Z wave association groups Aeotec wall mote?

Hi JD yet again you come to the rescue, aeotec sells this 4 button controller and one of its selling points is the 4 way dimming function which is false. Then they send me links to tweaker for this controller so what’s all that about.
A shame because I do like the controller.
I want to be control smart bulbs with a controller so apart from this one do you recommend any others🤔
Thanks again for your info kev

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BTW, I agree that the marketing materials for this device are confusing. The manual is very clear that the features that uses zwave direct association are for control of other Z wave devices.

But the product description has things like “Phillips hue bulbs, no problem.“ Which would be true for on/off or activating a scene in your multiprotocol hub, but not for the dimming function.

So I don’t like the way that was written, either. :rage:

There are lots of battery operated devices which can trigger either an on/off for a device of any other protocol (messages are sent through the hub), or which could trigger a SmartThings scene.

The problem is dimming. You can use the official smart lights feature to have one dimming device “mirror” another one, But the problem is that most battery operated devices don’t offer dimming messages that go through the hub. That’s going to be the tricky part. Usually mirror dimming Is done between two mains powered devices.

Do you really need dimming, or do you think you could use a choice of scenes?

If you’re OK just with a choice of scenes, then take a look at the buttons FAQ. There are a lot of different devices there, some mains powered, some battery.

Each post should include a link to a discussion thread about that specific device, so please post any phone questions about that device in that discussion thread, not in the FAQ itself. Thanks! :sunglasses:

FAQ: Full list of buttons and remotes confirmed to work with SmartThings

There is one battery operated switch I know of that can do dimming regardless of the protocol of the bulbs. It was very popular couple of years ago. But to be honest I don’t know if the DTH still works.

Here is the switch. It does come in some other styles and colors, but this one is the most popular, so it’s the easiest to find for sale.

https://www.amazon.com/Eaton-RF9500AW-Aspire-Battery-Operated/dp/B004I7YSVI/

If you do look for it elsewhere, make sure that you are getting the RF version. That’s the one with the radio. There is another Eaton Cooper aspire 9500 which is a regular dumb switch.

I’ll have a read at those thanks.
I am right in saying that on/off and scene function of the wallmote can be done with ZigBee and WiFi devices it’s just the association bit that has to be z wave to z wave.
I’m new to z wave and I’m finding it hard to get my head around the the coding part.
Could you advise me where I can start learning about this as it really interests me but I seem to be scratching my head half the time.
Cheers kev

Yes. :sunglasses:

I’m new to z wave and I’m finding it hard to get my head around the the coding part.
Could you advise me where I can start learning about this as it really interests me but I seem to be scratching my head half the time.
Cheers kev

Coding for Z wave? Or coding for SmartThings?

If you want to get into coding for smartthings, go straight to Webcore. It’s essentially a scripting language for smartthings and you can do all kinds of stuff with it. It also has a very active development community with its own forum.

As far as coding for Z wave, don’t bother. You won’t need it, it’s all layered over in the smartthings environment anyway. :sunglasses:

That answers that question then.
Yeah I ment coding for z wave.
I’ve been on webcore thumbing pages for sometime but not created my own piston as yet.
I have a smarthings hub but like the idea of running things locally so wondered if I could run the hubitat and smarthings along side each other until I decide which I prefer.

Tagging @ogiewon

Yes, you can fairly easily run both SmartThings and Hubitat alongside one another. I am actually running both in my house. I have them running independently of each other. However, many users link the two together using one of three methods. The newest of these methods is a community written integration called HubConnect which users seem to be very happy with.

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Thanks for Dan I’ll have a read.

You should be able to use the Z-Wave tweaker to set associations if you wake the device and then send the association. From the device manual (to wake the device up):

In order to send your WallMote Quad new configuration commands
from your Z-Wave controller or gateway, it will need to be woken up.
Remove your WallMote Quad unit from its Back Mounting Plate, press
and hold the Action Button for 3 seconds(the buzzer chirp once and
the orange LED will be ON) on the back of the WallMote Quad unit
and then release it. This will trigger and send a wake up notification
command to your controller/gateway, then your WallMote Quad will
wake up for 10 minutes and the orange LED will fast blink while it is
awake (if the WallMote Quad does not receive the Wake Up No More
Info from the primary Controller).
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HI Eric thanks for that info but the problem i have is that I’d class myself as tech savvy, thats up until now.
Zigbee and wifi products seem to be more freindly than z wave products.
i purchased the wall mote quad because i needed 4 way control of lights in my kitchen plus i can still use my smart bulbs with this controller and this in turn would give me more config/options within my lighting.
I now have been advised that the wall mote doesn’t support dimming from a battery device but aeotecs website states it does…?
So in regards to associations what else can associations do and how do you input the details into smartthings because I’m clueless with this association thing.

sorry for being a pain but i really want to learn but I’m finding it hard to get the answers i need.

cheers Kev

To clarify, I didn’t say the Wallmote doesn’t support dimming. I said it only supports dimming through Z wave direct association. Which means the devices that are being dimmed also have to be easy wave. You said your bulbs were a mix of zigbee and Wi-Fi.

I also said that with regard to other battery operated button devices, most don’t support dimming if they have to send their messages through the hub. A good example is the zigbee Sylvania “dimming switch.” You can get dimming if you join it directly to zigbee bulbs. But if you use it with the smartthings hub, including with the official device type handler, you just get on/off.

First rule of home automation applies: “the model number matters.“ Meaning it’s rarely going to be true that a statement applies to everything in one device class. It’s always about the exact combination, down to the model numbers, of the specific devices involved. :sunglasses:

Also, I think zwave is actually more user-friendly than Zigbee When deployed in a Z wave only environment. Smartthings is a multi protocol platform with an abstracted cloud layer which makes everything more complex.

Hi JD sorry i wasn’t having a go at you but i miss understood what you advised me last time we spoke.

so let me get this right…If i use z wave lighting products with the wall mote quad then i would have dimming capabilites…?

Now if that is correct then how the hell do i set associations.

By the way thanks for the link for the buttons thread it was informative but apart from the luton,lightify and the wallmotes theres not many buttons i like or fit the bill for the kitchen.

Cheers Kev

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As far as what zwave association is, it’s really simple. Nothing to do with SmartThings, it’s part of the third-party zwave specification. Don’t make assumptions about it or overcomplicate it in your head. It’s super simple.

Every certified zwave device must respond to a “basic“ command. What the command does is different depending on the device class. For an on/off switch, it’s on and off. For a dimming device, it’s set to a specified dim level. And that’s it. The device might have a whole bunch of other fancy features like control settings or reporting battery level or changing the color of an LED indicator light: none of that is part of the basic command.

The purpose of the basic command was to let you send the same command to a bunch of different zwave devices and they would all do something. Their minimal function.

Remember that Z wave was developed before most people had smart phones or used them, and real-time reporting was not considered essential.

The purpose of direct association was to allow 1 zwave device, the trigger, to Very very quickly send a basic command To another zwave device without having to tell the hub about it. (The hub was left out of the equation just for latency reasons.)

The two most common use cases were to have a motion sensor turn on a light or a siren, and to have an auxiliary switch Turn on its master switch. This was done by having the trigger device send a “basic” command to the target device. Giving the trigger device permission to do so is setting up a “Z wave direct association.“

Honestly, that’s all there is to it. Device A sends a “basic command“ to device B. And the hub is not told about it.

The decision of whether or not to support direct association was left up to the individual device manufacturers. Because it requires more complexity and more memory, a lot of devices don’t implement it. But if they did implement it, they could use any Association group pretty much anywhere they want to do. (Take a look at some of the generation 4 fibaro devices for examples for how complicated this could get.)

OK, that was the original design for zwave direct Association and it worked really well up through generation four.

When you use the Z wave tweaker To create an association, you are configuring the firmware of the trigger device with a list of target devices that it will be allowed to send basic commands to.

(The reason why you sometimes see device IDs with commas is because it’s a device which has multiple endpoints, like a power strip with multiple sockets, and you have to specify each endpoint as a potential target. )

However, by generation five everybody was using smart phones and everybody wanted the hub to know about everything so that statuses could be kept in sync.

So direct association was changed significantly for zwave plus (which is generation five.)

First, every newly certified Z wave device must now support association group one, which is now called the “lifeline“ group and is intended only for communications to and from the hub. Things like battery life reports.

Use of any other association group is still optional and still left up to the manufacturer. And the other association groups still work the same way: trigger device sends a basic command to target device.

The alternative to association

Emphasis has shifted to an entirely different method which uses “central scene Commands.” With these, the trigger device sends a Scene number to the hub and then the hub is supposed to have logic to decide what to do next.

This means all the statuses stay in sync and multi protocol platforms like smartthings can use a Z wave device to trigger a A target device which uses a different protocol like zigbee or Wi-Fi.

And the target events can be much more complicated, all that stuff like changing the duration of a siren or changing the color of an indicator light.

Summary

So…Don’t over complicate it. Direct association other than the lifeline group is between 2 zwave devices who don’t talk to the hub. The trigger sends a “basic” command (that has a very specific meaning in a Z wave context) to the target device. The goal is to reduce latency for simple controls.

Some super complicated battery operated button remotes, like the aeotec Walmote, Use central scene commands for most stuff. But also include an option to use direct association, most commonly for dimming.

Did that help? :sunglasses:

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Yes.

Now if that is correct then how the hell do i set associations.

Try what @erocm1231 just suggested. The point with battery operated devices is that in order to save battery life most of them sleep most of the time. When you put them in configuration mode, they stay awake for longer than usual which is what allows you to update the stored parameters in that device.

Eric is suggesting that there’s a way to wake up the wallmote and make it stay awake long enough to use the tweaker with it.

If that works, then you would be able to set the associations for the Wallmote that way.

Again, don’t over complicate it. When you use the tweaker you’re just storing the list of device IDs in the wallmote that you are giving it permission to send a basic commands to.

If you are using multiple association groups, you have to create an ID list for each one.

that was very informative and a good read so thank you.

so let me ask you this, say i had z wave bulbs being controlled by my wallmote quad how would i setup the dimming side of it if i wasn’t using smartthings.? Is this were twaeker comes into it.

i also get confused with how to setup association groups’ can’t find any tutorials on this amywhere.

The reason why i didn’t want to go with hard wired switches was because i like to set coloured scenes and wouldn’t be able to if i only had white ambient bulbs but I’ve just searched for z wave bulbs and led strips but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of choices

cheers Kev

The tweaker is community created code written by a member of this forum and only works with SmartThings. It’s just a way of telling the smartthings hub to tell the trigger device to store the target device IDs you want to be able to trigger with the basic command. (And the only reason it had to be written by a community member is because, for whatever reasons, smartthings does not provide the usual zwave network management utilities that most of its competition do. )

If you didn’t have a smartthings hub, you would have to have some other Z wave controller to establish your Z wave network. That might be Vera, devolo, Homeseer, Fibaro, etc. Aeotec even makes a USB stick that you can plug into a laptop and use that as your Z wave controller.

Different controllers have different methods for setting up zwave direct associations. That’s why the Walmote user manual tells you to check the instructions for your hub/gateway.

In order to use Association Groups, make sure that your gateway or software can allow you to set these, in order to do so, please refer to your gateways manual on setting group association. This will allow the WallMote Quad to directly communicate ON/OFF or Dimming commands to your devices without going through your gateway.

Remember the first rule of home automation? “The model number matters.“ That applies to hubs and gateways as well. :sunglasses:

so say habitat would that be a good choice as i like the idea of running things locally rather than the cloud.

I’m finding the wall mote unresponsive from time to time, i think its when it wakes up. Not sold on it to be honest and I’ve bought 2 of then. Not sure whether to stick with them or look elsewhere…?

cheers kev

Hubitat is a good choice for local operation, but to be honest its founders were power users from smartthings and I don’t honestly know if they provided zwave utilities like association setup or if they used the SmartThings model. You’d need to ask in their forum. :sunglasses:

BTW, if you are interested in learning more about Zwave specifically, there’s an FAQ for that. :wink:

It’s old, and while it was originally true that you had to buy a developers license, that changed a couple of years ago, and that change is also discussed in the FAQ. Now the official specs are publicly available for free.

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