I’m quickly learning that adding a device to my Homey Pro is always a gamble; it may or may not work.
My existing Leviton dimmers were connected to Smartthings, so I reset them, added to Homey, and they appear to work just fine. So, I felt fairly safe buying new ones bearing the same model number (Leviton ZW6HD) for other locations. But no love.
I reset to factory default and tried to connect. No good.
I verified the PIN and tried to reconnect 5 or 6 times. No good.
The best I could get was the device added as an unknown zwave device. Worthless.
So, I guess I’ll try a Zooz dimmer and see how it goes.
Were any error messages displayed? For example, “time out” or “something went wrong, try again”?
Have you tried including the dimmer near to Homey?
Please check in the advanced device settings whether the manufacturer ID, the product type ID and the product ID are identical to the dimmer that is working properly.
If, for whatever reason, the manufacturer has changed f.e. the product ID and this product ID isn’t integrated in the Homey Leviton app, then the dimmer isn’t supported yet.
If this is the case, please contact the app developer. Contact details can be found in the App Store.
Because? Does it work or doesn’t it?
The description of “unknown z-wave device” is a very poor choice imho, and causes lots of confusion;
It should read “not app supported z-wave device”
But Homey should recognise it as a z-wave dimmer, I would guess…
Or doesn’t the generic z-wave driver support dimmers? Only on/off? @DirkG do you have information about what’s supported by the generic z-wave driver?
Afaik, only smart switches and plugs with only one channel/relay are supported as a generic Z-Wave device, incl. power measurement capabilities if its supported by the device itself.
So a dimmer will not work as generic Z-Wave device in my opinion.
Anything with the multilevel_switch command class will (/should) work as unkown device, which includes dimmers.
anything measuring isn’t “support” if i’m right, but that might be old news.
If a dimmer works as a generic Z-Wave device, @MarkWGaither certainly wouldn’t have asked, I guess.
But maybe you’re right, @Caseda. I’ve never tried it myself.
As @Peter_Kawa already mentioned, power measurement capabilities were already added with firmware v10.1.0.
I alternately received “Couldn’t connect, try again” and something about the PIN. I retried using all sorts of methods, including factory reset. The hub is only about 20 feet from the dimmer in an almost direct line of sight.
It’s apparent that the app/hub doesn’t like the new switch. I abandoned Leviton, never to return, and experimented with a Zooz, which works just fine. So, “buh-bye, Leviton!”
Yeah, an unknown z-wave device operates only as an on/off switch with no dimming control or any other features. So, I bid farewell to Leviton and installed a Zooz instead. It works just fine.
I’m returning the other Leviton dimmers and purchasing Zooz for the rest of my dimmer needs.
To clarify, the “unknown device” operates only as an on/off switch with no dimming control.
This was the case for the Leviton in-wall dimmers and for the plug-in dimmers. So, I have abandoned Leviton in favor of Zooz dimmers, which work just fine.
Unfortunately, you didn’t respond to my question regarding the product ID. Because this is an important information to know in combination with a Homey.
Example:
Zooz changes the hardware of the ZEN77 dimmer switch slightly, e.g. because a certain chip is no longer available or Zooz purchases this chip from another chip manufacturer for cost reasons.
In order for Zooz itself to be able to trace which ZEN77 batches have the new chip installed, Zooz changes the product ID from 1234 to 1235, but not the product name ZEN77.
Changing the product ID is enough that Homey no longer identifies the modified ZEN77 dimmer switch. Homey will identify it as an “unknown device”!
To ensure that Homey is able to identify the modified ZEN77 dimmer switch, the Homey Zooz app must be modified resp. the new product ID must be added to the Homey Zooz app.
The problem for us users, however, is that the product ID is usually not documented anywhere. So you only find out when you want to add the device to the Homey.
I hope I was able to explain the problem clearly using this example.
Thank you, Dirk, for the explanation, which I completely understand. In fact, I suspected as much at the time of installation.
I didn’t respond to that part of your message because, in a strictly practical sense, it isn’t helpful because I can’t fix Leviton’s systematic and prevailing failure to serve their customers. Or, perhaps the failure belongs to Homey for identifying product IDs unnecessarily strictly. (I suspect the former.) Regardless, from a consumer point of view, not the engineer’s, new Leviton devices are not compatible with Homey and should be avoided.
As for my opening comment, “adding a device to my Homey Pro is always a gamble,” I stand by it. Don’t get me wrong. I really, really, like my Homey Pro after devices are added. It’s far and away the best experience, especially with advanced flows, which makes automations downright fun.
However, even compatible devices sometimes take two or tree tries to latch onto the hub. That was the case with my Zooz dimmer. And many leading brands (like Rachio sprinkler control for example) have no official app, and the community app is non-functional. I understand that Homey is new in the US, and market share will take a long time to build, so we have to be patient. Fortunately for Homey, Aeotec has little interest in fixing the profound flaws in their own hub, which prompted my own decision to change. Like Leviton with their devices, Aeotec simply stopped caring about their hub.
Still, I sincerely appreciate your careful response. While it couldn’t solve my immediate problem, it’s nice to know you’re heard when you take to the Internet and shout into the void.
I don’t know exactly how other smart home systems handle this when an existing device gets a new product ID as described in my example above, but in this case it’s primarily a Homey issue and not a Leviton issue. Athom, the manufacturer of the Homeys, could add more basic device drivers. In this case, not all functions of a device may be supported, but at least the main functions.
The more user-friendly option would of course be if the needed app would be updated after the release of new or modified devices. The problem with this, however, is that about 80% of all Homey apps are programmed and maintained by Homey users and not by the device manufacturers. And the whole thing is done on a voluntary basis and free of charge.
And because the voluntary app developers are not officially informed when new or modified devices are released and of course not everyone can buy them, the app developers are dependent on receiving such information from the users. In your specific case, you could have informed the app developer of the Leviton app - the Leviton app is not programmed by the manufacturer! - of the new product ID and he might have adapted the app accordingly at short notice.
An as “Official” labeled app doesn’t mean that the device manufacturer develops and maintains this app! The Leviton and Zooz apps for example are developed and maintained by Dutch freelance software developer Leendert de Kok under the company name koktail → Leendert de Kok · Koktail · Freelance software developer
I agree with you that it is sometimes difficult to add a device to Homey, especially with Z-Wave and Zigbee devices. Although the Homey Pro (early 2023) supports Network Wide Inclusion (NWI) with Z-Wave devices, imho it’s still recommended to include the Z-Wave device in close proximity to the Homey. 20 feet can be too much in poor conditions. My recommendation is a maximum of 5 feet. You can make an extra cable for it, or walk around the house with the Homey and a long extension cable. I use the first option myself.
For Zigbee devices, my recommendation is to add them at the installation location.
If problems still occur, it sometimes helps to restart the Homey via the app or even perform a PTP.
I’m actually surprised that the Leviton app was not created by Leviton! I see now the " Koktail software development" credit in the app store. Not sure, then, what “official” signifies. And doubly surprised that the same developer created the Zooz app. So, my attitude toward Leviton has simultaneously softened and grown more harsh.
From what I know:
“official” = created / maintained by a brand/company, or by a community developer, who registered to Athom as ‘company’ by paying €100.
This should allow for apps to be published to Homey Cloud as well (a no-go area for non-paying developers operating as individual).
Athom inspects apps from those paying app builders more thoroughly, to prevent “disasters” on the Homey Cloud system, hence the €100 “fee”.
Let’s take a look at an app like Shelly: it’s a great community app built by a developer, who made it Homey Cloud compatible at some point and registered himself as Allterco Robotics; but he quit the app, and now it’s maintained by Drenso B.V. (a company which maintains lots of apps);
(I suspect) Shelly company had & has nothing to do with it.
Just a small note: Allterco Robotics actually was the parent company/holding behind the Shelly brand. This holding was renamed to Shelly Group. I am not sure which company name the prior developer used. The App Store still refers to Allterco Robotics as official developer and Jelger Haanstra as volunteer. I believe Jelger was the actual person maintaining the app. Denso has indeed taken over. They must have some kind of arrangement with either Shelly or Athom, as I assume they don’t work for free .
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