I just set up my Aeotec Nanodimmer with Home Assistant and I can control it fine from the web interface. However, when I turn on the light using the physical switch wired to it (momentary style), the light goes on, but none of the states change in the Home Assistant web interface (and the automation I’m trying to set up fails). Has anyone had any success getting the nanodimmer to send state change information when using the physical switch?
You might have to setup polling with a delay, just like other Zwave dimmers Cannot get GE 14294 dimmer to update brightness status in HA
Settings for Aeotec Nano Dimmer that I found work well from me (copied them from a Vera advanced options default for this device, then adjusted when necessary)
Parameter: 80 Notification report association group 1
Value: Hail (probably 3, not sure)
Parameter 90: Enable / disable parameter 91/91
Value: Enable
Parameter 91: Minimum Change to send Report (watt)
Value: 5
I put 5 because I have a maximum load of 30W. Adjust as needed. Too low of a value might flood the zwave network.
Parameter 92: Minimum Change to send Report (%)
Value: 3
See above comment. The same applies.
Parameter 120: Set the external switch mode for S1
Value: 2-state switch mode
I put this for a temporary button. Not sure why it works this way.
Parameter 131: Min brightness level
Value: 25
Test this and see what you like, depending on bulb type. Too low of a value might result in flickering, without the aeon small black load (forgot what it’s called)
Parameter 132: Max brightness level
Value: 99
Again: put as personal preference
1 Like
Setting parameter 80 to Hail works! Thanks so much.
Sorry, I was wrong. It seems that Basic is better,.
Hail = device notifies hub that something happened, hub polls, device gives status
Basic = device sends status
Source: https://forums.homeseer.com/showpost.php?p=1073945&postcount=19
A while back in a thread in this forum, we were asking what HAIL meant for Cooper devices and Rich was kind enough to respond per below. I don’t know how relevant it is to the Aeon Labs device, but I figured I’d share just in case…
"…The hail command was put in there before Cooper negotiated a deal with Lutron on their patent that rakes in a bunch of money for them each year. What it does is to send a signal that “something happened” and we then had HomeSeer do a GET on that device to see what its status was - it was the next best thing to instant status. However, due to other related reasons, Cooper licensed the patent and was then able to instantly send the status to HomeSeer, so the need for HAIL went away. Even if you have older switches that support HAIL, I do not believe we do anything with it in HomeSeer - I would have to look to make sure though. Do your association on Group 1 to HomeSeer and you are all set. Cooper probably removed HAIL due to it being inferior to a Group 1 association.
Yes, I just checked the code and they still work because we only ignore the hail from certain devices.
The early firmware had group 255 only (the HAIL group) and then later when the patent licensing was done, both 1 and 255 appeared. I suspect (and perhaps it has already happened) that firmware will come in Cooper devices where it only has group 1.
Group 1 is more direct because it sends the specific status level, Group 255 issues a HAIL and then HomeSeer asks for the level. The other change is that for Cooper dimmers that support Group 1, we only do the association to Group 1 - no sense cluttering up the airwaves with redundant/unnecessary signals by associating to the HAIL group.
So for outlets that only have the 255 group, that is why they still work with HS - we do not ignore hails from those devices. However, if a device supports both, you should have it set up to only associate to group 1 and not both…"
1 Like
I also have the Nano dimmer and had the same problem, when I clicked in the web interface the switch work as intended and shows as on. When I click the web interface again it goes off and it also is showed that way - so far so good. I then clicked on the action button directly on the dimmer and that works just as well. When I then click the physical momentary switch the lights goes on and off, but it is not showed in the Home Assistant web interface. I then updated parameter 80 to “Send multilevel switch report”. Then if I click on the physical switch it is registered in the web interface in the lights group as “Aeotec Nano dimmer level”, but in the switch group it is not registered.
To me that seems a little strange as Home Assistant then certainly receives the command (hence dimmer level responds), but switch does not respond in the web interface.
If I in the web interface click on “dimmer level” it also does not activate the “switch”, but the light does turn on.
Any ideas?
Better late than never I guess but I found this topic as I had the same issues. In the end change the value to hail made the light and switch group change with the physical switch.
1 Like
Do you get some performance issues by using hail? As I recall I didn’t use that option as it was somehow a polling method if I remember correctly, which in theory at least could have an impact on the Z wave performance.
Hi Morten,
No issues, but it works with basic instead of hail for me now as well. with both switch and light.
Thank you @iRobert for information.
It helps me to find out the three modes which can be used to fire event from nano dimmer when triggered from switch. In my case I’ve got two objects in system after initial dimmer configuration:
light.level_3
switch.switch_2
Both of them display status of dimmer and allow to switch it on or off.
But there is the difference with various modes of “80: Group 1 notification” configuration parameter.
For example with “Send Hail CC when using the manual switch to change the load state” both objects change their status simultaneously. But with “Basic” or “Send Multilevel Switch report” only light.level_3 was changed when dimmer triggered manually and both ones when triggered from web interface or automation.
It allowed me to analyze the reason of status changes and prevent manually switched on light from being switched off automatically by motion sensor.
Below is my working automation rules just for example.
########################## turn on corridor dimmer
- alias: zwave motion on
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.zwave_motion_sensor
to: ‘on’
condition:- condition: state
entity_id: light.level_3
state: ‘off’
# if not turned on manually then swich light on automaticaly and allow to be switched off .
action: - service: homeassistant.turn_on
entity_id: switch.switch_2
- condition: state
######################## turn off corridor dimmer
- alias: zwave motion off
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.zwave_motion_sensor
to: ‘off’
condition:- condition: state
entity_id: switch.switch_2
state: ‘on’
action: - service: homeassistant.turn_off
entity_id: switch.switch_2
- condition: state
I had the exact same problem. The Nano dimmer worked perfectly via Home Assistant and reported the correct status. The external switch (basic 2-position light switch) also turned the lights on and off as expected.
However, when I used the external switch to change the lights on/off, Home Assistant would not get the status update. Tailing OZW_Log.txt showed nothing was happening on the zwave network when I toggled the external switch.
Setting parameter 80 (Notification report association group 1) to basic solved my problem.
But…here’s the catch. After installing the Nano, and getting it working in HA, I found a similar post online that said set this parameter to Basic. When I checked the setting in the HA zwave configuration page that parameter was set to “Send multilevel switch report”, and setting it to Basic did not make any change. After wasting about two hours on this, I gave up for the evening.
Several hours later, I couldn’t let it go, so I google again and found this post. I read iRobert’s posts where he said set it to Hail, then later he said it worked with Basic too. I’ve seen some weird things on zwave where settings can take hours to take effect, so I checked the parameter in HA again. This time, it was sitting at None! Before, it reported Send multilevel Switch report, but now several hours later it is reporting None.
I set it to Basic, and it started working instantly. Now as I toggle the switch, the status updates in HA.
TL/DR;
Set parameter 80 to Basic. If it is already set to that and still not working, try leaving it for a few hours and then check the parameter again to see if it’s actually still on Basic. If not, set it to Basic again.
3 Likes