The ones that do their double taps with association will work fine with The stock DTHs when used as designed: for direct control of Z wave devices. You just have to set the associations. And that’s all that the Z wave specification requires.
If you want to use them to do other things on the platform, then, yes, the stock DTHs do not support that function.
Some of these do require zwave tweaker or custom dth tho setup the association, as the generic dth doesn’t have this capability.
@JDRoberts
Yes, except the double tap on the Ge zwave plus dimmer is incorrectly interpreted by SmartThings as an on. Double tap does not actually turn on the switch. If the switch was off, it is still off after the double tap.
You could solve that by taking the hub out of that particular association group as part of the initial switch configuration when you set up the associations.
When I have time I will check again, but I do not think that this is how communication works to the hub.
I think the switches always send updates to the hub.regardless of additional association groups existing or not.
In terms of central scene command, that is not association it is a message. The association to another zwave device would send a set command, which is in contrast to the dimmer sending a central scene message to the hub.
But for central scene, it is a message sent to the hub outside of the association groups.
For the Ge zwave plus dimmer it sends the value 255.
The set message is according to spec a value 0-99, or 0-250, I forget which, but not 255.
If SmartThings code said
If (value > 0) AND (value < 251) then switch status is on.
It would be fine, but code states
If (value > 0)
Then switch status is on.
Alternatively adding the hub to different association groups would not work, my guess.
I haven’t looked at the specific GE switch implementation, and it may not be to spec, but the way association should work with zwave plus is that the switch sends its lifeline information only to association group one. That’s the only one that should have the hub automatically included.
I believe that the smartthings hub automatically adds itself to each association group at the time of joining, and there are arguments pro and con for that practice.
But if the platform does allow you to take the hub out of, for example, association group 2, then it should not receive any notifications from the device when association group 2 is used.
That is definitely how it used to work on the SmartThings platform for the older devices, like the Fibaro Sensors, because you had to specifically add the hub to the tamper notification group or you didn’t get those notifications.
And, yes, central scene is a completely different messaging method and the hub does get those messages. In fact, the hub gets the messages and the other devices don’t. It’s up to the hub to handle communications required by the scene. But that’s not what the GE switches use.
Interesting, did not know that about fibaro.
So it looks like to me the Ge zwave plus was only added to group 1 to the hub and not group 2.
This is according to zwave tweaker
That would be expected behavior for the hub per the spec.
Per the switch, if you use Association group 2, you are supposed to also be turning the switch on and off.
You should be using association group 3 ( without putting the hub in that group) if you want association without turning the local load on and off.
https://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/2105/assoc?noFilename=True
But we should take the discussion of Z wave plus association to a new thread, we are way off track here as far as what the OP was interested in.
Yes, last question, get a SmartThings developer to confirm whether the hub is supposed to join all association groups or not.
@JDRoberts
Also I looked at the screenshot, placing the hub into association group 3 would assume that the hub realizes that that basic set that is transmitted on group 3 should be different than the messages sent to association group 1.
I would bet that right now with the built-in dimmer switch, the hub does not treat that event differently if at all.
Offtopic here.
