Hello everyone,
I just got a Samsung Hub and I have a quick question about it. I was planning to outfit my house with GE Link Connected LED Bulbs, and then use something like a ZWN-SC7 Enerwave 7 Button Scene Controller or Aeon Labs DSA03202 v1 - Z-Wave Minimote to turn them off and on. My question is, if I have a Samsung Hub, will a Z-Wave remote be able to control Zigbee devices? My assumption would be no, but just just wanted to check.
Thanks,
Robert
I have minimotes that I use to control my devices, Philips Hue (Zigbee) lights included.
It works because you are sending the command to the hub from the remote, then the hub sends a separate command to the lights.
Technically, a “Zwave remote” and s " Zwave scene controller" may be two different things.
You cannot use the Z wave scene controller command set to have a Z wave device talk directly to a Zigbee device.
However, as @diehllane mentioned, some Z wave remotes can be set up to send an instruction to the smartthings hub, which will then send an instruction to a Zigbee device. This is not using the zwave scene commands, but rather association.
Smartthings calls the devices that can be set up in this way “button controllers.” This is true whether they are handheld like a minimote or wall-mounted like the enerwave SC7.
However, zwave scene controllers that do not control association cannot be used in this fashion. So some devices like the GE scene controllers can only be set up to control zwave devices, not zigbee devices.
So the answer is it all comes down to the specific capabilities of the device you are considering. If it can be set up to talk to the hub each time a button is pressed, then, yes, you can use it as a “button controller” with anything that SmartThings controls, zig be, Zwave, Wi-Fi, even mode changes.
However, if it only uses the zwave scene commands and not association, it can’t be made to work in this fashion.
Search the forums for the specific device you’re considering, and see if others have been able to make it work as a button controller.
Perfect, that is exactly what I needed to know. I will look in the forums and stick to Zwave Remotes. One last question, can the ZWave Remotes control multiple devices which each button, or can the instructions only control one device at a time? Thanks @diehllane and @JDRoberts!
I believe that is going to be based on what you are using to control it.
If you use RuleMachine, you can control a lot of items with a single button press, including running different routines and changing the mode.
If you use something like Button Controller, it gives you the option to have an item turned on when Pushed, and a different one when Held.
You can definitely set up multiple items to be turned on with a Push or Hold by using a virtual switch (Turn on the Virtual Switch with the minimote and have it set so that Virtual Switch will turn on 3 different lights, for example).