[APP][Pro] Lightwave Smart Series (generation 2) (Release 3.1.6, Test 3.1.8)

@Adrian_Rockall

Hi Adrian, I was looking at getting 1 LW2 dimmer and 1 LW2 socket, do you need the LW hub in order to run these from Homey (If you do it’s a very expensive dimmer), or can you run them directly from Homey?

Also, is it worth holding on for 6 months or so, as all the big players are going to ensure IOT and home automation can all talk to each other going forward.

Sorry, not sure which model you are referring to as I can’t find those codes. Do you mean generation 1 (Connect range) or generation 2 (Smart range)?
Generation 1 might be controlled directly using the Athom Lightwave app depending on what you get.
Generation 2 can only be controlled via the link plus hub which is what my app uses via their web API.
To be honest I think the options in the UK are still very limited for direct replacement light switches (dimmers) and sockets, especially if your light circuit has no neutral behind the switch.

As far as the Apple, Google, Amazon, Zigbee collaboration goes, I hear it will be the end of 2020 before a standard is likely to be defined. Then manufacturers have to catch up. So the global standard is probably 2 to 3 years away yet.

Hi Adrian. Thanks for the prompt responce. Sorry, I was being lazy. I was referring to Lightwave gen 2 uk dimmers like ( MODEL L22 or L23) and the similar sockets. I only want 1 3 way dimmer or maybe a 2 way.

There is no mention of requiring a neutral at the socket. Does it not take the neutral from the other side of the switched wire back through the light? It wouldn’t be too hard to run a neutral to the light box if I had to though.

It does annoy me that we need control boxes that must have internet access to make something like a dimmer, plug or TRV to work. (What happens when your cable or the service provider goes down?) All these controllers when you want to mix and match devices. Hence the question can we run it without the LW controller.

Sorry to confuse you, yes the Lightwave dimmers do use the bulb as a return path. What I meant to say was many others require a separate neutral so are not compatible with UK wiring.

I agree it’s a pain that the only way to interface is via a dedicated hub and hopefully that will change in the future. Z-wave and Zigbee are steps towards that however UK specific devices are slow to come out but they are emerging.
Most devices, including Lightwave can work via the manual controls when the internet / network is down.

Mixing and matching is where Homey excels but there are compromises, such as using manufacturers hubs as gateways unfortunately.

There maybe alternatives now but as I have already replaced all my switches with lightwave I haven’t been looking.

I hope you find a solution that you feel comfortable with.

Someone has created a diagnostics report saying “Having trouble detecting Relays. Please advise…”
For security reason the reports have no identifying information in them so I can’t respond directly as I don’t know who you are or how to contact you so I hope you read this message.

The list of unsupported devices in the report shows a lot of items that are not reporting a product code

Unsupported Devices: [ { device:
{ productCode: undefined,
device: undefined,
desc: undefined,
type: undefined,
cat: undefined,
gen: undefined,

I don’t know why that would be! Could you tell me what type of relays they are (Lightwave product code) so I can ask Lightwave support for some guidance.

I can also see that you have an impressive mount of devices so it’s possible that Lightwave have a limit on their API so I will ask that question when I have some more details from you.

I have added support for the LW821 and L82 relays. I don’t have an L82 and they are on back order so looks like it will be the end of January before I can get one. So for now the app is in test:


If someone with an L82 relay can verify it works in both switch and three way mode I would be greatful.

Version 2,0,4 is now live which supports the LW821 and L82 relays.

I have also contacted LW about the refresh of power readings as they have changed their update policy to reduce bandwidth. This means the Electricity monitor no longer updates unless the Link box is rebooted and lights and sockets only update when switched on / off. The effect of the later means variable loads or loads that are slow to come on are not picked up by the sockets. This issue effects the official LW app as well. I have tried to work around it by polling for power values but that does not work either as the API just returns the old values.
If the power reporting is an issue for you then please contact LW and complain so maybe they will look into it.

Someone has created a couple of diagnostics reports but all I get is “Struggling to associate relays with Homey…”. If you are having problems can you give me some more details here so I can help resolve the issue.

I have only tested the app with the LW821 as I that is all I have. The L82 is on pre-order, due at the end of Jan.

So if you turn on logging in the app configuration page then try to add the relays and post the report here please?

I’m planning to get a Link Plus & L422, I wonder how fast is respond from homey hub to Link Plus :thinking:

L422 able to support locking too ?

The response is very quick as it uses push notifications.
I’m not sure about locking. I have no specific support in my app for it so it depends on the support in the LW app.

Thanks for sharing. I’m looking forward my device arrival :slight_smile:

Hi Adrian, thanks for your work on this app, I still find it very useful and have a number of flows linked to Lightwave dimmer buttons (in fact some of my dimmer buttons are only used for Homey flows).

Lightwave have recently updated the firmware and app to provide some new features, such as multi-press, and controlling the LED indicator colour and brightness using automations. Do you know if these are available in the API, and if so would it be possible to add them to the Homey app? The most useful would be multi-press as that would allow access to many more flow triggers, eg initiating a particular flow if a button is pressed twice/three times etc.

I’m not sure if they are available as I’ve not had a chance to look but i will check it out as soon as I can.

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LW haven’t updated their API documentation but I guess it was always lacking that type of information anyway. It gives the basic commands to get data, etc but has no specific detail about the data so I had to work that out.
I have now signed up for the Priority Membership so the new features should be enabled on my account soon and then I can see if any new information comes through.
I also asked support if they know if it is / will be added so will see what they say.

I have a reply from LW:

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for your query.

The API is not yet available for the new features. We are working hard to developing this. We will provide further information in due course.

Thanks for your patience.

Thanks,
Lightwave Technical Support

Thanks for looking into this.

I’m currently trying to work out if there’s some way of tricking LW to send an event to Homey using LW automations. So for example a LW automation of “multi-press” → “perform some action”, where that action is itself a trigger for Homey. I’ve tried it with a “fake” Connect series device (these are easy to set up) but it doesn’t seem to trigger events. As far as I can tell it seems that webhooks are only triggered when a physical device reports a state change.

Hi Adrian, I’ve started to have some issues with switch events on LW devices not triggering on the Homey app. I have a large number of LW devices (27 units with over 50 logical devices total), mostly dimmers. I turned logging on and noticed that on start up it appears to register a load of webhooks successfully, but then fails a bunch more. I wonder if it’s hitting a rate threshold?

Thanks for the information. I will check with LW to see if there are any limits, plus I will try to detect the failures and retry them after a short delay.
Could you PM me a part of the log that shows the failures so I can see what to look for?

I have also noticed that since they released v5 I occasionally find a dimmer will miss a switch on command. I have sensors on my doorways that detect movement in and out of rooms and I use that to turn the light on and off. Occasionally a light won’t turn on or off even though the command appears to have been sent successfully. So it could just be their new server configurations are a bit slower.

Hi Adrian,

Not sure how active this is these days (hope it’s still active). Recently the app keeps losing the refresh token, I’ve also noticed that it doesn’t always save it either. I’ve tried reinstalling it to my homey as well as deleting the API token entirely from the Lightwave app and creating a new one all to no avail.

Could this be a bug between the latest version of homey and the app?

I’m still using the app for all my lights and some window sensors, so it is definitely still active.
I have only had a couple of issue when the LightWave servers throw a wobbly.

Do you use the token with any other integration like HA?
I ask as the API token is a one time use. The app has to use the supplied token to fetch a new access token and API token. The access token is used for in each call and is valid for 24 hours. When it expires the API token is used to fetch another pair. However, if you generate a new token in the LightWave system to use with something else, the API token stored by Homey is invalidated.

I’m not sure which version you are using, but I would recommend version 3.1.0 from the test link. If you have a lot of devices, the old version would submit many setup request that could cause the API to rate limit. The test version spreads out the start / setup up request so the app takes a bit longer to initialise so it doesn’t overload the server.