Is this possible? (GE Z-wave Switch + Hue)

[am80l]

I have GE z-wave switches throughout my house for all of my light switches. Recently I replaced some of my dumb bulbs on these switches with Hue bulbs.For the room with the Hue bulbs, the switches are in an always on state and I’ll use whatever controls (voice, app, etc) to control the bulbs. However, this creates a potential scenario where a guest, housekeeper, etc will try to turn on the z-wave switch and nothing happens. often they’ll intuitively turn turn the switch off then on again to take manual control of the bulb which is less than ideal.

As a potential way of dealing with this scenario,I’m wondering if it would it be possible for a smart app to detect a redundant “on” event on the z-wave switch, and use it to trigger the hue bulb to on.

Basically something like this (pseudo code)

.on(switch_state_change)
if(switch.state.on) { // turn on hue bulb and set brightness to 100% }
else if (switch.state.off) { switch.state.on === true }

I havn’t seen any apps that do anything like this, so I’m wondering if that may be for a reason. The only reason I can think this wouldn’t be possible, would be if the switch doesn’t actually send an event to ST when the switch is turned on if was already in an “on” state.

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated, Thanks!

[JDRoberts]

You should not use a smart switch that controls the current with a smart bulb. Let the Smart bulb decide for itself how much current it needs and keep it always supplied with available current. The reason is that if you are regularly turning the current on and off with the switches, the inrush when the switch is turned on can damage the bulb. It’s all right if there is the occasional rare power outage, but otherwise, don’t have these bulbs on a switch that controls the current to them, smart or not.

Also, you are correct that most switch models will not send an on event to the hub if the switch is already in the on state.

So what do you do instead? Well, there are many options. See the FAQ for what switches to use with a hue bulb for details. You will be able to have a switch on the wall and using that switch will turn the bulbs on and off, but you will never have the problem where the switch is off and so the bulb doesn’t come on. Again, details in the FAQ:

FAQ: Philips Hue and Other Smart Bulbs - What sort of light switches to use with them? (Long FAQ)

Thinking on a big move to Hue lights, the real question is - what switches to use with them? If they’re all automatable via ST and other devices, do I really want to put them all on controllable switches too? There’s the advantage that I can arrange to ensure those switches are on so that the the Hue bulbs would be too…but it also leaves open the ability for folks to just turn them off and leave them off. Hmm. Thoughts?

[Drumtechjp (Jon)]

Just curious if you ever gave this a shot, or found any kind of work around. I want to do something similar where the GE switch ultimately wouldn’t be controlling any lights itself, but would control a hue in the same room that was constantly powered (thereby the caution by @JDRoberts while very good advice, wouldn’t come into play).

[Drumtechjp (Jon)]

I did a simple “mirror” setup in webcore as a test, using the same type of GE switch that I currently have hooked up in a different room. With that setup, when that switch (and thereby its hardwired lights) turn on, so too does the desired Hue light (off providing the same, expected result). Presumably this would work even if the wired GE switch didn’t have a load on it, but I have yet to actually test that. That being said, I’m currently experiencing anywhere from a 1-10 second delay in this process, which obviously wouldn’t be ideal.