Wiring GE Z-Wave In-Wall Switches and Fan

I use this for my fan switch and posted a tweaked device driver… but I can control on off and speed in smartthings. I have a app that turns on the ac in the office and the fan on hight when it is too hot.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PYMGVVQ?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

here is the device type post

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Yeah I’ve used the 45XXX versions with SmartThings fine basically just old contractor model before the retail 127XX with nicer packaging, alternate almond paddle, and included neutral wire.

Originally I figured I’d get dimmers even where I don’t care about dimming, however one difference I did find between dimmer and on/off is that the dimmer dims on and dims off. I wasn’t expecting this behavior and don’t really like it that much. Now I only buy dimmers for applications where I really want dimming and just get on/off for the majority of my switches. Just FYI.

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Appreciate all the feedback everyone.

Good to know about that dimming capability. Don’t know if I’m sold on that - dimming up to on state, and dimming to off state.

If I’m not mistaken, just because you buy a dimmer doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a plain on/off switch. Within smart lights app you just select on instead of on and set level.

I’d rather do that in case I want the dimming functionality at a later point.

I can absolutely confirm that the 45xxx GE 3-way switch kit and the associated on/off GE switch does work with ST. I have purchased these over the past week and have had zero problems with them.

I can not confirm the dimmer switch, but it does not have a neutral connection.

These are the older model that has been replaced with the ones in the pretty boxes. You will also see that these are about 45.00 where buying the other two separately to get a 3-way kit cost about $20.00 more.

The GE z-Wave items when bought from Lowe’s definitely work with SmartThings. I have 8 installed. Note that these are the same as Jasco things. GE does not make any of them—they are made by Jasco and are interchangeable.

The 3-way (and in 4-way configurations) has four connections plus ground. You MUST have a white common ground in the box or it will not work. You should never connect the white using the green ground or there is a hazard. The switch is the complement to the more expensive regular switches. It does NOT have an antenna so cannot communicate to the ST hub. It only sends a pulse to the three way switch via the red traveller. It is half the price of the 3 way but is useless on its own.

(An electrician is required if you insist on pulling a white common into the box if you are missing it.)

Doesn’t seem to work this way unfortunately. The ramp rate is not instant and also if someone dimmed down the light with the physical switch then you can’t turn it full bright with the apps.

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Appreciate the feedback. I am going to end up purchasing all the switches I can from Lowe’s and the Fan switches from Amazon.

For anyone wondering if this all worked out, I can confirm that the GE switches that Lowe’s sell all work with the Smart Things hub. Even though every description on their website says “works with Iris”, it’s a z-wave product and they all work. I installed s normal paddle switch, a dimmer and the fan control switches in my home. On the side of the box, it even shows everything that the switch is compatible with.

HI Benji–

I see you have a GE In-Wall Smart Fan Control (12730). Can you please tell me how you set up the device in Smartthings? I purchased and installed one today. However, when I went through the process to add the thing to my Smartthings account I was unable to find the appropriately named device–and I read in these forums to stay away from setting up a smart ceiling fan control as a generic dimmer.

Any insight you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Brian

See this post:

It has been working fine for me for about 6 month now.

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I just installed it as per the instructions then went to ‘Connect New Device’ (Market place) then while it was searching I just pressed one of the buttons on the paddle and it was detected using the default dimmer switch device type, works perfectly fine with the exception of two things:

  1. While the switch can only have 4 states (Off - Low - Medium - High), the dimmer goes between 0-100% so you have to imagine it as -

0% = Off
1 - 33% = Low
34 - 66% = Medium
67 - 100% = High

  1. The indicator light setting doesn’t work properly when set to ‘Never Lit’ (it acts as if it’s set to ‘Lit When On’), I think @Tyler was supposed to be looking into this since it works fine on the 12722 on/off switch variant, but there are probably bigger fish for them to fry right now…

There are community device types which tidy some things up better but personally I like to stick to built in device types where possible since they usually (the one I use currently is) run locally which means if my Internet is out, I can still turn it off/on from my Minimote. I can put up with the two issues above.

That doesn’t mean the community one mentioned above isn’t any good, they just can’t run locally (yet) but I’d start off by just getting it setup first of all (you can change the Device Type Handler later). Are you detecting it at all? Do you have a blue light on it when powered up?

Just installed mine. Like any other, put hub into discover and turn on/ off slowly.

If that doesn’t work try to exclude it, then reinclude.

Otherwise range issue maybe?

How susceptible are these switches to electrical surges, such as from an electrical storm?

My guess is that they’re slightly more susceptible to surges because they have electronics. So far, mine have been through two electrical storms this year (one blackout and one brownout) with no problems. Electrical storms used to be fairly common when it rained here in the southwest deserts during early summer, but we’re in a five-year drought now :sob:

Well, I have about 20-30 of various GE127xx switches installed right now, for the first third of the year at least I usually suffer weekly power outages and large amounts of brownouts and they’ve been fine.

Appreciate the information. I have been hit by lightning twice in the past 10 years and each time I have had extensive damages to electronics.

Dude! Get your house grounded!

My house is grounded in the normal way by means of copper ground rods drove
into the ground 8’ deep then the electrical panel and plumbing grounded to
the rod. What I plan to do is install lightning rods and ground those.
Hopefully that will prevent any future problems from lightning strikes. My
fear is to have what happen to the person who posted the response that had
the high voltage line fall onto their power lines and blow all their Zwave
devices, a possible investment of hundreds of dollars. And if you have
smart blubs possible loosing all those as well. I need to shock proof my
home first…