I have 6 can lights in my living room. Until recently they were dumb LEDs managed by a single Leviton Decora Smart Wifi dimmer paired with my ST hub. Works great except that I cannot manage each lamp separately. For example, when I lower the projector screen, I want to be able to have the cans on the other side of the room to be on dimly with the rest of them off. So, I replaced the dumb LEDs with Halo Wifi’s which, by the way, are awesome with dimming and color temp control. I highly recommend these.
These Halo’s work great using the ST app. They pair with the hub quickly, respond well to commands and are the stuff of useful lighting scenes. However, I can only do it through the ST app. I’d like to be able to control these with some sort of switch, button or slider so that family members can easily turn on/off, dim or select a scene without using an app-capable device. I could get a few of the ST buttons and assign scenes to them, etc. But I’d rather it be simpler than that and that does give access to dimming or color.
Does anyone have suggestions for a ST-compatible, (hopefully) wall gang-sized device that can control such lamps without actually controlling the electrical line? In other words the power should be full and constant to the lamps as the control is in each lamp. So, I need some sort of sliding or dial controller I can use to trigger ST scripting with a value I can translated into dimming? Etc…
You can use any device which smartthings can control, so there are a lot of choices, particularly if you’re open to the idea of battery powered ones.
See the buttons FAQ. The FAQs intended only have one or two posts for anyone device. It will indicate whether it’s battery powered or mains-powered and which regions it’s available in. And there will usually be a link to a discussion thread.
Please do not post follow on questions in the FAQ as it becomes too hard to read. If you do have follow on questions about any specific device, either go to the discussion thread for that device or come back here and ask. Thanks!
Thanks, JDRoberts. Just to see this list is very insightful. I think I was mostly stuck on verbiage (of how to ask for what I was looking for) and that the battery operated component of such switches is key. After rummaging around in the FAQ and then search with my new understanding I found the Eaton Z-Wave Battery Operated Switch/Dimmer.
What would be really interesting is to find a non-battery version of something like this which would allow a 3-wire circuit to use the neutral (white) for powering the switch while allowing the line (black) to be constant power to the smart lamps.
At any rate, I could use a switch like this to give access to dimming and use the switch to cycle between scenes. Plausible?
Hmmm, not sure we’re understanding one another (could be my fault ). Maybe my reference to the Eaton switch might have been all wrong. The switch I want should not control the electricity to the lamps. The electricity to the lamps should be constant as the lamps themselves are smart devices. This non-switch should tell ST, “Hey, I’m a smart thing and someone is pressing me and here’s a value!”, then I have ST do something based upon that value. In this case, set dimming or on/off to one or more lamps or execute a scene.
The Zooz and Inovelli devices I could find on their respective sites seem to be switches that actually control power directly.
For the time being, until I can get one of those non-wired switched, on ST I created a simulated switch and two simulated dimmers, one for level and one for temp. Then I used WebCore to have each simulated device control a feature of each control all the Halos. Works nicely. I’ll take an old Android phone and make a control panel.
However, I also tried what you see in the photo. Worked like a charm. That’s the line and load nutted together with a jumper to power the switch. So, the lamps have constant power. Then I wrote a another WebCore piston for it to control all the halos. What do you think, safe? . Don’t think I’ll be leaving it this way, but fun to try. I’ll sleep better with a device in place that’s mean for the job.
). Maybe my reference to the Eaton switch might have been all wrong. The switch I want should not control the electricity to the lamps. The electricity to the lamps should be constant as the lamps themselves are smart devices. This non-switch should tell ST, “Hey, I’m a smart thing and someone is pressing me and here’s a value!”, then I have ST do something based upon that value. In this case, set dimming or on/off to one or more lamps or execute a scene.
You’re one generous guy.
. Don’t think I’ll be leaving it this way, but fun to try. I’ll sleep better with a device in place that’s mean for the job.