I have a couple of HS-WX300 dimmers connected to Home Assistant (HA) using Z-Wave JS UI. I want to control a set of smart bulbs on the load so I’ve disabled load control on the dimmers (Smart Bulb Mode). My understanding is this should allow me to power the bulbs full-time while being able to respond to switch events in HA to control the lights. I believe I should also be able to control the dimmer from HA/Zwave to keep it in sync with changes to the lights made without using the dimmer.
But in load-disabled mode HA can’t control the dimmer on/off or level. When I turn the dimmer on or off in HA, within a few seconds HA reverts back to the state from the dimmer. I similarly can’t set level values on the dimmer without it reverting. When signals are sent to the dimmer there is no change to the dimmer’s load status lights, it’s as if it received no commands or didn’t comply.
I am able to send all configuration changes to the dimmer from HA successfully so I’m able to change the LEDs, etc. Only the on/off and levels seem to not be responsive. This is the same for both dimmers.
This all works fine when the dimmers are in load-enabled mode where I’m able to fully control the dimmer from HA. The issue only occurs when load control is disabled.
Unfortunately, this makes the dimmers unsuitable. While I can still respond to the dimmer’s events to control my smart bulbs, the dimmer will not reflect external changes. This will lead to confusing situations where the lights will be on but the dimmer is on and the dimmer’s load status lights won’t match what a user is seeing in the lighting level. I want to be able to synchronize the light state back to the dimmer when their state is changed by HA.
I’ve also put in a support ticket with HomeSeer. Any help is appreciated! Please let me know if more details/config/logs would be helpful.
Some more details about my config:
Versions:
Home Assistant Core: 2024.9.1
zwave-js-ui: 9.21.0 (from add-on 3.13.0)
zwave-js: 13.4.0
The dimmers are wired in 3 wire mode and appear configured properly on 11-112-0-32 Wire Mode
I believe the dimmers are R1 because the reported values in the Z-Wave JS UI panel show:
How are your automations setup to dim the bulbs? I think that it’s pointless try to do it that way. I would use my dimmer to control the bulbs in my automations then for controlling the smart bulbs I would create a group the the place the group on my dashboard then dim my bulbs using the group
Yes, this is what I’m doing. Manual control of the dimmer fires an event which triggers an automation which controls the bulb(s). For HA-originated automations I control the bulbs directly. I’m not trying to use HA to control the dimmer to control the lights because the dimmer is not controlling the load.
The problem is not when the dimmer is being used manually to control (dimmer → automation → bulb). The issue is when an automation initiated from HA changes the bulbs and now the dimmer is out of sync. Specifically, the dimmer has lights on it to show whether it is on or off and what level the lights are at.
If the dimmer and bulbs are off and HA turns the lights on and sets their brightness to 50% this is not reflected on the dimmer.
If a user wants to increase the brightness with the dimmer and they hold the up paddle, the dimmer load status lights will show the brightness increasing from 0% up while the lights are increasing from 50% up. Confusing.
Similarly, the dimmer has an indicator light that goes on when the bulbs are off. This helps with finding the dimmer in the dark. If the lights are turned off via HA the dimmer will not be set to off and the indicator light will not come on. Frustrating.
I should be able to update the dimmer’s state so that its indicators reflect the state of the system.
I’m starting to think the only way to do this will be to bypass the dimmer and wire the load directly so I can keep the dimmer in load-enabled mode where it responds
Thanks, but this is still not the issue. That refers to status mode where each LED can be turned on to a specific colour and blink at a given frequency. That works whether the dimmer is in load-enabled or load-disabled mode.
What isn’t working is changing the dimmer’s “load” status indicator remotely.
As an example, let’s say the dimmer is off and status mode is disabled so no LEDs are lit. If I hold down the top paddle the LEDs will light up from bottom to top sequentially to show the brightness level of the dimmer.
If the dimmer is in load-enabled mode, the number of LEDs lit will correspond to the level being sent to the load. This works for non-smart bulbs and is bi-directional, meaning that if I change the dimmer level in HA it will affect the dimmer level and subsequently the load to the bulbs. Updating the dimmer level in HA shows a corresponding number of LEDs on the dimmer and the bulbs are set directly by the load.
If the dimmer is in load-disabled mode, holding the paddle up will also show a growing number of LEDs but of course this doesn’t correspond to the load. Instead, HA is updated with new values for the dimmer’s levels. I can handle these events/states in automations and set the bulbs. But the reverse is not true. If I set the bulb brightness in HA and then attempt to send the same brightness to the dimmer so the LED brightness indicators correspond to the light level the dimmer does not change. In fact, the dimmer’s entity in HA will revert to the value reported by the device and my automation will then kick in and set the bulbs back.
Not only that, but if I were to try and find a way to logically ignore the dimmer entity reverting to the device’s non-changed level, things are now out of sync. The brightness of the light entity now doesn’t match the brightness indicated by the dimmer LEDs. Similarly, the on/off state can be out of sync.
Either something is configured incorrectly on the dimmer or how it is registered, or there is something buggy or ill-conceived on the product.