Smart switch that always receives power but controls no load.
Smart Philips Hue bulb that always receives power.
I have a smart things automation set up so that when the Philips Hue is turned on or off, the smart switch will update its state to on or off.
I have another automation set up so that when the smart switch is turned on or off, the smart bulb updates its state to on or off.
This works for the most part but becomes a problem when I set up automations that use dimming. When I dim the hue bulb from OFF to 10% from the app, the SmartThings hub reports that the hue was turned on. This turns on the smart switch which then tells the Hue bulb to turn ON to 100%.
I could avoid this issue if the switch didn’t have a local state. i.e. If you tap the OFF paddle on the switch it would always send the OFF trigger to the SmartThings Hub even if the switch’s state was already set to OFF. Does anybody know of a stateless smart switch that will always update the SmartThings hub when the paddles are pressed? Essentially just 2 buttons(ON/OFF) that look like a switch is what I am looking for.
Would this switch work since it was made specifically to not control a load?
I have a similar setup with some GE smart switches that I installed which are controlling my Hue smart bulbs (like you they are not actually physically controlling anything, they are just wired hot all the time as are the hue bulbs). The GE switches are working fine for me in this scenario. I chose them as I also wanted to control some ceiling fans (in the same gang box) and GoControl does not make a fan switch with z-wave in it. However, their accessory switch does have a z-wave radio in it and it would work in your case. I also went with the GE as the GoControl switches have pigtails attached to them and in some places in my house jamming all those wires and wire nuts back into the box would have been a challenge. The GE wire in from the back. The GE have blue LED’s in them and the GoControl have green, if that matters to you.
However, I am using the Smart Lighting app to control my setup rather than a SmartThings automation. I just created a Toggle effect in Smart Lighting where the switch will turn on all the lights if it gets pressed (by sending the appropriate Z wave command to the ST hub)…and then I made it so that ONE of the lights turning on is the “switch” which will tell the wall switch to turn on. This works really well. Basically 2 different SL effects for each light/switch combo I have setup (currently I have this working in five different rooms).
Here’s my thread I started a while back where I discuss what I did and the choices I made if you care to read through it.
First off. Thanks for the reply! However, I am not understanding how this passes the dimming test. If both the switch and the smart bulb are in the off state and you set the smart bulb to 10% dimmed through the app, wouldn’t the switch see this as the bulb turning on and then send the command to the hub to turn the bulb on(to 100%)?
In my experience it has absolutely never worked that way. Truthfully I’m not sure why yours are. If I set my hue bulbs to a certain percent and color and then turn them off, when they come back on, they come on to the same value that they last had. They don’t get turned on to 100%. That’s never happened. Not if I use the Echo, not if I use the hue app, or the ST app, not even if I use the switch. It’s just a standard ON command. There’s no “Set level” that goes along with it.
Basically, however I set them (color, color temperature, level, whatever) that’s the value that they keep when they come back on again no matter what in my environment turns them off or on.
The only way they WOULD come back on to 100% would be if the power to them was cut. Then they would come back on 100% and be white regardless of how they were set previously.
I tapped OFF on my switch 10 times in a row and none of the events were logged. Mike1616, could you do me a favor? Could you tell me if your switch is logging redundant OFF clicks? Thanks!
Nope. They do not do that. But for me they work just fine without that being needed.
I still don’t follow why your switch (when it comes on) sets your lights to 100%. Do you have a Hue Bridge, or are your lights connected directly to the ST hub?
