UPB LED colors - SA vs. HAI

[AutomatedOutlet]

Interesting info regarding the LEDs on the UPB switches. As you may or may not know, the LED on the UPB switches are tri-color and can be programmed to display your choice of color depending on the state of the switch.

For the Simply Automated and the HAI switches, the color choices are different.

Simply Automated - Red, Green, or Orange

HAI - Blue, Magenta, or Red

 

[Steve]

So much for standards. I thought the HAI's were different because the picture shows it with a blue LED. They must want it to match the rest of their stuff which glows blue.

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

Yeah, I personally like the blue - it's a very cool looking shade of blue. I have my switches show blue when off and magenta when on.

I just thought I'd point out this difference in case someone has a preference between the various options.

 

[bfisher]

Guess I have SA stuff, mine are all red/green. When did you start carrying the HAI switches?

Have you wired a slave switch yet? I added my first last week... the LED doesn't light when off, but lights green when it's on. I'm assuming I'd need to add another wire for continuous power for it to be red when off... Otherwise, switch works exactly as expected.

I've got an HAI UPB question for you... how does the 8 Button House Controller work? Is each button assigned a UPB address? What I'm thinking is just a simple interface (until I get some RadIO touchscreens (or something like it). If each button is a UPB address, my HVPro could decipher what I want (such as button 1 is garage door closed, button 2 turns on security system, etc). I don't want it to be only tied to UPB switches/modules... but to be a simple interface to data in HV.

That possible with this device? Thanks!

 

[kwilcox]

I would assume the device has 8 transmit components that can be linked. I don't think that any UPB device can have more than one address. How well your controller software works would depend on how well it can trigger on link activity I'd imagine. In HCA, I can trigger on link events coming from a given device. However, I still need to set up a valid link to be able to use a transmit component as a trigger. because of this, I've wondered myself at how useful a device such as that would be at controlling non-upb stuff via a central controller.

edit:

Actually, now that I think about it, you could just set up links with no receive components. So in this case you would create a link called "HAI button 1" and tie it to the first transmit component of the switch. Now with HCA I can trigger on the "HAI button 1" link coming from the HAI controller. I'm assuming that the same sort of thing is possible with HVPro, the key still being that it has to be able to trigger on link activity.

 

[bfisher]

Thanks for the post. HVPro can control UPB links, so at first glance, it should work. I'll have to think this through, might be a quick/clean keypad for some simple functionality.

 

[kwilcox]

Another way I do it is to trigger on UPB status for the device. Then you just set the device to report changes in status (something you probably do today for your existing switches to keep your HA system syncronized with the state of your UPB devices). Then, the macro associated with the trigger just fires routines based on the current settings of the switches.

 

[ChrisWalker]

Just a quick update on this:

Simply Automated updated their "Universal" switch about a week ago, and the next-generation switch (which has rounded corners and a few other nice tweaks) now uses the color blue instead of the color red. This was in response to consumer demand as I understand it.

I also understand that the rest of the SA product line will migrate to this new, "cooler" color scheme as well.

Chris

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

Chris,

Yes, that's the US240. I wonder what the third color is though. UpStart hasn't updated to the new color sceme yet.

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

I see they also lowered the rating to 900 watts as well.

 

[ChrisWalker]

I see they also lowered the rating to 900 watts as well.

Retroactively, even. As in, I believe that applies to the earlier switches as well.

From what I understand, it passed standard tests for 1,000 watts, but they wanted to be conservative and keep people safe to ensure that nobody got any nastiness. And from what I also understand, they're working on an even higher-wattage product for people who really want to do more than 900 watts.

That's a responsible company. You have to love companies like that.

Chris

 

[rocco]

. . . And from what I also understand, they're working on an even higher-wattage product for people who really want to do more than 900 watts.

Or did they really decrease the rating to 900 watts in order to increase the market for their higher wattage dimmers? B)

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

Well, I don't really think that was it. I did talk to some people though and evidently there were some different testing standards out there and I think they are conforming to a more widely accepted standard.