Linear Dimmers / Switches

Interesting comment about double tap. I bought 6 new LED lights for 2 track light cct’s and specifically put a Linear device there because they dim better than GE and we compatible with LED. I installed double tap and it works fine.

1 Like

Really? Huh. I’ll have to give it another try. I figured it wasnt working because the linear switches themselves have the ability to send zwave commands to other devices directly via double taps.

Ya, I can’t get it to work, whats the trick?

You guys are bad Karma :slight_smile: My Linear switch that worked fine with Double Tap in the living room doesn’t work anymore! When I installed it everything was great; one tap - track lights off - two taps - living room GE Link bulbs off. Now, nothing. I have reinstalled the app but it doesn’t function anymore :frowning:

@misa The new GE switches are model #s 12722, 12723, 12724, 12727,12728,12729, and12730.
u will see on this website http://store.homeseer.com/store/GE-Jasco-C189.aspx, basically the item images of GE switches with black and green, and black and grey boxes. I would also look at this thread for pictures of new and old GE switches New GE Line of Z-Wave Switches/Recepticals (127XX Series)

Ok I’m new to smartthings home automation but I have the same question as above concerning the same linear switches. So, can they work with smartthings or not??? Secondly what is this double tap you all speak of?

Yes. They work. Double tap does not work. I think the new GE switches are probably the best value vs feature set now however.

1 Like

JUST dealing with this on on my setup. I have entire house with Linear switches (on/off, dimmers, and 3-ways) as well as recessed led lights and few led light bulbs. Love the linear switches. 3 ways work immediately (used minimote to associate them with other switches). Everything was paradise, until I tried to use an app (big button) to control one switch from another (not a 3 way switch). In my case, I have a 3 bay garage, with 2 physical light switches.

Wife wanted the lower bay switch to not only turn on/off her side of the garage, but the main side too so she doesn’t have to walk through dark garage or use phone to turn other switch on. No problem I thought, just use app to tie them together. Well, Linear switches do not have instant status, meaning if you turn switch on/of directly, it doesn’t notify ST that status just changes, so app doesn’t know it needs to do anything. ST does poll the switch for status, so it app still is fired, but the delay is anywhere from 7-15 seconds. In garage scenario, my wife can live with that. Other scenarios, not so much as case where I tried to use same app to tie the entry light into bedroom to also turn bedside lamps (ge link bulbs on/off), with the same 7-15 second delay.

Odd question about Linear/GE Switches…how do they dim? And yes, I am asking simply how they dim on the switch themselves, not a much more technical home automation question. :smile:

I’m new to home automation and every time I go to Home Depot (nothing similar) or Lowe’s (never linked to a bulb) I look to try but can’t. I have also never used a switch like this

Press and hold top to dim up, press and hold bottom to dim down. Pretty intuitive. Hopefully that’s what you were looking for.

GREAT!
I always see the piece on the bottom right/left (looks sort of like an IR receiver) and wonder if that was something.

So next question, what is double-tap?

So, do the GE switches in here dim the same way?

Yup. The Linear and GE zwave dimmer switches are just about identical.

Double Tap allows you to hit the rocker at the top or bottom once to perform an action such as turn the light off and twice in succession to, for example, turn a group of lights off. It works with GE great and used to work for Linear (for me anyway) but stopped many months ago when something changed in the ST backend/firmware.
I started using Linear because they dim better than GE on LED bulbs but I really miss Double Tap.

So just to confirm, do the new GE switches have double tap?

Double tap does work with Linear Switches.

So i just read through this thread and the posts are very helpful but I needed some clarity as I am new to smartthings but not new to automation. I bought a bunch of the linearWD500Z-1 to replace intermatic switches witch are giving me connection issues. Does linear make any no neutral switches?
What is the difference between theWD500Z-1 and WS15Z-1? Also what is double tap app?
thanks for your help

The WD500z-1 is a dimmer switch and the WD15Z-1 is an on/off switch. I believe they all need neutral wire to work.
Double tap is an app that allow you to have an extra command when you tap the switch twice. An example would be. You tap the On once and the light attached to the switch comes on. You tap the ON twice and you can program to turn another device on by sending the command to the hub.

1 Like

that makes sense thanks for your help much appreciated

Note after the most recent update, many of the double tap apps no longer work because the physical/digital field is no longer being populated. Use of these smartapps was always somewhat iffy. Not all switches supported them and if the message was passed through a repeater the distinction would be lost. This is why some people said that the double tap smart apps worked great and other people said they never could get them to work. Even if the people had exactly the same devices, just a slight change in network configuration might cause one group to fail.

As of 2016 there are now a couple of different model switches which capture the double tap action at the switch itself and then use “central scene” command to send a specific code to the hub to tell it that a double tap was performed. These are much more reliable than the old software only methods. As of this writing, the central scene method is available on both the homeseer switches and the newest is zwave plus GE switches, as well as some smaller brands. So if anyone is interested in double tap functionality specifically, I would look for one where it is the switch itself that does it, rather than using a double tap Smartapp. :sunglasses:

1 Like