I was wondering if anyone else is seeing this problem with their GE/Jasco (45603) plug in outlet. For several months the 5-6 of these that I have installed in the house (their device types are the Z-wave switch) have not only worked (responded to on/off commands), but also report the fact that the switch has indeed turned on and off in the activity feed for these devices. Over the past week or two I have noticed that the plug in outlets are still working but they no longer show the events in their activity feed. The only thing that shows up in the “things” activity log are events like “never show indicator light or turn indicator light on when off” and events triggered from a smart app. The events do show up properly in the devices “event list” when you go to the web and the switches respond to being called in smart apps as well. I noticed the problem when a working double tap event the called my Sonos to tell me the forecast for tomorrow when the coffee maker was turn on, ceased to function. Turns out, it stop working because the switch seemed to not report that it was turned on in some fashion such that the app could not see that it was and therefore it did not tell the Sonos to speak the weather.
I have removed/added the device with no change in the logging and I have removed/excluded/added the switch to no avail as well.
A couple questions…
Has something changed with the Z-Wave switch device type from ST that now has broken the logging of these Z-Wave switches?
After talking with support, it appears this issue is a known issue with some of the GE/Jasco products and is related to the firmware in those devices. They are working on a workaround but no ETA was given.
To temporarily solve the issue, you can unplug the device for 30 seconds (or more) and then plug it back in. The device will now report events in the log correctly but the issue will return after some period of time. Perhaps as soon as a few days but that may vary.
I have this exact same issue with two GE/Jasco modules. It drives me nuts. It needs to be noted in their compatibility guide since most consider these SmartThings compatible.
I also think that ST should remove them from their store. Mine DO NOT work well at all. They just posted a package on their blog with these in them. Not a good idea IMHO.
I just got my SmartThings Hub today. So far I only have one device - a GE Light Switch. I was able to add it ok, but then couldn’t control it at all. I pulled out the little “air gap” cut-off tab down by the blue LED, counted to 15 slowly, and then pushed it back in. That allowed me to toggle the GE two times, and then it went unreachable once more. It is a MASSIVE relief, actually, to see others having similar issues here, otherwise, I would be worrying that my SmartThings purchase had been a bad idea.
Anyone have advice on an alternative light switch that is more reliable?
I agree with @corndog! I was nervous but it’s a shame I bought 2 of these things that don’t work but would also love to hear about some reliable ones from real people.
I have 6 GE/Jasco devices and they all work great: 5 receptacles and 1 switch. I will admit for a period of time a few of them were not reporting the correct status but then they started working properly. Not sure if there was an update from ST that fixed them or one change I made with my apps… I was using individual settings for each device to turn on at sunset and then I decided to use the Daily On Mode Magic app instead to turn them all on 1 hour before sunset as a group. Other than that simple change nothing else was modified. But again I have had great success with them in my setup.
My ST hub is in a closet under the stairs. This is my “wiring” closet with my other network equipment. I guess I have created a good enough “web” to make this work because I have a GE outlet about 5 feet away through a wall and behind a chest and then another a few walls away. I have a few in my kitchen about 30 feet away and a few in my garage that is another 20-30 feet from the devices in the kitchen.
When I was having trouble with statuses one of the outlets closet to the hub was the one having the troubles. But that issue has since gone away either between updates of ST firmware (automatically since I haven’t requested it) or the change in the SmartApp that turns on my lights at sunset.