Fibaro Dimmer 2 with Zigbee Smart Switch

[goteDeath 0]

Hi

 

I'm looking to set up smart switches throughout my house and I would like essentially all of my lights to be dimmable.

 

I'm from Australia and it seems like I'm very limited in my choices for smart switches that have the appropriate certification for use here. Especially because I do not want wifi ones.

 

I also do not want to have many dimmer smart switches, one for each circuit, as that will take up a lot of wall space and look ugly. But I cannot find any smart switches that can dim multiple circuits.

 

I found a zigbee smart switch that goes up to 4 gangs for just on/off that I'm likely to go ahead with. And I'm thinking of installing the Fibaro Dimmer 2 behind these switches (or in the roof space if I need multiple Fibaro Dimmer 2's installed and they don't all fit behind the switches), one for each light circuit connected to each of these switches.

 

Can someone please confirm if this approach works? I'm not very familiar with these products so I just want to make sure my understanding is correct before I buy a whole house worth of the Fibaro Dimmer 2's! I've tried searching all over the web but every example I read about is about installing the Fibaro Dimmer 2 behind a normal, non-smart switch...

 

Thanks for the help!

[Tim__ 116]

Hello fellow Aussie! Unfortunately ZigBee and zwave are not interoperable. The Fibaro Dimmer 2 devices are quality devices, so if you want to stick with them, you then need to find a way of activating them. The best way is using plain  momentary switches so you can take advantage of double click and hold functionality as well (ie set to full brightness and dim respectively).  As you have noted, not a lot of choices but my research found:

Clipsal Saturn: has both momentary and toggle mechanisms available, so you can use seemlessly where some switches in your house are not smart. Looks good. LED back lit available. Up to 6 gang. Cons...expensive and the mechs can jam up.

Clipsal impress: cheaper but don't feel as nice to use. 

HPM seems to only make spring loaded doorbell type momentary switches, best avoided, or electronic ones which are not compatible with Fibaro.

 

Hope that helps!

[goteDeath 0]

2 hours ago, Tim__ said:

Hello fellow Aussie! Unfortunately ZigBee and zwave are not interoperable. The Fibaro Dimmer 2 devices are quality devices, so if you want to stick with them, you then need to find a way of activating them. The best way is using plain  momentary switches so you can take advantage of double click and hold functionality as well (ie set to full brightness and dim respectively).  As you have noted, not a lot of choices but my research found:

Clipsal Saturn: has both momentary and toggle mechanisms available, so you can use seemlessly where some switches in your house are not smart. Looks good. LED back lit available. Up to 6 gang. Cons...expensive and the mechs can jam up.

Clipsal impress: cheaper but don't feel as nice to use. 

HPM seems to only make spring loaded doorbell type momentary switches, best avoided, or electronic ones which are not compatible with Fibaro.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Thanks Tim. Just want to clarify what you mean when you say zigbee and zwave aren't interoperable.

 

My plan was to integrate the Fibaro Dimmer 2 and the Zigbee switches (and other smart home devices) via Home Assistant, and activate the dimming functionality of the Fibaro Dimmer 2's via Home Assistant in one or more of the following ways:

• Automatically triggered based on motion detection, the amount of light detected, using some form of people presence detection, etc using sensors, etc that are also integrated with Home Assistant.
• Manually via a Home Assistant dashboard on a tablet or mobile phone.
• Voice control via Alexa.
• Potentially on the zigbee smart switches themselves if it's possible and practical to do so. It seems like there is an event in Home Assistant for a button being held down that I may be able to use to essentially mimic a momentary switch. 
• Potentially via battery operated smart switches (ither zigbee or zwave, also integrated with Home Assistant) in some places where convenient to do so.

Will this approach work?

 

Essentially what I want is to have both smart switch capabilities to program spare gangs on switches to do whatever I want, and the ability to dim essentially all of my lights throughout the house that will be activated in the ways described above, or similar.

 

I've been aware of an optional S2 connection on the Fibaro Dimmer 2's but I only just understood today that it can be connected to a spare gang on a normal switch and used to activate scenes! So in theory, it seems like I can achieve what I want with Fibaro Dimmer 2's and normal switches. I'd also have the benefit of having the option to use 5 or 6 gang switches with 3 Fibaro Dimmer 2's, assuming these can be installed in the roof space as I doubt 3 of these will fit behind a switch. I'm not even sure two will either.

 

But as you mention, the options I have are limited and they seem to be quite pricey! The zigbee switch I'm currently considering is this 4 gang zigbee switch: 

Please login or register to see this link.

 

 

They're currently selling for $53 per switch so this seems to be a more cost-effective option. Also, using normal switches, if I want a 4 gang switch but only one gang is connected to a light circuit, how do I use all of the other 3 gangs for scenes? It seems like one Fibaro Dimmer 2 will allow me to make one of those gangs a scene switch, but how about the other two?

 

Thanks!

[Tim__ 116]

Thanks for the link to the zigbee quad light switch. One of the issues you'll have if you try and wire directly, is that this device uses a common active to power each of the switches.  Whereas the Dimmer 2 requires two individual switch connections (have a look at wiring diagram the manual at 

Please login or register to see this link.

).  

 

You can of course have the switches operate independently of the devices, and even have a mix of zigbee and zwave, but this means you are reliant on the hub to do the translation, and may notice a delay between switch press and light activation.  It's kind of over complicating turning on a light.  But I do understand you are trying to work around limited switch choice.

 

If you want to trigger a bunch of scenes, you could consider a scene controller like the remotec ZRC-90. It provides 8 buttons each with single tap, double tap and hold triggering capability, so up to 24 scenes can be triggered. Comes with a snap in wall mount.

 

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