GE Jasco Z-wave Smart Remotes (CES 2017)

Are you guys as excited as I am?

https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/finance/news/jasco-introduces-five-ge-branded-100000063.html

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I’ll be excited if they use central scene commandsets or association.

I’ll be very sad if they work like the old GE handheld remotes and the button presses are invisible to the smartthings hub. :disappointed_relieved:

I haven’t seen any commandset specs for them yet, so there’s no way to tell, it could go either way.

The link above showed this:

Z-Wave Smart Scene Remotes
• 1-Scene Remote (34172)
• 2-Scene Remote (34174)
• 4-Scene Remote (34176)
• Works with or without a Z-Wave hub
• Over 200 ft. range

Z-Wave Smart Hub Remotes
• 2-Button Hub Remote (34184) – Up to 12 programmable scene capabilities
• 4-Button Hub Remote (34186) – Up to 24 programmable scene capabilities
• Works with many Z-Wave compatible hubs
• Over 200 ft. range

You might be in luck… (unless their references to ‘scene’ can be achieved in other ways)

Scenes can be done two ways under the Z wave standard.

The old GE handheld remotes were “scene controllers” and the problem is that they expect to communicate directly to the devices they control, they don’t tell the hub what they’re doing.

Some newer devices use the “central scene” command, “central” meaning that The primary controller, in this case the SmartThings hub, is sent the request rather than going directly to an individual device.

But both command sets are still part of the standard, so you can put out a brand-new device that never tells the hub about its button presses.

These devices have not yet been Z wave certified, so they don’t have to publish their command sets ahead of that.

But just saying “scene” doesn’t tell us which method they’re using.

Ah… did not know that.

In case it matters, they also stated “…new line of GE branded Z-Wave Wireless Smart Remotes that work with light bulbs, indoor and outdoor switches and dimmers all with or without a hub.”

That could still go either way.

Just as an example, the GE 45631 talks a lot about “scenes.” It can be added to your SmartThings account. And you can set up its button presses to control Z wave devices that are in the same room with it. But you can’t use it to change a mode or arm smart home monitor or run a routine or control a Z wave device on the other side of the house or control a zigbee device, because it doesn’t send its button presses to the SmartThings hub.

Search the forums for that model and you will find dozens of discussions about it, because initially people were confused about why it seemed to do some things and not others.

http://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/165

The answer is technical, but specific, and still applies to many Z wave devices. I just can’t tell yet whether it applies to these new ones.

The similar form factor Enerwave SC7 or the remotec eight button device, in contrast, do send their button presses to the hub, and so they can be used for all of the functions I mentioned. But you can’t tell from just looking at the physical device, you have to find out what specific zwave commandsets they use.

More discussion in the following thread:

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See the current active discussion:

Opps, Is there a way for me to delete this tread as to not clutter up the forum? Still getting my feet around here…

No problem, tech moves fast and the forums aren’t that easy to search. Everybody misses a pre-existing thread occasionally. The Mods will move this one when they get a chance. :sunglasses:

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I would guess that they would at least have association. All of their new Z-Wave Plus products currently have the Association V2 command set.

For example the GE Z-Wave Plus Switch
http://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/1879/classes

Association changed with Z wave plus. It is now required that most zwave plus devices support lifeline Association for group one. But that won’t necessarily give you the same capabilities that you need, it just gets pretty complicated. You now have to look and see exactly what the device sends for its lifeline notifications. It might only send battery status.

Ah I see. That is interesting. So after looking into it more, it does appear that all of the GE Z-Wave plus switches do also support those features, even double tap.

GE Z-Wave Plus switch:
New Association Statement
• This device supports Association Command Class (3 Groups)
• Association Group 1 supports Lifeline, Binary Switch Report
• Association Group 2 supports Basic Set and is controlled with the local load
• Association Group 3 supports Basic Set and is controlled by double pressing the On or Off button
• Each Association Group supports 5 total nodes

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From reading the documentation it appears that Zwave plus has added new meanings to the associations concept.

It appears that some of the associations group are used just for sending data and not control.

Yes, the whole associations concept has changed with zwave plus. Mostly because associations were being used so many different ways by different manufacturers and it was getting very complicated even to get a battery report consistently.

With Z wave plus, most devices are now required to support Association for group one, which is now called the Z wave plus lifeline group, and there are specific types of messages which should be sent in that group. Including battery reporting. And the controller must be included in Association group one.

The remaining association groups are still open for the manufacturer’s to use however they want.

However, because zwave standard requires backward compatibility, all of the previous uses of association still have to be supported.

So now you really need to look device by device to see how association is being implemented.

If you’d like to see what is now mandated for the Z wave plus lifeline group, here’s the technical documentation:

Note that the alliance has also now regularised some terminology, so that what used to be called “device class” is now called “device type” with device class being a higher grouping. This is going to cause some confusion since the Z wave “device type” is very different from a SmartThings “device type” meaning a “device type handler.”

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So, I have a Jasco 2-Button Hub Remote (34184) in my hands but I can’t figure out a device handler for it. Any ideas? I’ve tried “Z-wave Remote” and that didn’t work.

@Sticks18 maybe you can help @WRXFanatic?

Is it a beta device? They haven’t been certified yet as far as I can tell, so there’s no conformance statement to list the commands that it uses. That makes it very difficult to match it to the device type handler. What did it pair as?

My guess would be that it will probably use central scene commands, in which case there are a couple of device type handlers that might be modified for it, but if it just uses Association, it’s now a more complex set up because of the way that association changed for Z wave plus.

@erocm1231 is usually the US button expert, you could try his device type handler for the Aeotec dual Wall mote. But again that’s using central scene commands.

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