Mercator Ikuü dimmers

Hardware
1

Hi all,

Does anybody in Australia have experience with Mercator Ikuü smart dimmers - in particular:

I’m looking for a switch+dimmer I can install in an existing 3-gang plate for a circuit of existing dumb, dimmable LED downlights.

Just wondering if anybody has used these dimmers and if they’ve been decent? I have a Z2M stack rather than ZHA and can see they’re supported there. I’m interested to know if they’re reliable or have issues?

I only want dimming for the one gang, the other two switches can remain dumb - converting all 3 gangs sounds great (although excessive, but I’m concerned about how oversized these units may be and whether they get overly hot especially when dimming.

Thanks!

2

https://community.home-assistant.io/search?context=topic&context_id=32074&q=Ikuu&skip_context=false

Quite a few mentions in the Australian hardware thread, although it’s abit unwieldy these days.

3

I just had one installed as a test. Seems to work okay but not without some minor quibbles

Firstly I struggled to figure out to pair it until I came across this tech article. Once I did that it paired fine to Z2M and a conbee II.

The physical switch has a nice action but bizarrely it is slower to respond when turning on and off than using HA! This may impact the WAF over time.

Dimming is interesting and needs a bit of work IMO. If you dim the device in home assistant, it almost acts like it both sets the dimmer and sets a minimum dimming level. What this means is that if you change the dimming to let’s say 100% in home assistant, you can no longer use the physical switch to dim it. If you set the dimming level to 20% in home assistant, then the physical switch is able to dim with a range of 20% to 100%. Hopefully this makes sense? I raised an issue on Z2M about it. The behaviour of the dimmer is another potential WAF problem…

Also in Z2M it does throw a couple of warning messages about undocumented tuya specific codes.

I fixed the above using the following external connector I threw together… I raised an issue on the Z2M Github and might draft a PR if I can be bothered.

const fz = require('zigbee-herdsman-converters/converters/fromZigbee');
const tz = require('zigbee-herdsman-converters/converters/toZigbee');
const exposes = require('zigbee-herdsman-converters/lib/exposes');
const reporting = require('zigbee-herdsman-converters/lib/reporting');
const extend = require('zigbee-herdsman-converters/lib/extend');
const e = exposes.presets;
const ea = exposes.access;
const tuya = require('zigbee-herdsman-converters/lib/tuya');
const legacy = require('zigbee-herdsman-converters/lib/legacy')

const definition = {
    fingerprint: [
        {modelID: 'TS0601', manufacturerName: '_TZE200_9cxuhakf'},
        {modelID: 'TS0601', manufacturerName: '_TZE200_a0syesf5'},
    ],
    model: 'TS0601_dimmer_test',
    vendor: 'TuYa',
    description: 'Zigbee smart dimmer',
    fromZigbee: [tuya.fz.datapoints],
    toZigbee: [tuya.tz.datapoints],
    configure: tuya.configureMagicPacket,
    exposes: [tuya.exposes.lightBrightnessWithMinMax()],
    meta: {
            tuyaDatapoints: [
                [1, 'state', tuya.valueConverter.onOff, {skip: tuya.skip.stateOnAndBrightnessPresent}],
                [2, 'brightness', tuya.valueConverter.scale0_254to0_1000],
                [3, 'min_brightness', tuya.valueConverter.scale0_254to0_1000],
                [5, 'max_brightness', tuya.valueConverter.scale0_254to0_1000],
            ],
        },
        whiteLabel: [
        tuya.whitelabel('Mercator Ikuü', 'SSWM-DIMZ', 'Switch Mechanism', ['_TZE200_9cxuhakf']),
        tuya.whitelabel('Mercator Ikuü', 'SSWRM-ZB', 'Rotary dimmer mechanism', ['_TZE200_a0syesf5']),
    ],
};

module.exports = definition;

Overall the Ikuü dimmer mech is a good great product. It was an easy installation with no neutral wire required and the dimming works well. It is a big improvement on Hue bulbs in terms of not needing a remote control for WAF. I don’t have to worry about whether the physical switch is on or off for the integration to work. I probably will use it for some areas where the dimming behavior is not super critical. Ill be using them everywhere. It’s definitely convinced me that hard wired smart switches are the way to go.

4

Interesting. Potentially difficult if you have a bunch of them in the house and needed to re-pair them all for some reason. You have to physically disconnect the power to all the others as you re-pair the first one, then the second, etc? Wouldn’t that need an electrician?

5

I also have a heap of these and they work perfectly except for the annoying delay when you toggle via the switch itself. Did you manage to fix this or mainly just fixed the brightness limits issue?

6

No unfortunately, the delay is still there I think that is a characteristic of the hardware. It’s faster to turn the light on using Home Assistant which is frankly a bit daft…
Have you tried any Clipsal wiser gear as an alternative?

7

I bought a couple of the rotary dimmers and they’re pretty good, except they seem to be stuck in dimming mode. Sometimes dimming up, sometimes dimming down.

I’ve got them on ZHA, is there anything I can investigate to see what’s causing this?

8

Dimming is interesting and needs a bit of work IMO. If you dim the device in home assistant, it almost acts like it both sets the dimmer and sets a minimum dimming level. What this means is that if you change the dimming to let’s say 100% in home assistant, you can no longer use the physical switch to dim it. If you set the dimming level to 20% in home assistant, then the physical switch is able to dim with a range of 20% to 100%. Hopefully this makes sense? I raised an issue on Z2M about it. The behaviour of the dimmer is another potential WAF problem…

I have the same issue. How/where do you configure an external connector?

9

I reached out to Mercator and they suggested the issues could be due to load problems, not zigbee related. I’ve ordered some load balancers and will report if they make any difference.

10

Just let them go out of pairing mode and then put them in psiring one at a time…think from memory when switch is on, turn on off on off on (hold for 5 seconds) then they go into pairing mode

12

Hey mate, I’ve got one of these and it’s not working as well as it should. When turning the light on with a brightness set it just skips the brightness and turns on. So if it was last turned on at 100% brightness then if say late at night I want it to come on at 5% it just toggles on at 100%.

Do I need that converter you coded above?