FAQ: Solution for Linear/GoControl 3-way switches? (WD500Z-1 and WT00Z-1) (Association options)

Now I’m looking into use a relay + WADWAZ-1 door/window sensor to eliminate the huge delay while syncing two WD500Z. I’m lucky that my master switch also controls a wall outlet, so I can play with it.

@snailium

Unfortunately, it looks like "lifeline"is not going to do this.

Here googling it and I see this discussion of what is actually sent in the lifeline message for one device.

If you look back at the screenshot of the zwave conformance that I included for that plugin dimmer, the lifeline group 1 is not for control, only group’s 2 and 3

Here is a discussion

OK, here is what I’ve tried and what I’ve achieved using WADWAZ-1 to sync two WD500Z.

Setup: I hooked up an automotive 12V relay to the external sensor terminal, using the NC (no contact when switched) pair. The 12V power supply is connected to the wall outlet controlled by the master WD500Z.

  1. Using SmartThings v2 to send ASSOCIATION_SET command when case is opened. No association can be established. Don’t know why, but every time I query an ASSOCIATION_GET, it only shows associated to node 1 (ST itself).

  2. Using Aeon minimote to create association between WADWAZ and WD500Z. The dimmer doesn’t respond to the external sensor, but responds to the magnet.

  3. Take the sensor back to ST. Found only internal sensor sends BasicSet commands, meaning external contact cannot be used for association.

Now I’m going to benchmark the delay using the contact sensor through Smart Lighting. I don’t give much hope on it.

GoControl brings basic components with good price, but lack of advanced functionalities.

P.S. the 12V relay I’m using

EDIT: Tried to tie the sensor to the slave WD500Z through Smart Lighting app, it takes ~2-3 seconds after the master WD500Z is switched on. Not perfect, but a lot better than linking two WD500Z through Smart Lighting. I’ll keep this setup until I change the master WD500Z to another dimmer which support direct association.

Need some guidance…I just installed a WD500Z-1 and started reading about Group 2 & Group 3 associations. Not exactly sure I understand but the documentation appears to me that I could utilize the device with a double tap to control another device…Is this correct or per discussions above has this been debunked?

SYNCING OF LED INDICATOR LIGHT ON WT00Z-1.

I’m posting this here, hoping that it might help someone else out, and posting in this thread might make it easy to find.

I have a WD500Z-1 and a WT00Z-1 slave switch. I had originally linked them via SmartThings with several different smart apps, including Dim With Me, Dim and Dimmer, The Big Switch, etc. They ended up sort of working, but there were sometimes massive delays which made using the dimming capability of the switch less than ideal.

Eventually, I got a Minimote and directly associated them together. They work very well!! But there was one problem: The LED indicator lights on the switches wouldn’t maintain sync. Specifically, if the main switch were operated manually, or the lights were changed via the app or Alexa, the led on the slave wouldn’t update since it didn’t know the lighting status had changed.

The slave switch has the built-in ability to poll the master switch in order to update its status. This is found in the manual for the switch:

https://www.manualshelf.com/manual/gocontrol/wt00z-1/full-product-manual-english/page-3.html

Poll: Minutes
The WT00Z-1 will poll the first node in Group 1 in order to keep itself synchronized with the group if this configuration parameter is set to 1. How often it will poll is configured using this parameter.
• Parameter 20
• Length: 1 Byte
• Valid Values = 1 through 255 (default: 2)

Poll First Node in Group 1
The WT00Z-1 will poll the first node in Group 1 in order to keep itself synchronized with the group if this configuration parameter is set to 1.
• Parameter 21
• Length: 1 Byte
• Valid Values = 0 , 1 (default 0)
Each Configuration Parameter can be set to its default setting by setting the default bit in the Configuration Set command. See your controller’s instructions on how to do this (and if it supports it). All Configuration commands will be reset to their default state when the WT00Z-1 is “reset” thus removing it from the Z-Wave network.

(I assume, btw, that what they meant to say is, “The WT00Z-1 will poll the first node in Group 1 in order to keep itself synchronized with the group if this configuration parameter is set to any value besides zero.”)

I used Z-Wave Tweaker to set parameter 21 to 1 in order to turn on polling:

https://community.smartthings.com/t/faq-how-can-i-change-the-parameters-on-a-zwave-device/86857

I also reduced the polling interval to 1 minute by setting parameter 20 to 1.

But there was one other thing that needed to be done before it would work. Since the slave polls only the first node in group 1, the master switch must be that first node. But I found this interesting piece of info online:

http://docs.smartthings.com/en/latest/device-type-developers-guide/z-wave-primer.html

The SmartThings Hub automatically adds itself to association group 1 when a device that supports association joins the network. If this is inappropriate for your Device Handler, your Device Handler can use AssociationRemove to undo it. To associate to a group higher than 1, the Device Handler can send AssociationSet. The Hub’s node ID is provided to Device Handler code in the variable zwaveHubNodeId.

Sure enough, when I used Z-Wave Tweaker to list the nodes in the association groups, I found 01, 03 in group 1. In my case, 03 is the WD500Z-1, and 01 was the SmartThings hub.

Again, using Z-Wave Tweaker, I rearranged the nodes so that they were ordered 03, 01, and voila! Now, for example, if the lights are turned on via Alexa, within 1 minute (usually less) the slave switch will turn off its LED.

JDRoberts, while this works very well, is there more a preferred way to keep them in sync?

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Nice find! :sunglasses:

I don’t know of any better way to do it, SmartThings sort of assumes that you aren’t using direct association, and when the Linear devices were first designed, they assumed that you were and that the hub was not in the Association group, hence the problem that you uncovered. So I think your method is probably the best way for now.

I would note for people who find this topic in the future that association changes significantly with zwave plus devices. So it’ll probably require an entirely new method once Linear releases Z wave plus versions of their switches. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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@tfjield

Thanks for these instructions.

I have three sets of 3 way lights using linear switches and direct association.

When I get a chance I will do this at my house.

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Resurrecting an old dead (but useful) thread here. I have 2 pairs of these in my home to use empty gangboxes to simulate a 3-way switch where I wanted to use the slave in the place of a fan control (powered, no line).

For years I think I have been just using Smart Lighting to try and sync them up but never have had them associated properly so I was excited to find this post and the app

One question I have, do I put both pairs of WD500Z/WT00Z in Group 1, or will that cause all 4 of the switches to operate as a combined unit? What I actually want is for each pair to operate an independent light in totally different places. Not sure if this means using different groups or not. Still a little foggy on zwave groups, even more so after reading the manuals on these, and how it says group 2 makes the paddles work one way, group 3 a different way. Is there a group 4? 5? Etc. The “association group members” confused me too.

All that said, the parameters piece is working well and I have gotten those set where I’d like them, which is fantastic. Now I just need to get this group thing figured out for my two pairs of these switches and I will finally have them right. Help?

I’m not 100% sure I understand the question, but let’s see if an example helps.

Say You have
Hallway WD500Z ( Master dimmer)
Hallway WT00Z ( accessory)

Kitchen WD500Z (Master dimmer)
Kitchen WT09Z ( accessory)

You are going to use z wave direct association so that when the appropriate accessory is physically turned on at the wall, the associated master will also be turned on. This makes the accessory the trigger and the master the target.

So in this example we want to save an association in the firmware of the kitchen accessory so it will know that when it is turned on it should send an on command to the kitchen master. And we want to save an association in the firmware of the hallway accessory so it will know that when it is turned on it should send an on command to the hallway dimmer.

The first thing to note is that we don’t need to do anything with the two master switches. They’re just going to receive it on command and do what they always do: turn on. We are setting the associations in the trigger switches, which are the accessory switches.

That means we will only need to use the Tweaker with each of the two accessory switches.

The tweaker is a driver. When we select that driver for a specific accessory switch, it does not in anyway affect any of the other devices on our account. It’s like saying we’re going to use a printer driver for the downstairs office HP printer. That doesn’t change the drivers that any of the other printers in the house are using. So later on we could use a driver with the same name for the printer in the den, but it doesn’t change anything about what we already set up for the driver in the downstairs office. I hope that’s clear.

When you select the tweaker as the driver for the kitchen accessory switch, you then use it to set the associations you were going to save in the firmware of the kitchen accessory switch. It won’t change anything that’s going on with the hallway accessory switch. We’re going to do that later.

So now use the tweaker, you set the associations for the kitchen accessory switch, which will be to tell it to turn on the master kitchen switch. You save those in the firmware of the kitchen accessory switch. Any groups that you use during this process apply only to the specific switch you are currently using. groups in this context are not network-based. They are just information for that specific individual device. Then you can change the driver for the kitchen accessory switch back to its regular driver.

Once you’ve done that, turning on the kitchen accessory switch on the wall will turn on the kitchen dimmer switch. It doesn’t do anything else. It doesn’t affect any of the other devices.

Next step, you select the tweaker as the driver for the hallway accessory switch. This is a new copy of the Tweaker, so it doesn’t know anything about what you did for other devices, and it won’t affect any of the other devices. You set the associations that you want in the hallway accessory switch, namely that when it is turned on, it should send an “on” command to the hallway master switch. Save it, and it gets saved in the firmware of the hallway accessory switch. It doesn’t affect anything you already did with the kitchen accessory switch, or with any other device. Once you have everything configured the way you want, you select the regular driver for the kitchen accessory switch. Now when you turn on the kitchen accessory switch at the wall, it will send it on command to the kitchen dimmer.

I’m too tired tonight to go look up the specific parameters for these devices to see what other parameters you might be setting or exactly which groups you’re going to use, but that’s the basic concept. I hope that makes it clearer. :sunglasses:

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Holy cow, you are a superstar. I didn’t expect a reply maybe never let alone in seconds. Thanks so much. It’s so late here too on the east coast. But I’m on a mission so will keep at it a bit more and supply more info. Please feel free to answer tomorrow or later and if I get further I will also report back.

Your message was already helpful as I was just loading the main switch into the tweaker and getting frustrated that it wasn’t responding to commands to change its group either. So now I know that once I set the parameter 3 (the night light) to off for the main switch and the aux switch in the bedroom, and the 20 and 21 parameters to 1 on the aux switch, I am done with parameters for this pair. Now we get to group association.

I will qualify it’s quite possible I somehow put these into the wrong group with the minimote years ago, but I’m assuming I can use the tweaker to fix anything I got wrong.

Situation:

Stairs Main (WD500Z-1)
Stairs Aux (WT00Z)

Bedroom Main (WD500Z-1)
Bedroom Aux (WT00Z)

Further, the group command, attempting to assign an association group ID to either switch, has returned this:

info sync(): Unknown association group. Requesting more info.

That is when I set the parameter to 0 or 1 or 2 or 3. That said, I am leaving “association group members” blank as I have no idea what goes in here. I have to assume that assocation group ID would be 1, for both WT00Z switches, and then the association group member would be some mystery ID number for each of the 2 WD500Z switches (I assume unique) so the WT00Z knows which WD500Z it needs to marry up with.

To add to the fun I swear I was just tapping on Bedroom Aux and it’s somehow additionally turned on Stairs (or Stairs Aux, doesn’t matter really) so I’ve somehow associated the WT00Z with the other WT00Z or WD500Z in the house, I’m afraid. Which I don’t want. I need to get both pairs operating independently of each other, so the 2 WT00Z aux switches aren’t trying to control BOTH of the WD500Zs. But I’m not even sure I am properly assigning groups at this point so I am probably getting ahead of myself.

You’re Probably going to need to ask some questions in the Tweaker thread as far as the exact values to put where.

Certainly you are going to have to get the network ID for your account in hex for each of the target devices and put the appropriate one into the correct association group for each of the trigger devices. That’s in the instructions for the tweaker, so make sure you read those carefully.

You’re never going to have a group 0. If the tweaker allows you to put one in, I have no idea what’s going to happen, it could end up being “all devices“ or I don’t even know what. :scream:

A group in this context is just a list of device IDs that you want to receive a command from your trigger device for a specific event . The device manufacturer decides what tap pattern on the trigger switch will be used for each group.

Quite commonly in old devices like these group one might have been used just to send a basic (that’s a Z wave term in this context) command to the devices in that group, while group two might’ve been used to send a tamper alert or a panic alert to the devices On that list. You might have the same devices in each group or different ones.

And maybe the trigger pattern for group two was a double tap.

So just the regular single tap would mean the devices would turn on when the trigger switch turned on, but the panic alert pattern would mean the target devices would start blinking instead.

There are a lot of options depending on the manufacturer’s decisions for that specific model. That’s why you have to look up the parameters for each model to know how to set things, including which association groups to use for what.

As you may know, I myself am dependent on text to speech readers so I can’t really follow all the instructions in the tweaker thread Or the DTH myself. I know what it is available to do, I just don’t know all the steps to make the tweaker do it. :wink:

Making a little progress (I hope) and learning. So now on Bedroom Aux (WT00Z), the IDE now shows that I have this parameters set:

|zwtAssocGroupMembers||0F|
|zwtLoggingLevelIDE||3|

The 0F I got from the “Device Network ID” of the Bedroom Main (WD500Z-1). I am hoping that that parameter should be one or more Network IDs of the device masters you want this Aux to control.

I’m still stuck on the groups – The one thing the system still has not accepted for either switch is an association group ID. I receive that same “unknown association group” when I try and enter 1 into the tweaker. It is possible I used the Aeon minimote improperly and lost groups all together, but if that is the case I’m hoping I can get them back somehow.

Interestingly enough, despite the WD500Z-1 manual saying it supports group association, a call to the switch said the opposite, that it does NOT support the association command. Fascinating.

I’ve disabled my smart lighting cheats for now and the Aux switch unfortunately isn’t associated so I’m still not getting this. When you have a little more time to help out this rookie do check back in. And again THANK YOU!

Thanks again, we just cross posted. I will surely read that tweaker thread to learn more about the tool and get some help on its proper use. I have to be missing an obvious step on setting the group association, or, I have an issue with my hardware. At least I am getting closer. Learning that my master switch’s network device ID was what I need to set as the association group member was a big step.

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Yeah this has been a documentation error for a long time for that model. It sometimes happens. The manufacturer intends to do one thing, writes the manual, and then when it comes down to it they need the memory for something else and they drop the support. Or sometimes there are different firmware versions and they support different features. Association is optional under the Z wave 4th generation standard, so they don’t have to have it.

The tweaker is querying the device itself and asking what it can do, so if it says it doesn’t do associations, it doesn’t do them. :sunglasses:

You can also check the conformance statements on the official Z wave alliance products website. The auxiliary lists association group support, the master dimmer does not.

https://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/1032

As long as I only need it on the auxiliary, in order for the Aux switch to control the main off and on, that’s probably good enough and at least allows me to simplify smart lighting a little bit.

I assume what this would mean is, if I physically touch the Aux WT00Z switch, and turn it on or off, the Main switch (WD500Z) will match, but if I operate the main WD500Z by physical touch, it will not be able to talk to the WT00Z to tell it what state it is in, and I will need to use Smart Lighting to do that as I have been all along. Assuming I want both switches to know the state of the lights at all times.

Yes to all of the above. :sunglasses:

OK well you were a champ to stick this out with me. Thank you.

So I ended up using my old minimote just to make sure they were associated and sure enough they are physically associated just fine. Ironically they probably always were. I was trying to find a way to avoid using smart lighting to keep the switches in the app in sync with the “physical” state of the switches as on or off.

When I tap either switch physically they are indeed reporting to each other and to the app to sync up. Brilliant! However when I use the SmartThings app and not the wall switch to turn one off, the other does not follow. Which is why I needed the 4 smart lighting functions I think. I was hoping the association would follow into the app functions. Maybe I will just write a core piston. I was hoping the direct local association would cascade into the app without needing all the manual stuff going on, bummer!

Are you just doing on/off or are you also doing 3way dimming? I have some 3way with those brand switches and they work great!

In looking for zwave plus replacements I can get it to work for basic on/off but dimming has idiosyncrasies depending on brand and setup.

For the old linear that you asking about, dimming works great!!

I typically have them come on at the same level but dimming is supported.

At the end of the day, I did use the zwave tweaker to get the lights acting like I want (one of them I want to behave opposite, and go out in the dark, since it’s in a bedroom). Tweaker was great for that! For making them master/slave my minimote confirmed.

My other blind spot was I assumed if married with the minimote they would follow in the app, just realized I needed to install a Two-Way smartapp or use mirror feature (both ways, 4 smart lighting routines for 4 switches) in order to get them to stay in sync when not used physically.

It took some doing and thanks to the always awesome smartthings forums I think I got it!

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