I haven’t used SmartThings for a few years and I’m just coming back to it now as I’m getting ready to move into a house I’ve just renovated. I haven’t grouped devices in ST before but I’m hoping it will be a solution to a small issue I’m trying to work around.
I’m having under-cabinet light installed in the kitchen but, due to some wiring my limitations, the LEDs will be split across two separate switches, meaning roughly half will be controlled by one dimmer and half by a second dimmer. Will using smart dimmers and grouping them together result in the second dimmer turning on/off and setting dimming levels in accordingly when someone operates the first dimmer? Or is the solution I need not that simple?
A Lighting Group is one way to control multiple devices. There are also ways to synchronize devices such as using the Smartlighting function in the ST app. If you switches/dimmers are Z-Wave, you can also use Association Groups to mirror the actions on one device to another.
Zwave direct association works great with the understanding that it’s an all or nothing synchronization. Which is to say that once you associate the two devices, they always work in association, there’s no way to turn it off.
The classical example is a motion sensor and an overhead light. If you use zwave direct association so that triggering the motion sensor turns on the overhead light, then triggering the motion sensor will always turn on the overhead light, even in the daytime. You can’t say I want the motion sensor to trigger the overhead light from sunset to 11 PM, then I want the motion sensor to trigger a nightlight on the wall, but not the overhead light from 11 PM to sunrise, and then I don’t want the motion sensor to trigger the overhead light from sunrise to sunset. You just can’t do that with Z wave direct association. Initiating device A always triggers the result in device B.
This isn’t an issue for most paired light switches where you do always want them to act in concert. But there are some exceptions like zone lighting.
So it’s just something to be aware of if you go with this method. You can’t add additional logic around the association.
