Help adjusting ramp speed on light switch (GE Embrighten)

Devices & Integrations
1

I have a GE Enbrighten Z-Wave Plus Smart Light Dimmer (model 14295) with a Smart Things hub. When you turn the light on it takes a couple seconds turning on (from low dim to full light). I would like it to just turn on directly to the previously used dim setting and not fade on (or off).

I read something about using the Sharp Tools manager to do this, but I cant seem to get that to work. Whats the best way to change the ramp rate such that the light turns on and off instantaneously instead of ramping on or off?

THANKS!

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2

Iā€™m not sure which DTH that device is using, but if there is adjustable settings, you can access it by clicking on the device in ST, clicking the 3 dots in the top right corner, and then selecting settings. If there is nothing there, you can try using this DTH and trying it that way.

3

Yea I checked the three dot settings before and nothing there. Iā€™d like to try the ā€œDTHā€ but I dont even know what DTH stand for :slight_smile: This is my first attempt at anything outside of the app. Any chance youā€™d be willing to point me in the right direction for what exactly Im supposed to do with it? Thank you so much!

Edit: I learned that DTH is a Device Handler and I figured out how to log into the IDE and get to the ā€œAdd Device Handlerā€ section and add this code. Now what?! :slight_smile:

4

Youā€™re well on your way! Youā€™re going to want to copy the code for the device handler from the GitHub page, then in IDE, click the menu button, click Device Handlers, click Create New Device Handler, then select From Code. Paste in the code you copied, and hit create. Then go into your devices, select the ge switch, click edit, click the drop down for Type and scroll all the way to the bottom and the very last device handler on the list should say ge jasco zwave plus dimmer switch. Select that and save. And then you should be able to go into the device in the ST app and follow the steps from my previous post and find all the features now exposed. Hereā€™s the FAQ that goes a lot more in detail for you:

5

Thanks so much Andrew! So I did that but here is what I see when I hit edit in the Smart Things App. I added the ā€œramp rateā€ in there because I thought I was just titling something but now Iā€™m not so sure what I was supposed to be doing there and now I can seem to figure out how to delete it. I will read through that link you shared and try to figure it out myself, but figured Iā€™d go ahead and follow up here too in case you had an easy next step for me. Thanks !

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6

You should be leaving that blank and Off. Are those the only settings you see?

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They are. I was previously in the new Smart Things app but went back to the classic app and was able to edit that spot and return it to blank and I can also see that I have more options (related to this DTH) but dont see any way to edit any further to associate commands with those additional options.

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8

Options to change the dimming steps and delay (config parameters 7-12) from the main page.

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Sorry Iā€™m not following. Youā€™re being so awesome and patient though so feel free to drop off if you cant spend anymore time on this, but Iā€™m not not sure I understand which ā€œmain pageā€ youā€™re referring to. Thanks

10

Zwave devices (which your switch is) have a set of ā€œparametersā€ Which can take on different values. These parameters are designed by the company that manufactures the device, and are their way of letting their customers set different options for that device.

The parameter settings are stored in the device itself and control how it functions. If ramp rate is adjustable, you will make the adjustment by changing the values for some of the parameters, however the manufacturer has designed it.

So the first thing you need to find out is what parameters that deviceā€™s manufacturer lets you set and what the different values will be for each parameter.

So you will end up with information in pairs: a parameter number, and the value that represents the option you want. The process of changing the values for the parameters is called ā€œconfiguration.ā€œ

In this case, the manufacturer has a page on their website that lists all the available parameters and values. They use two parameters to control the ramp rate: One for the number of steps from off to bright and one for the amount of time the light spends at each step before moving onto the next one.

For an in wall dimmer, this is controlled with parameters 7 through 12.

( just skip the part about association groups, that doesnā€™t have anything to do with what you are working with right now. You just need to find the parameters that control the ramp rate and then choose the values that will give you the end result you want. :sunglasses:)

Read the examples on the manufacturer page and it should be clear:

https://ezzwave.com/advanced-configuration

So once you know the pair of codes that you want to put in, like

7:1 (parameter 7, value one)
8:1 (parameter 8, value one)

Then you can enter them in whatever DTH you are using.

Different DTHs may have slightly different formats for how you put it in, but they are all trying to do the same thing: save the parameter and the value that you want for that parameter in the switch so it will produce the behavior you want to see.

11

Thank you so much! This makes sense, but I guess Im still confused as to where I enter that into the DTH. Is there a place in the code that I make that change? If not, where is that located? Thanks!

12

Iā€™m sorry, I am quadriparetic and rely on screen readers, so I donā€™t work with code anymore. And the new smartthings app is not very voice-friendly. :disappointed_relieved: Someone else will need to help you with the DTH that you are using. I just thought it might all make a little more sense if you understood the concepts for configuration.

13

It definitely did, thank you! But just to be clear, the way I would enter the parameters in is somewhere in the code, I just need to find the right location?

14

Yes, exactly. I believe thatā€™s what @saosinx88 meant by ā€œthe main page.ā€œ That would be the first page of the DTH, from which you could select what it was that you were trying to configure. In this case, not ā€œassociation groups.ā€ But ā€œparametersā€œ instead.

15

BTW, If all you want is just to change the ramp rate, I would suggest instead of using the custom GE DTH, just use the Z wave Tweaker. This is a special utility DTH which you can use with any mains powered Z wave device. It is only used for configuration. You temporarily assign your device to it, change the parameters to however you want them to be, then you go back to using the original DTH. Because the parameter values are saved in the switch itself, they will still be the way you change them.

Itā€™s a very cool utility, and it also has very good documentation. If you have any further questions about it, ask in the author thread for that code and someone will help you there.

16

Awesome thanks! I think I might be able to figure out this tweeker out. I really just want to figure out the ramping settings so I think the tweeker will do it, but after spending hours today trying to figure out the other DTH, I think Im kind of sucked into to playing with it more and figuring out what other cool things I can do!

Thanks again for your help!

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17

You can always use the tweaker just to set the two separate parameters and then go back to playing with the other DTH for its other functionality. :sunglasses:

18

In the Jasco dimmer advanced configurations (Advanced Configuration) does anyone know what ā€œAll Onā€ and ā€œAll Offā€ mean? Is that if you just hit the switch once, either on or off?

Iā€™m trying to speed up these switches turning lights off when controlled at the switch as that creates confusion for some folks. Seems like I should change Parameter 12 to 1, but Iā€™m not able to test right now.

19

I believe ā€œall onā€ and ā€œall offā€ are commands from the hub to turn on/off all connected z-wave devices at once. Itā€™s probably not the setting that youā€™re looking for (I donā€™t think ST will ever emit that command - but theyā€™re likely supported on those GE remotes that can act as a z-wave controller).

If itā€™s one of the Jasco models that support the ā€œall onā€ settings, then there should be separate settings for z-wave commands in general and physical toggles. Those should be the ones you want. They switched up the configuration parameters in the more recent models though, so make sure youā€™re using the right set of parameters for your model.

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20

Thatā€™s correct.

@William_Knecht , that page on the Jasco site just isnā€™t written very well.

Some of the parameters, but not all, allow you to set a different behavior for a regular network command and for an ā€œall onā€ command.

The use case most commonly applies to dimmers. Typically if you send an all on command itā€™s some kind of emergency situation and you want all the lights to come on to full brightness immediately, rather than your usual fade in or A light that typically is set to only come on to 50%.

So if you look under, for example, ramp rate, youā€™ll see that you can set three different parameters: one for what will happen if the dimmer switch is physically used at the wall, one for what will happen if thereā€™s a normal network command addressed to that individual switch, and one for what will happen if the switch receives and ā€œall onā€œ command.

Many parameters, like loadsensing, donā€™t distinguish between these three use cases because it just doesnā€™t make sense. ( in the case of loadsensing, for example, that only applies when the switch on the lamp is being turned manually.)

So to be honest Iā€™m not quite sure what they were trying to say by that very first paragraph on that Jasco page. but the point is just that you need to make sure that youā€™ve researched all the parameters, because some might apply only to manual manipulation of the device, others will apply to normal network commands, and still others can be used for the ā€œall onā€œ situation. If you only set the parameter for the ā€œall onā€œ situation then you wonā€™t get the behavior you want for an ordinary directed network command.

I hope that was clear, I know itā€™s sort of a confusing situation.

A good example of a use case for ā€œall onā€œ would be when the smoke detectors alarm. Then you might want to turn on all the lights in the house to full brightness as part of your emergency response.
:fire::rotating_light::bulb::bulb::bulb::bulb:

But zwave does allow you to set exceptions, which is what the parameter for all on behavior is for. for example, maybe you have a light above a Fishtank and you donā€™t want to ever turn it on to 100% brightness because it would startle the fish and thereā€™s no point in doing that even if thereā€™s a smoke alarm. :tropical_fish::tropical_fish: So zwave does let you say that one particular device should ignore an ā€œall onā€œ command. Hence the individual parameters.

But a lot of people never use it. Still, you need to know that itā€™s there if you are trying to set the ramp rate parameters for the other two situations so you find the right parameter for what you want to do. :sunglasses:

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