Initial Vizia Feedback...

[AutomatedOutlet]

AspireRF said they will be shipping in June.

June might be the official word but I had the Cooper rep sitting in my office saying that he would be surprised if it came out by the end of summer. Don't hold your breath.

 

[Herdfan]

I had the Cooper rep sitting in my office saying that he would be surprised if it came out by the end of summer. Don't hold your breath.

Is there any possibility that the delay is related to the lawsuit Lutron filed against Leviton for patent infringement? They may want to see how that is progressing before releasing their line.

 

[ASIHome]

That is basically what Cooper said at EHX.

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

Is there any possibility that the delay is related to the lawsuit Lutron filed against Leviton for patent infringement?

Now you're catching on!

 

[shenandoah75]

While waiting on the Vizia enhancements to serial expander, i'm trying to make due with the zwave interface and found another gripe - trying to set up some rules for automating lights while away...

The set light to % level doesn't seem to work at all (only on/off commands)... Still reading up on fade rates, but even those seem to be ignored by Vizia devices....

Anyway, once the integration is there i'm sure it will be solid, but boy this is frustrating (just the experience not Elk or anything!)...

-brad

 

[johnnynine]

Figured out scenes on the remote (finally!!!!)

Note that what wasn't explicit in the following is that after you get the following message, you can individually change every level of every zone to a desired level. Hitting button 1 at that point saves all those levels in the scene. Note that because the scene is forced to be linked to the devices by area/zone, you need a dedicated area(zone) with all devices you wish to specify in the scene.

I still say doc sucks and this is not intuitive and i didn't think other products required a zone to be defined on which to base the scene.

thx
-brad



Email from Lutron
===========
An area can be a group of devices up to 32, or a single device. There are 16 profiles total that you can create in your remote with 4 areas to each profile.

Illustration: If you create profile 1 you then can associate area 1 to button 1 area 2 button 2 and so on. Each one of these created area can have up to 32 devices grouped in that area or have a single device. Once your profile is created and you have linked areas to each button if you press and hold button 1 ON for 15 sec you will get a display that says ADJUST LEVEL FOR THIS SCENE PRESS 1 ON WHEN DONE. You can repeat this for all button in that profile.

Can you elaborate a little on this? I'm confused on the relationship of the scene #'s. On the remote each button of a controller is assigned an area AND a scene # (or on/off). As I recall there were a lot of scene #'s to choose from. How does that work?

Edit:
So if I have 2 area's, kitchen/dining and office, both with multiple devices in them. And I have a 4 button controller in both rooms and for simplicity I have all 4 buttons on each assigned to the area the controller is near... Let's say I assigned scene 1-4 to the office controller buttons, then what happens if I assign scene 1-4 to the dining/kitchen controller? Or is that even possible? I guess what I am getting at, is the scene # unique by houseid or by area?

Totally lost on scene #s.

 

[jarcher]

Use only one (1) Vizia™ RF dimmer in a multi-location circuit with up to 9 Vizia™ coordinating remotes without LEDs or Vizia™ RF controllers. The remote(s) will turn the light on at the brightness level selected at the dimmer.

.
.
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In short, with the RF line, if you want 3-way functionality with dimming AND indicator LED on both ends, you must use a 1 zone controller and convert the dimmer into a single pole setup. This is disappointing both because i already bought several lighted remotes that i can't use and because the 1 zone controllers are 3x more expensive.

-brad

Leviton tech support did tell me about the matching dimmer (with leds) vs coordinating dimmer (no leds), so I was prepared for that.

But, if you want a matching dimmer, then just hard wire one end of the 3 way circuit so one leg is always on, then install a 1 button zone controller to create a virtual 3 way circuit. It's more expensive and not ideal, but it should work.

 

[jarcher]

I am very disappointed to hear about the buzzing 600W dimmers. I think I'll spend a but more and get the 1,000w dimmers everywhere instead. Kind of a waste but I don't want to deal with the buzzing.

 

[Acropolis]

I am very disappointed to hear about the buzzing 600W dimmers. I think I'll spend a but more and get the 1,000w dimmers everywhere instead. Kind of a waste but I don't want to deal with the buzzing.

It is worth the extra money. I have 8 of the 1000 watt dimmers and they are great. The only one that I can hear anything from is one that controls a vanity light with 8 60 watt bulbs, and I only hear the buzzing when I put my ear near it when it is dimmed below 25%. Other than that, I can't complain about the dimmers at all.

I noticed a comment about set light % not working. I use it in a couple of applications through my OmniPro II and it works flawlessly. For example, I have a light in the kitchen and a lamp by my back door turn on to 50% if I turn off the alarm when it is dark out. This allows me to safely find my way downstairs to let the dog out.

I also have virtual dimmers on a touch panel that is controlled using CQC and I can set any of the dimmers to any level using the touch panel just sliding a knob on the screen.

I now have 30 Vivia RF devices installed (plus 2 more lamp modules waiting for to be installed once my wife tells me where she wants them) and I have no regrets at all.

Acropolis

 

[jarcher]

I also have virtual dimmers on a touch panel that is controlled using CQC and I can set any of the dimmers to any level using the touch panel just sliding a knob on the screen.

I now have 30 Vivia RF devices installed (plus 2 more lamp modules waiting for to be installed once my wife tells me where she wants them) and I have no regrets at all.

Thanks for the feedback on the dimmers, I'll order the 1,000W versions. There is only a small price difference and ta never know when you might want to add a few more lamps to the circuit.

What kind of touch panel do you have? I have been trying to choose one...

 

[Acropolis]

I have two Planar 15" touch panels that I found for $150 each. They work great. I have them temporarily mounted for testing until I decide how I am going to run the electrical and video signal. For now the PC is sitting right by them.

 

[KenM]

I am very disappointed to hear about the buzzing 600W dimmers. I think I'll spend a but more and get the 1,000w dimmers everywhere instead. Kind of a waste but I don't want to deal with the buzzing.

I have got seven of the 600 Watt Vizia-RF dimmers installed. The largest load that I have on any one is 300 Watts. I have absolutely no 'buzzing' with any. The amount of load might be a factor with the buzzing. That's all I can say on this, at 300 Watts mine do not make any noise.

Ken

 

[shenandoah75]

Couple of more issues...

When specifying Level / Fade Rate / Duration, all are ignored... The dimmer in question always ramps as default fade rate of the dimmer, always to the last level set on the switch and specifying a duration (say 20 secs) causes the dimmer to never come on

this is not a good thing

-brad

 

[upstatemike]

AspireRF said they will be shipping in June.

June might be the official word but I had the Cooper rep sitting in my office saying that he would be surprised if it came out by the end of summer. Don't hold your breath.

I assume these are now available?

 

[George West]

AspireRF said they will be shipping in June.

June might be the official word but I had the Cooper rep sitting in my office saying that he would be surprised if it came out by the end of summer. Don't hold your breath.

I assume these are now available?

Mike,

Cooper just made an announcement that the product will ship in limited quantities this month with full roll out in 2008.

http://www.cooperwiringdevices.com/press/news.aspx?id=24

<Obligatory snarky George comment>

Cooper has been re-using this release for at least a couple of years now.

At Cedia I asked the Cooper guy demoing the product in the EI demo house when the product would actually ship. He told me 60 days which would be right around this week as it turns out. I then commented that I had been hearing this for two years now and what made this particular 60 days any different from the previous ones? I also asked what were the obstacles to getting the product on the market that had delayed it for so long? If you've ever dealt with a corporate marketing droid you can guess what kind of an answer I received.

BTW, I never actually saw them operate the product during the press tour. This contrasts to Lutron HomeWorks&reg; where the Lutron marketing rep actually pushed some buttons and turned on lights and lowered shades which caused a certain amount of surprise in other parts of the house.

</Obligatory snarky George comments>

If you are seriously considering installing visia/aspire/whatever zwave in your house my advice is to have an installer come out and do a pilot installation first just to prove out the products and the technology. IIRC you have north of 100 controlled lights and should represent a large enough installation to make that worth their while. Pick a representative sized network and make sure that the nodes are dispersed enough that multi-hop routing is required. Also test the dead/missing node scenario. At the very least you should get a good set of design guidelines should you decide to do the install yourself.

George West
www.wtrs.net