Hello everyone,
4 years ago we've fully modified the lighting in our house to make use of smart dimmers. So far this has been a complete disaster. We've installed 20+ zwave dimmers from a certain Polish brand which have been a nightmare. In my area the electricity provider makes heavy use of CAB signals (Rundsteuerfrequenzen?) which means at set times at night all the lights starts flickering like mad because the dimmers interpret them as activations. aka. Disco time!
This is the general wiring setup that we're using which keeps repeating.
- The momentary switch connected to Dimmer 1 turns on/off the lights with single press.
- Keeping the button pressed starts dimming the light. Releasing and long-pressing again gradually brightens the light.
- Double clicking the button button sets it to 100%
- Dimmer 2 has a Z-wave association to dimmer 1, meaning it mimics its functionality. On/off + dim both ways + double click to 100%
dimmer 2 does not have any lights connected to it. Only a (stupid but required) load bypass.
However there's the annoying part that you need to press to 'activate' dimmer 2 first, before it starts accepting commands. This means you press it once to activate, then the second press turns on the lights. This is extremely annoying as you don't know beforehand whether the dimmer is still active (it stays active for a while) so you never know beforehand whether or not press the button once or twice.
We've saved up enough to throw out all of the Polish zwave dimmers (then ritually burn them) and replace them with a different system.
Now, the obvious question ... can I replace them with Shelly products which:
- Aren't affected by CAB signals, meaning no more random disco time at night.
- Mimic the same functionality, especially in regards to the 'remote' dimmers which aren't directly connected to the lights.
If so, that would be absolutely brilliant, but as the topic states, it might be a bit of a holy grail.
Currently we're running Domoticz + its android app as the controller which we're quite happy with but wouldn't mind swapping to a different system if required.
Regards,
Sofie & Rob from Belgium