[vreihen16]

I just finished unboxing the last of three new Inovelli Z-Wave smart wall switches with built-in scene control. The three will be used to control all of the outdoor flood lights around Chez Vreihen, with one being installed for our detached garage floods, one for the front yard floods, and one for the back yard floods.

On each switch, if I push once on the switch paddle it will work like a dumb light switch and turn the attached light on with a solid blue indicator LED on the switch.

I programmed double-taps on each switch paddle to turn on the attached light for 5 minutes, with a fast-blinking blue LED as a hint to get 'yer butt moving before the timer runs out. Useful when leaving the house after dark.

I programmed holding the switch paddle for 2-3 seconds to turn on all three sets of flood lights, with a slow-blinking blue LED at each of the three switches.

Believe it or not, it took me THREE HOURS to program my home automation controller to make all of these things work...with the switches powered by lamp cords on my workbench in temporary PVC outlet boxes! I still have to install them into the wall boxes in place of dumb switches, keeping my fingers and toes crossed that there is a neutral junction in every switch location.

The switches have the ability to trigger additional scenes for 3/4/5 taps, but it is difficult to remember them all when they get more complex. I was thinking about programming 5 taps to set the LED indicators on all three switches to fast-flashing, turn on all of the outside lights, and flash the front flood lights repeatedly as an emergency beacon in case we need to call the police/fire/ambulance. We live in a wooded/dark area with no street lights, so having strobing floods pointing towards the road would surely draw attention....