No, you’ll still be able to set up as many other automations to control lamp one as you want. It’s not an exclusive relationship.
What you won’t have is the ability to override the relationship that was set up through direct association. The switch will always turn on the lamp. That may be OK for a switch. It just depends on what you want to accomplish.
In my house, there is a motion sensor as you enter the bedroom. During the day, nothing happens if it is triggered. In the evening hours, when the sensor is triggered the overhead light comes on. Once I go to bed, if the motion sensor is triggered the overhead light does not come on, but a soft night light on the wall comes on instead. This is so if my dog is going in and out of the room at night it doesn’t wake me up.
If I had set up the association between the sensor and the overhead light with Z wave direct association, I would not be able to have the schedule, because every single time the sensor triggered, even during the daytime, the overhead light would come on.
But I would always be able to set up other rules, like “if I tell Echo to turn on the Bedroom light, turn it on.“ Or “if I turn on the battery operated switch in the living room, turn on the hall light and the bedroom light.“
So once a direct association is set up, you can add as many other rules as you want for the target device. But you can’t subtract the rule you created with the direct association.
So looks like I am going to retrofit the rest of the house with decora dumb switches to utilize rocker smart switches in some locations. I really appreciate the explanation on why rockers are so prevalent.
@JDRoberts: OK, then it’s easy, and which method you will pick depends on the exact details of what you want to accomplish.
I am tired right now so I will let others chime in, but in your case I would recommend a method where the auxiliary switch can communicate directly with the master so it still works even if the hub is unavailable such as in the middle of an update.
Normally that would give you 4 options:
Lutron Caseta with its Pico auxiliary
zwave switches with both direct association capability. The GoControl 3 way models are designed for exactly this, but don’t come in a toggle. So probably Zooz or Inovelli.
WiFi switch with its own auxiliary (often Bluetooth), like IDevices
HomeKit switch if you use iOS devices
There would be lots to choose from. But the problem is that you want a toggle, which is going to limit you to option 2. That also means you will have to have a SmartThings hub.
So looking like I’ll be interested in the Zooz and GE Enbrighten maybe. Although fastest, personally I think the Lutron looks a little to futuristic for us. How can I tell which Enbrighten to look at, is there something on the box highlighting direct association feature or some other indication? Seems to be quite a few choices with them and I am a little overwhelmed looking at them on the net. Although I will likely have other uses for smart rockers later on, how can I tell which ones to use for my virtual, direct associated 3 way set up with no traveler?
Next project is going to be similar as I want to set up virtual light switches for outdoor spot lights that currently do not exist in my house and would be impossible to fish the wires in the walls. I can find power at the proposed light fixtures and at the switch locations but no way to connect the two physically. I’m told the easiest thing to do would be get a smart controller like the Hibro Zigbee Smart on/off Controller:
There is no “virtual direct association.“ It’s virtual instead of direct.
As far as specific devices, I personally don’t wire anything into the Mains which doesn’t have UL or ETL safety certifications. There are a lot of cheap Chinese devices which only have the CE selfcertification. I personally don’t use those.
As far as z wave direct association, remember the only the trigger device has to support association. The target device doesn’t care.
All zwave plus devices support association in the lifeline group ( Group one), that’s not what you’re looking for. You’re looking for devices that support more than one Association group.
This information will be listed in the conformance statement on the official Z wave alliance products site.
It’s designed for a traveler wire, but with SmartThings you always have the option to have one smart device act as the trigger for another smart device as long as both are recognized by smartthings. The first switch sends a message to the hub (or smartthings cloud if it’s a Wi-Fi device) and then the hub/cloud sends a message to the other switch. this is called a “virtual three-way“ and you can do it between devices that are in different rooms or of different protocols. As long as each can communicate with your SmartThings account.
However, this also means that the hub/cloud has to be working in order for this to work, and some people prefer the wire traveler because they know it will work even if SmartThings is not.
Zwave direct association is yet another option for virtual three ways and does work with some Zooz models. This will work even if the hub is not working, but can only be set up between 2 zwave devices. In addition, this is a very simple if/then trigger: if switch A turns on, then switch B will turn on. Every time. Most people are OK with that just for three way light switches, it’s more of an issue for motion sensor triggered lighting.
It’s a little tricky to set it up in a smartthings environment, but it can be done. You just have to check and make sure that each model switch that you want to use as a trigger supports association.
So with the Zooz switch there are three different ways to set up a three-way.
follow the wiring instructions and use a traveler wire. This will always work whether the hub is working or not.
Create a virtual three-way using the official smartlighting mirror feature or another automation. This will use the hub/cloud as an intermediary so you can use any two devices that can talk to smart things. But it will only work if SmartThings is working,
Use Z wave direct association. This is another way to do a virtual three-way. The smartthings cloud does not have to be available. But you can only set it up between two zwave devices.
