Line voltage to a Red Series on/off, load to a dumb outlet above kitchen cabinet that has LZW45 plugged in. Due to physical spacing and previous owners wiring, this setup is repeated on the other side of the kitchen. 3rd LZW45 is on the bar with constant power.
All switches and controllers are set up in SmartThings (v2 hub if it matters), and added via S2. I’d like to do a few things:
First off, I’d like to combine the functions of all 3 controllers into one virtual switch or perhaps a scene (don’t have a ton of experience with scenes). Second, is it possible to make it harder for the Red on/off to actually cut power to the load, and instead control said virtual switch? I’m not opposed to ripping out the switches if it’s easier for the above cabinet outlets to just have constant voltage.
Sure. So what you want to do is Disable Local Control on the switch. You can do that either through the switch’s settings, or 8x on the config button. That will keep the paddle presses from physically cutting the power to the wired load, which in your case is the receptacle. You can still turn the it off and on via the hub. It also allows you to still use the switch as a scene controller.
So you may or may not need a virtual switch, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.
The first thing I’d do is create a child object for each of the three strips with the pattern, intensity, etc that you want the strips to turn on to. There are several ways to do this, but the easiest is to use a Pixel Effect. Open the device page and scroll down to the Pixel Effects. Create a Pixel Effect using the pattern number (there is a chart) and the intensity. When you save that, it will create a child object that you can directly turn on and off, and the strip will automatically present the pattern and intensity you selected.
So now you can use a routine, scene or Smartlighting to turn all three on and off at the same time. If you want to use button presses on the switch to do that, you’ll have to use SmartLighting in ST.