This! My wife absolutely hates (and doesn’t try) to remember n number of button presses for a scene.
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5-button switch totally makes sense here. Plus, I’m really excited to display a whole bunch of LED notifications in a handful of places around the house.
Yes, we do what we can and it always a compromise.
I could automate a lot more, but my wife just likes to play with dimmers based on her mood, a whim, or a particular task that day. Some people just don’t care for stuff to happen automatically based on best guesses. I mostly stick to basics and “my areas” generally do more than “her areas”, but she is very pleased with the things I have done and misses it if I happen to be updating or working on something and some automations are disabled. My automation system is built for us both to be happy, with the understanding that my hobby is not her hobby.
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This just popped up on FB. 
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I’ve done what I can, but our household only has so much that can be automatically scheduled, and she really doesn’t like having things happen automatically, if it’s noticeable.
A big one that she uses a lot and is really annoying for her is when putting the kids down for bed. We’ll read a book with the light on bright white, and then switch it to a dimmed red when it’s time for them to actually go to sleep. None of that smart light is controlled with a switch because the 5 button switch is ideal for that scenario, and I’ve been waiting for it. So, she’s primarily using Alexa. But it’s late, she’s tired, she’s trying to put the kids down. So, she’s talking quietly and not enunciating. Alexa hears it wrong half the time, and she gets really frustrated.
The 5 button would be ideal because we have a 1 gang for that room. Brightness buttons could control the ceiling fan light. One button could be for turning the rgb light on(white)/off. One button could be for turning rgb light on(red)/off. One could turn naptime on/off (naptime turns on/off brown noise, room heater, and humidifier).
These are things that can’t be made much smarter, without a lot of unintended consequences. Already, I have naptime set to automatically turn off at 9am, but if the baby wakes up early, she’ll she’ll sometimes go down for her nap before 9, and then the naptime routine will automatically turn off, and she’ll wake up prematurely, because the brown noise isn’t hiding house sounds anymore. I could get an occupancy sensor for that, but this will only be a problem for a few more months, at which she she’ll be old enough that she isn’t taking morning naps.
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If you’re that hard up for a 5-button controller ASAP, why not just put in a Zen32?
I’d love to see Inovelli release a similar device someday, but until then, the Zen32 is a bird-in-hand that works well.
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I didn’t know about it. Thanks! I wasn’t looking for alternatives while I thought Inovelli was going to come out with theirs soon, and hadn’t had time to look for an alternative since I found out it was on a permanent freeze.
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Agree. I used a couple of these and you can use them to set scenes and send color values to the buttons to indicate different status. Took a bit of writing, but for instance, one button cycles from Green to Blue, to Red each time it is pressed to set my Porch Light to Stay On, Motion Activated, Stay Off respectfully.
They are very configurable.
I should add that the logic and control is handled by my Hubitat Elevation - YMMV.
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I’m also using Hubitat.
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I use a few zen32 with home assistant and node red. They work great
What is “node red”?
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Lack of dimming capabilities on the load kills it for me.
Can’t tell if your joking or being serious. Node red is an addon for HA for doing more complex automations.
I believe that there is also a third-party Node Red integration in Hubitat, IIRC…
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Might be crazy, but could you put a shelly dimmer after the zen 32 and then drive brightness with automations / the scene controller itself? Would be super janky hah
Or if you have the option, smart bulbs
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I was being serious. Lol. I originally was Smartthings, and switched to Hubitat. I wonder how Node Red compares to Webcore, which is moving from Smartthings to Hubitat (Popular home automation app moves from SmartThings to Hubitat – HUBITAT). I’ve never used Webcore, and found that Rule Machine is as advanced as I need in Hubitat, but still curious.
There’s quite a bit of postings on Node Red on the Hubitat Community. It is used by a few people there, though I’m not one of them. I have also been using Rule Machine for my most complex automations.
Node Red, WebCoRE, and Rule Machine have all been running on Hubitat for years. Each has its own style of creating automations. It mostly boils down to personal choice/preferences.
I happen to prefer WebCoRE
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@DeltaNu1142 , @DragonKing +1 on the Zen32 for this use case. Zooz is my 2nd choice for switches when Inovelli doesn’t have something or is out. The other option for physical control would potentially be a Zen34 Remote Switch to create a switch for that thing that doesn’t have a switch. Add it next to the other switches and buy a bigger plate, it’ll be seamless.
My wife is very much the same, she likes it when its convenient or makes life easier but the double and triple taps are for me (with a few exceptions like the switches at the top or bottom of stairs to turn off everything on that floor). The answer tends to be to add sensors or detect changes to trigger actions rather than requiring manual input. Its not always perfect, but it keeps her from having to trigger a scene by double or triple clicking, or even just remembering to do it at all.
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