Added both devices to SmartThings as “Living Room - Line” and “Living Room - Load”
SmartThings auto-assigned a device handler of “Inovelli Dimmer”. This handler DOES NOT WORK with the Z-Wave Association Tool. When configuring this device handler, SmartThings reports a “network error” but the real error shows up in Live Logs:
78839f6a-0881-41c3-8c3e-cbe2e1a1b927 12:14:05 PM: error error executing uninstalled method on Living Room - Load Association Group 3: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Command 'setAssociationGroup' is not supported by device 9bebc330-cf1c-44e0-a1d1-83fb0528f60d of type 'Inovelli Dimmer'. Supported commands: [on, off, configure, setLevel, refresh, resetEnergyMeter, ping]
78839f6a-0881-41c3-8c3e-cbe2e1a1b927 12:14:05 PM: error java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Command 'setAssociationGroup' is not supported by device 9bebc330-cf1c-44e0-a1d1-83fb0528f60d of type 'Inovelli Dimmer'. Supported commands: [on, off, configure, setLevel, refresh, resetEnergyMeter, ping] @line 72 (initialize)
Prevents race condition/loop behavior where switches “fight” each other.
Z-Wave Association Tool
Capability is Switch / Dimmer / Bulb for all of these.
Source
Destination(s)
Group(s)
Basement Hall Light
Basement Hall Light - 4-way middle, Basement Hall Light - 4-way end
2, 3, 4
Basement Hall Light - 4-way middle
Basement Hall Light, Basement Hall Light - 4-way end
2, 3, 4
Basement Hall Light - 4-way end
Basement Hall Light - 4-way middle, Basement Hall Light
2, 3, 4
This ends up with 9 total entries in the associations app. Maybe someday when I get time a fork of this app that can handle this specific case without having to configure N^2 child apps would be handy. I have A LOT of 3-way and 4-way switches in my house and it is a lot of clicking right now.
It seems reliable but slow. There is a noticeable 1-2 second delay between pressing on/off on one of the non-load switches and the load switch reacting. Holding to dim is reactive enough to be useful. I’m going to let this setup sit for a few weeks before doing any more N-way replacements to see how the family deals with it.
I do wish that Inovelli had a hard-wired non-load dimmer similar to the Leviton DD00R-DL which appears to use the traveler as some sort of communication line between all the non-load dimmers and the main load dimmer.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, and they aren’t Inovelli branded, but are the supported Auxs different than what you’re suggesting? They can be configured both load and non-load and use a single traveler for communication.
Haven’t had a chance to take a video yet, but here are my observations on the 3-way setup:
Good
Voice control via Google and Alexa sets dim and on/off perfectly. Toggling individual lights via the Google Home app does not correctly update the LED nor does it actually turn the lights on at the Line switch, but not a big deal because voice commands treat them as a group.
Not So Good
Physically toggling the Line switch is treated as a Z-Wave dim by the Load switch. It uses the Dimming Rate value, not the Ramp Rate value. I consider this a bug from a UX perspective, as I’m toggling the light, not dimming it.
Like @eric.dalquist, I can get instant on/off at the Load switch, but there is still a delay at the Line switch. I’d love to fix this, as the Line switch is much more central in my room.
Yes those are an option and I have a set of the GE momentary switches on the way to compare.
However they will look and feel different and I believe they don’t have any sort of sync’d dimmer bar. A lot of my N-Way switches are wired such that the load switch is not in the same place that I want to take advantage of the wonderfully controllable LED strip on the Inovelli switches.
Like if there would be any way to use a LZW31-SN as the hardwired non-load switch such that the LZW31-SNs were wired together with the traveler and used that to sync on/off/dim state while the LED strips were exposed as child devices as the are now.
Yep, the Auxs have no LED bar. You can use two Inovellis but they won’t communicate via traveler; direct association only. There have been mixed reports over the syncing of the LED bar when connected via direct association. I agree that two Inovellis communicating via traveler would be great as it would likely eliminate a lot of issues.
Does “everything:” work as expected? I just set this up recently and it mostly works as expected. But when I use the Dashboard to turn the load switch on/off, I don’t see the aux switch staying in sync with the primary load switch.
In other words, it does NOT work from a Dashboard or Rules/Automations from the smart hub. It works with manual switch toggling, but the LED bars do NOT stay in sync when sending ZWave commands from the hub.
So I’m wondering if you folks who say its all working have verified they all stay in sync when using zwave command and/or the Dashboard to turn the lights on and off?
I tested this pretty thoroughly when I originally posted about it, but just retested to confirm that I have no synchronization issues between the physical LEDs on my dimmers that are associated with each other, no matter how I initiate the dimming / toggling.
It sounds like both of you are may actually be exposing your ‘slave’ dimmers in your dashboard in addition to the ‘master’ which is located in the box with the load. You should only be actually exposing the ‘master’ within your dashboard / google home. As an example, all of my ‘slave’ dimmers have the associated device in Home Assistant set as disabled:
I don’t have duplicate toggles for the same set of lights in Home Assistant or anything that consumes devices from Home Assistant (Google Home / HomeKit)
Only dimmers with a physically attached load have their energy reporting data persisted
Additionally, you should ensure that your ‘master’ dimmer is not the one that has parameter 12 set to 11. In other words, you should only be changing parameter 12 to 11 on your ‘slave’ dimmers.
I agree with you that only the ‘master’ should be controlled from any dashboard / alexa / google home. I do not have any ‘slave’ dimmers exposed in my dashboards. Only the ‘master’ appears on my dashboards and only the ‘master’ is exposed to my Alexa skill. Its a good point for others to check, but was not the problem in my case
THAT is the key to making it fully work with z-wave commands to the master dimmer.
Some of the previous comments implied that all associated devices needed to have parameter12 set to 11. But I have learned that the ‘master’ dimmer (the one with the actual load connected) still needs to have parameter 12 set to 15 (15 is default) so it includes z-wave commands. The other (slaves) need to have parameter12 set to 11 so they exclude z-wave commands. Having the ‘master’ parameter12 set to 11 is what disabled the synchronization when z-wave commands were sent to the master.
I don’t completely agree. Its true that the LZW31 dimmers don’t generate ‘BasicSet’ commands from LOCAL button pushes and therefore don’t need Group 2 association to sync LOCAL button events. However, with z-wave commands enabled on the master (parameter12=15) it is possible for hub-based automations to send BasicSet commands to the master to turn it on/off and you need Association Group 2 enabled for those events to keep the on/off state in sync on the slaves when an automation sends a BasicSet command to the master.
I don’t have a great way to measure but a rough estimate is between 200 and 700ms of latency when I interact with a secondary switch before the primary reacts. It seems to be longer if the switches have been untouched for a several minutes.
It is enough of a delay that I’m going to swap it out for the GE Enbrighten Add-On Switches, which have no delay but don’t look nearly as nice:
@Eric_Inovelli I would LOVE it if the LZW31-SNs could use the traveler to communicate or if you were able to get an add-on with the LED strip available. We have 7 multi-way lighting circuits and they are some of the most heavily used. I’d love to have the LED indicator on all of them vs whichever junction box happens to have the Load wire in it.
Here are two screenshots for a 4-way setup. Each of the 9 association tool children I setup looks similar to that screenshot but for each of the groups and each of the source → dest combinations.
I see this behavior as well. I’m going to be removing the Association Group setup and switching to the GE AddOn switches to get rid of the delay. If I wasn’t I’d probably look at creating a custom app or device in hubitat that kept the secondary switches in sync with the primary for “soft” commands.
Ok so I’m very very new here… Just got 10 Red dimmers and 10 Red on off switches and am hoping to install them on both ends of my 3 and 4 way switch setups.
I’ll be using Home Assistant. Anyone have a step by step guide on how to accomplish this? I’ve read through the above thread but most seems to be on different smart hubs. My HA deployment is new and as of now, am planning to go the Z-Wave JS route and use Node Red for my automations. I’ve not seen anywhere in HA for device associations?
