I’m trying to set up some associations and while I think I’ve got them working after some trial and error, I’m a little concerned I don’t have it quite set up the way I want so I wanted to review with you.
I have 4 Inovelli Red dimmer switches in a semi open floor plan. I want to have each switch control on/off of all 4 switches and dimming for all 4 switches. All of the switches are on different circuits and switching different loads.
I’ve created associations between all the switches for group 3 and group 4, which seems to give me on/off w/ ramp and brightness syncing. However, I’ve noticed that with bilateral associations things tend to go wonky and they all fight with each other in a loop. I noticed there is a parameter 12 which has 4 different settings, but I can’t figure out which ones are the “correct” settings for my requirements.
Can someone help clarify what my param 12 should be across all 4 zwave settings so that I can have each switch control all of the switches for on/off and brightness, and then any warnings on how using zwave through Home Assistant to trigger those lights should be handled?
I’m not sure I have the notion of a slave switch here since each switch is kinda its own master and the expectation is that a user would be able to go to any of the 4 switches and physically on/off or dim all 4 circuits. And then hopefully still have a way of controlling the light group through zwave/HA.
Maybe I’m not understanding. Typically we see associations for 3, 4, or 5 way that utilize smart switches in each location, but only one switch controls the load. You’re saying you have 4 switches and each have their own load attached correct? So really you want all switches to track one another while controlling each individual load connected.
That I’m not sure what number you’d use. You could use a rule to have them turn on/off using a trigger but not sure that’s the best method.
Perhaps some of the stronger knowledge association folks can help pick a number that won’t cause loops.
Yeah, I’m not using this to handle multi-way circuits. I was looking for an alternative to using HA automations that allows for seamless control of the brightness at all 4 switches where the LED bars sync with each other. I think associations allows me to do this, but there’s a bit of jank that I think has to do with param 12 and I was looking to get more context on what they do.
Right now, in HA I have them tied to a light group and almost fully automated, but I’d like to make it more user friendly where if someone does any of the 4 physical switches, they can control brightness of the entire area’s lights.
I think this will work. This is expanded version of the 2x dimmer 3-way I have setup. There is a 5 device limit for associations. I’m not sure if that’s purely devices or groups. You are under 5 devices but will have more than 5 group associations per device
You are correct about parameter 12. The LD get the default values. Both NL1, NL2, and NL3 get param 12 set to 11 (ie Association Behavior: Z-Wave Hub = 0 and all others 1)
So what I did was arbitrarily choose one of my switches to be the “load switch” since all of them are different circuits. I made that one 15. I made the other 3 11. I set up the group 3 and group 4 for all of the switches to each other.
It works for the most part. The dimming is functional enough but I’ll say it doesn’t seem to stay perfectly in sync between the switches. It’s doable though. I’m assuming now I’ll just change my automations away from a light group to activating the 15 switch and everything should be OK.
No, I mean that these are 4 different circuits. So I see that most people are using associations for switches on the same circuit and therefore one of them is connected to the load, and the others are not.
My use case is different, I’m just trying to find an easier way to sync 4 independent circuits, each with at least 1 Inovelli red on those circuits, to each other so that each switch controls all 4 for dimming. I hacked a solution together through HA automations but was hoping associations could be a little bit more…elegant.
When I say arbitrary, I mean that I randomly chose one of the 4 switches to be what was considered above, the load switch to get the 15 param, and the rest as 11. It does seem to have stopped them from looping each other.
Try associating group 2 between them as well. That makes them all turn on and off better synchronized.
2 - synchronizes turning on and off
3 - synchronizes changes in dimmer level as the level is changing
4 - synchronizes the changed dimmer level after the level has stopped being changed. In other words, when you let go of the paddle.
And you were right, just pick one as the “master” that you control in HA. The rest you don’t control from HA. If you wanted to, you could even hide them.
I do the same thing you’re doing but with just 2 switches for the top and bottom of the stairs. The top is the master I control from HA and the bottom gets left to follow the top.
