Aurora Switches - Help

Hi all,

Pretty new to ST, just got the hub (up and working no problems) and some switches to test with.

My understanding is that Aurora switches can connect straight to ST hub without any apps? (I’m not installing an app for every vendor…)


This wont connect at all, I’ve held down every combination of buttons I can think of


This wont connect either (even worse I can’t even turn the light off, pressing/swizzling does nothing, the standard LED light is just '‘on’)

Have I misunderstood zigbee, or am I just unlucky?

Thanks
Andy

I don’t have any of the Aurora products myself. (Yet.)

They are Zigbee products and yes they do make their own hub but my understanding is that they can be connected without their hub.

Indeed their website shows options for using their hub or just a Smartthings hub.
https://aone.auroralighting.com/

With Zigbee products like Z-Wave you need to put them in to a pairing mode so they can be linked to in your case your Smartthings Hub.

@AndyPrice-Aurora is a representative of AOne and as you can see a visitor to these forums. Perhaps he can add more information.

Hi John,
Many thanks for the info!

Hi Andy, any info you can add would be amazing (I’ve followed the shipped instructions already, and no luck)

Regards

Hi Andy

Sadly the kinetic switch is the only product in our lineup that isn’t compatible with smartthings.

This is due to ST not supporting the Zigbee Green Power standard as part of their platform.

With regards to the dimmer, we’d need to know a little more about how it’s wired, master or slave mode, what load you have connected etc, as this will ultimately affect its ability to pair properly.

Please open a support ticket at:

https://auroralightinghelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-gb

One of our team can investigate the specifics of your install and get to the bottom of it for you.

Regards

Andy

Thankyou so much Andy :slight_smile:

#1 - Great… I thought with sticking pure zigbee/zwave neutral I would avoid all this compatibility crap of 3rd party vendors doing their own implementation haha. Oh well. Anyone want a £50 switch for free?

#2 Ok I’ll look at the wiring, it’s a no neutral deployment with just 1 switch so I don’t think I wired it up for 2 switches but I’ll check and try to connect again.

Thanks Andy !!

Regards

Hi Andy.

Yeh, ZigBee 3.0 is doing a great job of standardising the industry, but sadly vendors can still make decisions as to whether they support certain features.

Zigbee Green Power is actually listed as part of the Zigbee 3.0 stack, but smartthings decided not to implement it as only a very small number of devices globally use it, namely Kinetic switches of various brands.

That said, its my hope SmartThings will introduce support at some point, but that ball is well and truly in their court.

Let me know if I can help further with regards to the dimmer.

So, obvious in hindsight but posting here for completeness for anyone else

Big problems with a1zb2wdm dimmer inline, the bulb was flickering, going out constantly

Simply, because the UK version of the dimmer does not have a return cable it needs a bulb of 10W or more to have enough resistance to operate.

All my LED bulbs are 4-5Watts, they didn’t work
My old energy savers were 11Watts, they didn’t work
I’ve just tried a 40W bulb and the switch works fine

I understand the problem, but that’s quite annoying, I’ve just swapped all the house bulbs over to LED…

I suppose having 3 bulbs in a row… or what’s the AC version of a resistor… lol

Other smart lighting solutions in order to prevent flickering with LED bulbs which have low loads use something called a ‘bypass’ which seems to be a glorified resister which creates an additional pseudo load and hence stops the flickering. Here is an example.


Note: Fibaro say the above should only be used with their dimmer module, there other brands and you might be able to find a generic one.

Hi,

I have an Aurora Aone Smart Rotary Dimmer which I have wired in but the light just flickers in what appears to be a pattern but the device does not pair with my SmartThings Hub.

If I hold the dimmer button down for 3-5 seconds I see a single blue flash from the dimmer unit but nothing else happens.

Any suggestions?

Hi, I got this working. Turns out the flashing pattern was an indication of there not being enough load on the dimmer.

Once I put a higher wattage bulb in, the lights stopped flashing and I could put the module in to Pairing mode and it was then found by the Hub.

@Mark_Pickering
LED bulbs are as intended much lower power devices than old style incandescent bulbs. This can cause flickering when using LED bulbs with dimmers.

It is possible to get ‘bypass’ devices which create a fake load to help prevent this. See the following as an example.


Fibaro make a similar one as do other brands but not Aurora themselves. Fibaro and I believe also Aeotec generally say to only use their bypass with their dimmers however as I believe it is mainly a resister I don’t see why this should be true.

Hi @AndyPrice-Aurora
Do you think Aurora will have any plans to release a powered switch/remote of the same design as the Kinetic switch? (I’m assuming that would then work with ST?)

Thanks
David

Hi @AndyPrice-Aurora
Can you please advise if the master/slave relationship for rotary dimmers is working with Smartthings?
Thanks