Vitrum switch and satelite - HC2 experience

[kgeusens 2]

Hi fellow home-controllers,

 

About 1 year ago I discovered the Vitrum wall switches and completely fell in love with them. I decided to give them a run and installed:

 

3-way switch with Z-wave

6-way satellite with Z-wave

 

I just wanted to share some of the challenges, limitations, and possible work-arounds that I came accross.

 

If you don't know about the vitrum devices, google them. Be warned they do not come cheap, but the use cases I had justified the cost IF they worked with HC2.

The buttons are touch panels and have a subtle light ring around them that tell you the state (blue for off, green for on).

 

Use cases

 

Use case 1 - simple satelite

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additional button to operate other z-wave device

* vitrum button color needs to reflect state of the other device (green is on / blue is off)

* pressing the vitrum button needs to change the state on the associated device

 

Use case 2 - room monitor:

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Satelite as scene trigger in the master bedroom to monitor/change state of other rooms.

* color goes to green (on) when any number of a list of specific devices turns on

* color goes back to blue (off) when the last device in the list gets turned off

* turning the associated vitrum button from on to off should power off all target devices

* turning the associated vitrum button ON will power on all target devices

 

Use case 3 - all lights off 

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located at front door. Turn off all lights when turned off. Similar to use case 2

 

Use case 4 - arm the alarm

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* not started working on this one because I don't feel HC2 alarms have reached production level yet.

 

 

Vitrum and HC2 observations

1. multi-button devices are master/slaves. First button is master, others are slaves. Every button will show up in HC2 as a device (1 master and the slaves).
2. vitrum satelite slave buttons (in contrast to the real vitrum switches) do not reliably keep state synced with HC2. That means a button press on the vitrum slave button is not allways captured by the HC2 and hence not reliable as trigger for scenes (without workaround).
3. Every button can be associate TO another z-wave device (all the association fields are visible in the HC2).
4. However, HC2 does not allow to make an association to a slave device, only to a master. Z-wave does allow for this but the feature has not yet surfaced in HC2.
5. Turn OFF polling for the vitrum devices in HC2. Polling somehow misinterprets the state of the slave buttons and turns on or off buttons you never touched.
6. When you change the state of device through a script, it does not trigger associations. Only a physical push will trigger associations.

 

Solutions

 

Use case 1 - simple satelite

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A. target device is master

Works with vitrum switch

Works with vitrum satelite

* make an association from the vitrum button to the target device.

* create a simple scene in the HC2 triggered by the target device, and have it copy its state to the vitrum button. This is a work-around for observation 4 (you can not associate from the target device to the vitrum slave buttons).

 

B. target device is slave

Works with vitrum switch

NOT with vitrum satelite (due to observations 2 and 4)

* create a simple scene for both the vitrum button and the target device that syncs the state from the triggering device to the other device if the states are different.

 

Use case 2 - room monitor

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A. all target devices are z-wave master devices

Works with vitrum switch

Works with vitrum satelite

* just like previous use case. Associate the vitrum to ALL the target devices.

* build a script triggered by the target devices. If ALL devices are off, turn off the vitrum button. Else, power on the vitrum button.

 

B. not all targets are masters

Works with vitrum switch

NOT with vitrum satelite

* create a scene triggered by the target devices. If ALL devices are off, turn off the vitrum button. Else, power on the vitrum button.

* create a scene triggered by the vitrum button. Sync the new state of the vitrum button to the target devices. Power off should turn off all monitored devices (that's the use case right). Power on could turn on just a selection, not everything (e.g. do not turn on heating, just the lights).

 

Use case 3 - all lights off

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corner case of use case 2 ("the house" is just a room)

 

Vitrum switch or satelite

The fact that the vitrum satelite button states are not reflected in the HC2 is a real pain and limits its useability. For me it is the biggest reason why I will continue rolling out the switches, even if I use them as a scene trigger.

However, there is no 6-button switch, only a satelite.

There is a workaround for the limitation that works very well, but it requires that you have an unused z-wave master relay device. If you associate the vitrum button with a master relay, this master relay than reflects the state of the vitrum button in HC2 and can be used to trigger and respond to actions. However, it adds the cost of yet another device...

 

 

Hope this helps those of you looking for input on Vitrum.

Please share your use cases if you have any to spare. Mainly interested in integration into alarms...

 

Cheers,

Koen

 

 

 

 

 

 

[elev8john 0]

Excellent feed back thanks!