I moved this conversation over from Issue #1 in GitHub
joshuairl commented 2 hours ago
Is there a way to use this on 3-way?
snakedog116 commented 2 hours ago
Um… I’m sure there’s a smartapp that could do that… But I’ve never looked.
As far as hard-wiring it up to be 3-way you are getting into some sketchy wiring that I wouldn’t suggest
joshuairl commented 2 hours ago
If the switches are wired in this config and I were to use one of these to simply toggle the master switch somehow?
snakedog116 commented an hour ago
Are you talking about toggling the master switch using a smartapp, or a hard wire? I’m not an electrician so I shouldn’t speak to hard-wiring it.
My thought would be to do the following:
Switch 1 is hooked up normally
Switch 2 only has power, but doesn’t have a load.
Here’s the scenario:
You start with both switches in the off position.
Then if you switch 1 on, the light goes on normally.
It then updates z-wave that the switch is on (this is all part of normal operation)
You would then create a smartapp that watches Switch 1 turn on and then it turns on Switch 2 (which isn’t connected to anything).
(This means that if you turn on Switch 1, both devices go to ‘on’ position.
Then you would have a SmartApp that does the same thing for the ‘off’ position. **So now you have switch 1 working normally, and switch 2 is following whatever switch 1 does through your smartapps. 5.Then, the other half of the equation is to use that same smartapp but flip the switches.
So, if you have both of the light are off, then you switch on 2. The smartapp would see that, and turn on switch 1. and then if you turn off Switch 2, Switch 1 will follow suit and turn off your light.
Should be doable with Rule Machine or something like that… but it would be a lot of work to setup, but if you ask around on the community page there might be a smartapp that has all of that built into 1 so you don’t have 4 smartapps running.
Note, if you want to discuss this further, we should do it in SmartThings’ community site, not Github Issues page.
joshuairl commented 14 minutes ago
I’m talking about a currently setup traditional (non-smart) 3 way light switch.
One is a master and one is a slave.
I’d be putting a monoprice module on the master.
When either switch is toggled I’d imagine the power would be turned on which I’d think could theoretically trigger the module.
I’m not familiar with switches either so not sure if this is a valid use or not.
snakedog116 commented 9 minutes ago
Oh I see, so you have 2 current switches that are 3-way and you want to replace one with a module and leave the other one as is.
Hmmmm… I don’t think this would work how you want it, 3-way switches have extra wires when compared to a 2-way switch.
Having said that, it might work if you put the module in the light box, instead of in the switch box. I’d have to look over the wiring diagram again, but seems to me like that would be your best bet.
snakedog116 commented just now
Problem would be in a typical wiring scenario you wouldn’t have both constant hot (Black) and constant common (white) at the bulb. You’d have to see if you have that.
Do you have a multimeter? You’d have to see what kinds of wires you have as you’ll need to power the relay.
I’ve copied this thread over to smartthings community, but I can’t find you @joshuairl . Please let’s continue this there.
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
2
Just an FYI:
I’ve had two (out of two) of the Monoprice Z-Wave relays fail in the past year.
The “relay” continues to work (i.e., via the physical switch), but they drop off the network and no amount of reset / exclude / include attempts are able to get them working again with SmartThings.
The 2nd was a free replacement from Monoprice for the 1st. I’m waiting to see if they will replace the 2nd failed one, but I think it is outside of their RMA period.
Loved, loved, loved this module – before it failed.
Someone posted a review saying that the 2nd relay with smartthings and Enerwave dual relay can take 2-3 minutes… I’m guessing with similar code to the monoprice one it should be instant as well?
Another thing on this subject…
A reviewer of the enerwave one discussed using it on a 3-way switch and roughly explained their setup… not sure if they got their slave switch toggling it as well or not?
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
8
The “Vision” one is an exact duplicate of the Monoprice – pretty certain they have the same manufacturer. But thanks for the link to the Enerwave – a little more expensive but hopefully more robust.
Aeon / Aeotec also has a micro-switch … not sure they have dual-relay version. But it has its own set of issues…
Yeah I’ve seen the Aeon Labs one. Was more or less interested in the dual relay ones to save money on replacing all my bathroom / bedroom switches with 2 gang boxes.
If you already have it wired for old style 3-way switches you could just replace them with a new kit that is z-wave enabled. I know that Home Depot sells them. Amazon has “Leviton VP00R-1LZ” as the secondary switch and you need a “Leviton VP0SR-1LZ” for the master switch. You can have more than one secondary switch if you have a 4-way, etc.
Yup. But may save a lot of time… It is a dimmer, however, too - bonus feature if you can make use of it.
One thing to check before going with the “micro” approach is take a look behind the switch. There is NEVER enough room… I spent a couple of hours trying to get two of them in a 4 switch box that was supposed to be extra deep but I couldn’t manage to do it. fortunately I could put them in another box and just jumper over to the switches in the main 4-switch box.
With the micro approach you’d just need to get all the time power over to the other box and then use z-wave from the non-load switch to control the load switch. I bet you could do it with just one smartApp that checks the status of the load switch and changes it to the other state.
Just spoke to someone at Enerwave regarding the RSM1 device.
For reference, here is the diagram he sent.
This is how to use existing 3-way wiring to control a Single Relay Module from Enerwave… but may also work for Monoprice / Vision Single Relay devices as well but may translate differently with the wires.
However, I’m still trying to understand the diagram but wanted to make sure I posted it here for any searchers.
It requires the first switch to be swapped out with a 4-way switch. So even with the cost of the relay module being at $24-30 this solution is still about half the price of buying the GE $35+Add On $19.
I think how you’d do that in your case would be to reconnect the wires from all of the switch boxes so that there is constant power in all of them - and the light box. Then they would control the relay through the z-wave interface instead of physically. It sounds strange at first - I helped my brother install an Insteon 3-way switch and one of the boxes just had one romex wire running into it to supply power to the switch - it seemed so wrong…
