nothing happens at all. "Switch" always triggers no matter why the switch changes (as I'd expect). So though the logs say "[physical]", RM doesn't recognize it as a Physical Switch.
I've tried that (and just tried it again). I can't see that it reports differently whether I turn it on/off from the dashboard or at the wall. There is a Rule Machine condition called "physical switch changed" and I was really hoping it would ONLY match if I use the switch at the wall. But it seems to trigger just the same as "switch changed" condition.
It all depends on the driver and whether the driver captures that. With many devices, after the command is issues, the device itself doesn't update until it reports back that the change has been made. If the hub doesn't "remember" whether it issued the command or not, there's no way to report back whether or not the change was digital or physical.
This is not common to be implemented for the Generic drivers since they are already accounting for a LOT of devices. You can see if there's a custom driver out there that does report this correctly and use that instead.
If you're using the Zooz Central Scene Switch handler, and you've clicked "Configure" after changing to that handler, the device's Events page should show either physical or digital in the type column.
You won't be able to tell if it's working by looking at the Logs screen.
Just did a firmware update on that switch, and together with using the Zooz Central Scene switch, RM does see the difference between "physical switch" and "digital switch", so things are looking good. Thanks guys!
