Hello i just added a GE 45602 dimmer switch to the system and noticed that it never fully turns off i plugged in some led xmas lights into it and i can still see them on when plugged in…
Anyone else seen this behavior before?
I just got my HA up and running with Razberry board and added the GE 45602 wall plug dimmer module. I’m seeing the same behavior you saw.
Turning on seems to work fine. But turning off (light.turn_off, or clicking the HA graphical off switch) only reduces it to a lower light level - around 30%. A second call to light.turn_off turns it all the way off. HA version 0.63.2.
This module has a settable transition rate in the hardware which determines in how many steps, and how quickly, it turns on or off. I saw it (and set it) once before in HA but where eludes me now. I’m going to try changing that to instant on/off to see if that changes the behavior. There’s also a related entity called zwave.ge_45602_lamp_dimmer_module to try playing with if this doesn’t work. I’ll let you know what I find.
So far I’ve tried several ways to turn it off in an automation, and they all have the same behavior of reducing it to about 30%, but not turning it off.
- alias: TEST turn light off automation trigger: - platform: state entity_id: input_select.alarm_notification to: "Silent" action: - service: light.turn_off data: entity_id: light.ge_45602_lamp_dimmer_module_level
- alias: TEST turn light off automation trigger: - platform: state entity_id: input_select.alarm_notification to: "Silent" action: - service: homeassistant.turn_off data: entity_id: light.ge_45602_lamp_dimmer_module_level
- alias: TEST turn light off automation trigger: - platform: state entity_id: input_select.alarm_notification to: "Silent" action: - service: homeassistant.turn_on data: entity_id: light.ge_45602_lamp_dimmer_module_level brightness_pct: 0 transition: 10
Changing the dim steps/rate seems to have fixed the problem. Here’s what I did:
- Configuration > Z-Wave
- Under “Z-Wave Node management” select the light. For me this was “GE 45602 Lamp Dimmer Module (Node 2: Complete)”
- Scroll down to the “Node config options”
- Select “7: On/Off Command Dim Step”
- In the line below, set the value to 99 (mine was at 1) and click “Set Config Parameter” just below that.
- In the same place, select “8: On/Off Command Dim Rate”
- In the line below, set the value to 1 (mine was at 3) and click “Set Config Parameter”.
After I did this, both the off and on commands work.
There must be something with the slow off transition that confuses HA (even when you specifically tell it the transition will take 10 seconds, which is more than enough time to transition to the off state with the original settings) and it grabs the state when the dimmer has only reduced to 30% and then freezes it there. That mechanism would also explain why the second off gets it the rest of the way off.
PS. I only saw this by clicking around everything when I got HA set up and, fortunately, seeing these values. As a newcomer, this stuff feels much like like the Wild West. If you happen to come across a watering hole in the desert, lucky you. While the city of knowledge making all of this trivial could be just over the next hill, I haven’t seen it yet.
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One last note.
Dim Step has a value of 1-99 and “Indicates how many levels the dimmer will change for each dimming step.” Dim Rate has a value of 1-255 and “This value indicates in 10 millisecond resolution, how often the dim level will change. For example, if you set this parameter to 1, then every 10ms the dim level will change. If you set it to 255, then every 2.55 seconds the dim level will change.”
Assuming there are 99 dim steps (guess) I left Dim Rate at 1 and set Dim Step to 4 which should result in about a 0.25 sec transition. WIth this setting the problem reverses. The light.turn_on service with no additional parameters now only turns the dimmer on to about 10%. Calling it a second time turns it the rest of the way on. Calling light.turn_off turns it all the way off.
The automation using the “brightness_pct: 100” parameter works and turns the light all the way on.
Hopefully someone with more HA knowledge on the innards of light.turn_on and light.turn_off can figure out what the real fix is for this device with adjustable turn on/off rates so the on/off services work with any setting.
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Just wanted to say thanks. I installed a new GE switch a few days ago and didn’t see this behavior. Then I installed another new one yesterday and also updated HA to the latest version. Just like your experience, the last switch I installed did exhibit this behavior…only dimming to 30% when an ‘off’ was sent by HA.
Not sure if it is an HA version issue or an issue with the switch, but the settings you provided seemed to have fixed the issue.
Strangely, all of my zwave switches are identical but only this last one has the problem. 
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When I used these settings, I was no longer able to turn the light off. The blue light would show up on the physical switch indicating it was off, but the light stayed on.
Setting the step=99 and rate=2 seems to have worked for me.
I also changed Local Control Dim Step and Rate so the light behaves the same when physically pressing the button and using zwave commands. The long delay to turn off when pressing the button was annoying and now it works well.
this is great thank you. it helped solve the problem with the GE switches. The rate “2” fixed it. with “1” I had the same problem that the light will not turn off.
Now i have a problem with Linear WD500 dimmers. They do not have this as an adjustable parameter. Any ideas?
Thanks for this! It fixed my switches, both the GE 14294 and the GE 12724.
New to Home Assistant, here. I just got one of these GE dimmer switches and it worked out of the box for manual operation physically and on the HA interface. However, this same thing happened when I tried to use the automation feature. The light would turn off for the daytime like I programmed, and the blue light would come on the physical switch. But, HomeAssistant would still show about 30% brightness.
I checked the Z-Wave configs like everyone here suggested and each were out of sync. I think this must be a newer version of the Z-Wave configuration since this question was asked. I’m seeing these 6 options (each with a Step and Rate pair) :
- Z-Wave Command Dim [Step/Rate]
- Local Control Dim [Step/Rate]
- ALL ON/ALL OFF Dim [Step/Rate]
These weren’t in sync with the Local* params. So my assumption is when HA tried to turn them off, they were logging the wrong combo of steps and rates to tell the switch to turn off. The local switch responded appropriately, but HA kept it logged that it wasn’t fully off yet. I’ve set all 3 to Step=5 and Rate=3 resp. so I can still use the dimmer (kinda paid extra for it) and it not turn into a rigid on/off switch.
Thank y’all for the posts. This helped me a lot.