don't you hate it when you shell out extra money
to get a worse experience well honestly that's how i've felt about
these and bright and smart motion dimmers because ge in their infinite
wisdom ships them out of the box with all of the motion sensors not only
active but instantly active so you can run into
situations see that where you go to turn off the light walk away from it and as
you're moving away the bloody thing turns back on because and this is a
feature not a bug they have a 180
degree motion sensing radius thankfully because these are z-wave
devices we have the solution we should
by the end of this video be able to reconfigure these smart switches to
disable the fade on and off functionality that i personally find kind of annoying set up remote control
including voice control create groupings
so that multiple zones can be turned on and off at the same time with a single
command and decouple the motion sensing
from the light switch functionality so that it could potentially be used for
other automations and not for the lights in areas where that
would be pretty annoying like the bedroom you know you roll over to get more
comfortable light goes on it's not great i've had to
paper over every bedroom light switch just like i'm papering over this segway
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our story begins today in the server room where these motion sensing light
switches have actually been amazing there are parts of the house where i'm
not going to want to disable that functionality like bathrooms hallways and utility spaces
like this one and the garage but we definitely need to fine-tune the
behavior a little bit because the way it is now where it only stays on for a
couple of minutes and then the second it turns off it's active again means that i
will oftentimes try to turn off the light and in walking away from it have
the bloody thing turn back on it's a motion sensor you don't have to shut it
off fortunately Jake has the solution and it is a
raspberry pi where did it go i have no idea i've been trying to find it where
did you put it you moved it i didn't move it it was just chilling here he is
such a liar yeah but it was something it was still like here no you moved it you
used a different oh i know it's in the
land center hopefully ah there it is i should know that
because i put it there now the role of a raspberry pi in this situation is just a
stand-in to run home assistant which is like the piece of software that's going
to tell hey light switch do that thing other light switch do that thing air
conditioner do that yeah light switches work together the intention long term is
for that to go on your nas as like a docker container or something uh
sort of it runs as a vm because it runs its own docker containers that's like
the plugins and hosts it's pretty cool mind blown but for now it's on a
raspberry pi i can't connect to it though for some reason
did you unplug anything in there not that i know hey look we're in
business nice we actually have one device already adopted and it's that one oh that's why
that one doesn't dim on and off did you change it no that's just because this light fixture doesn't dim oh
but we can go in here here look at this
there's like no delay that's actually pretty awesome there's a vacancy mode so
i guess you can turn on the light when somebody leaves that doesn't make sense
you would want it on when nobody's there no motion there's
clearly a lot for us to learn about these i'm glad we bought a hundred of
them
let's go vacancy mode okay
okay let's walk out here we go and then so what
theoretically in five seconds it'll turn on
something like that nope okay well definitely more research
required into what that value does what else we got here
enable and disable whether motion sensor only turns on if the room is dark
oh see i was in the bathroom yeah and i was
thinking Jake remember how i was like hey we should make it so that it's tied
into a light sensor outside or the time of day and hold on hold on and if i
press the switch it actually opens up a smart blind instead of turning on the
light but this is a way simpler way to do that
yeah so basically you would just have like in the bathrooms probably if it's
the middle of the day and the blinds are open and it's like searingly bright you
don't need to turn the light on oh that's great yeah you can oh invert switch so if you in
case they installed them upside down it's too late no no no no no no no no no no it's for three-way switches
well there's a three-way right here
yeah i got the other side of this where's the main is this the main theme
wait what yes it is well there's there's
three light switches within one two three four five steps
for the same lights why don't we adopt this switch
okay or why don't we do the theater room first because that's the one that's been
bothering me the most because the lights just turn on in the middle of a movie
i've had to tape over those ones i'm pretty sure when i start the inclusion
all you have to do is click the light switch okay which one are you gonna do
i'm gonna do the overhead one not the sconces okay so i'll set the location to
theater room oh theater room overhead oh this will be overhead yeah there you go
seriously i can't believe how fast that is z-wave is great and especially once
we have like 100 150 devices yeah it will work really well now what we're
probably gonna have to do is once they're all adopted we're gonna have to go and say heal the network which
basically tells every single device to find the best routes to other devices
and with that many devices it might take like a day to do shut up i don't know i
haven't tried it i know at my house with like five or ten devices it takes like
10 minutes so oh wow okay it could take a while let's see if it scales linearly
or exponentially but you only have to do that once with the motion sensitivity
low could i make my way back to my seat
no okay then vacancy light turns on manually and off
automatically without motion oh
okay hold on if we turn off one of these yeah
maybe the reset level like figured itself out now
nope frick that's kind of a problem you only spent
ten thousand dollars on these light switches okay uh tell me the name of the switch
Dan let's go rec room okay rec room get wrecked
okay uh can you hit the rec room switch please whatever one you hit oh crap that
one uh what did you press stairs yeah so location what's the location for a stair
basement yeah but there's two stairs to the basement
i guess there's basement stairs and upstairs oh right there's two stairs
on the basement basement the switch is also up there oh
wait but that's what this wait why did we put the motion sensor oh i guess that
kind of makes sense switch is in the basement well no there's supposed to be a motion on both sides no there isn't
well it's not a thing why not because it's not a thing what do you mean it's
not it's not a thing that's not how they keep saying it's not a thing but what do you mean that's not how they work why
can't you have a motion on both sides i don't know maybe you could no what are
you talking about because there's two motions on the uh the one on the in the
hallway over there is there i'm pretty sure i could be wrong
oh that's a normal one oh okay i wait no
that's the one for these ones yeah no i'm i'm wrong it's just the one
here wait yeah this one's the main one i know what
we can do we move the motion sensing one to the top of the stairs
and then we use the motion sensor from one of these other spaces where we don't
want motion control right to control these lights from the bottom of the
stairs right
uh yeah theoretically that would be awesome
okay well sure we can do that but for now for now i need to name this switch
which is so what is it location rec room stairs
because these are the stairs into the rec room
oh god i know these are things that i can
change anytime i want but come on you guys get this right once you set it
you're never going to touch it again so there's this pressure to get it right
if i if it's location rec room that's where it is
and the name is front stairs i think that's what if you move that switch up
there well then i'll move it man this
whole turn back on immediately thing is kind of a problem i've seen online that
apparently there is firmware updates for these but they release them through like
public hubs like if you had a samsung like smart things kind of hub
you can get the updates through that but it doesn't seem like there's a download site so maybe we can contact them oh
that's so much better the dim though yeah the speed yeah it's much better
i do wish you could just shut it off but yeah you can enable plain switch
functionality actually we need to do that let's go do it my son wanted RGB
lighting in his room which i was like yeah sure no problem let's just grab
these yeelight v2s that we had kicking around at the office anyway and we'll
set you up with these cool right app control you can change
the colors there's there's your sunrise one small problem
why are you gonna be like that i had a step stool i was ready to go
where's the other one uh well it's in there oh yeah because i
wanted to get something working for him temporarily anyway the point is
he had no work oh does that bulb work in there though
at all oh yeah it's pretty typical for you to have to
choose you want smart bulbs or you want smart switches now i wanted the motion
sensors everywhere because who knows what kind of
cool things we might want to do with motion down the line but that doesn't
necessarily mean that i want every single switch to operate as a smart
switch so if we set it to dumb switch mode
yeah i think it's gonna work it's off
no dice how do you know
time for our classic do as i say not as i do moment wow if it's hooked up
that's very silly of you theoretically yes
all of that looks quite hooked up what are you doing
i am fixing it oh do you know why it's the electrician
said that there's a couple of light switches that are not working
and he thinks it's because the apprentice screwed it up i guess i
should probably hit the breaker for this electricians usually don't
i am not an electrician ah
oh my gosh what what hello giver
full sentence only no i don't want to break it sounds only bud
oh that sucks i think i need to take the other one out
too can i steal your that sucks no you cannot steal my cat should i bring arlo
here i really like my cat you're more than welcome to bring her actually
uh yeah so this is
not right don't do that oh
what the actual bananas
so it is hooked up right
i wonder if it just got kind of mangled when they pushed it in and it just like
broke the copper yeah whoa that was not actually an easy place to
catch something smart guy maybe it doesn't dim anymore
well that's what it should be that's what we want right
yeah the dimmer is not working confirmed
cool but it still tries to do the it still fades on and off
uh ge you gotta have a way to disable that
there's lots of bulbs that don't behave nicely even with
led and cfl compatible dimmers
so then hold on other than flickering a little bit when
it first turns on is that a problem well that might cause it to reset every time
you oh it flickers quite a bit that's true
if you turn this on and off i believe it's five times it goes into like a
reset state so let me let's just see let's just see
because oh actually no Jake it's not going to do it the yeelight wants two
seconds in between each change of state for the reset
so maybe it's fine oh hey oh oh oh oh okay
is it dimmed right now they turned it up
oh yes there now we have a regular bulb that
can tell us what the crap the fixture is doing so it's supposed to be on
okay here we go
it's not turning off the switch is clearly not working
wait it turned off
okay the switch is working again okay there's something very wrong with this
light switch what is even
happening right now i disabled the motion sensor so why don't we see if
it's disabled uh sure feel free let's give it a try expose light switch
okay that is so stupid gee i wonder why
not everyone is super into smart home stuff
okay manually mode manually mode or sorry manual mode i'm
looking at the modes occupancy mode turn on motion detected
turn off manual mode manual from the front panel
of the in wall smart dimmer remotely with the uv controller huh did
we manage to disable the motion sensor on any of them we'll go check that other
one the closet because that one's okay i'll go check okay
no it's no it's still the motion sensor is still turning it on
so what happens if they all suck and that this never works
oh
okay maybe we should just for
why don't we try and shut the breaker off and turn it back on maybe it needs a
hard reset i don't know why but maybe sure okay hold on here's oh we
can't disable the motion
okay if we can't disable the motion sensor this is really gonna be a problem
we should see if we can turn off the
motion in the one in the mechanical room are you still down there
yep okay i'm gonna turn off the motion in the mechanical room one sure
the motion is off
really yeah curiously although that is a
different model of switch the firmware on that one is 5.39 and the firmware on
all of these motion dimmers is 5.32
so i'm kind of feeling like there was a bug
and they updated it and i just don't know how we're gonna get the firmware
for these ones maybe we have to buy a like a samsung smartthings hub
and just hook them all up to that so they'll update this is
terrifying there's a home assistant thread here about ge jasco switches
where people are just like yeah yeah it's really bad there's basically no way
to update the firmware so if anyone in the audience works for
ge or jasco please help us yeah you guys actually
suck not releasing firmware updates because
especially you especially if you make the firmware
and then won't give it to people yeah like actually you this this thread
just makes me so angry it's just people complaining
about the same kind of basic stuff that we want to do like no i just want it to
just immediately switch on or immediately switch off stuff that like a
good software engineer could do in an afternoon also why are we buying inventory with
ancient firmware on it especially for our product where you can't
update it okay so garth on live chat says he's gonna see if he can find something for
us unbelievable it'll be a lot cheaper for them to just
put up a support page with firmware downloads that would be way cheaper the
stupidest thing is that home assistant even has an interface
for pushing where is it you can shoot firmware
updates to things yeah there
you just have to select a file and update it
yeah because these guys say his firmware is 5.54 we're on like 5.32 i know oh no
there's way newer firmwares should we buy
where can we get one of those like smart things no no that's a bad solution
because then if there's a future update what am i going to do i'm going to
unpair it to the freaking home but you just don't necessarily need it all 100
of them right then i put them all back on the samsung and reconfigure them no
no no no no no no no you provide
firmware updates that's it
i will fly there Jake will you i will fly i guess it's a video oh yeah it's
not like they're going to come outside garth is going to help us out i feel it
garth is typing oh garth please garth
come through for us garth help us all there is not really a manual mode
on the switches it should just go ahead and turn the lights on and off
yes there is garth might be an actual npc
okay do they have a phone line we'll let garth try to help us in the meantime
if spanish is what it will take to get a firmware update out of these guys
we can talk to serge he sort of knows spanish man i can feel my blood pressure
rising like stuff stuff like this man it just
makes me so angry here's an idea for the ones we don't want to have
motion we could paint the motion sensor
that's the stupidest thing you've ever heard but it doesn't involve
yeah but the other functionality doesn't update i know no we actually just need
them to work i know i know since we're on the subject of things that make me
angry if you've got hold music fine have hold music
never have a pre-recorded voice come back and say
hi are you okay to still be holding right now or whatever the it's
saying because i'm like oh what what no it's
that again
just have music so that i know when to come back to it this is the soundtrack
of my personal hell
after four of my yes i'm here garth has said he's still here he's just waiting
for a reply because he has no idea clearly because it's so stupid
how has nobody ever how is this not just like something they deal with every
other day yeah that i don't really understand ltgstore.com
buy a few water bottles so he can pay for this disaster
it's a lot of water bottles please all right and how can i assist you today
i have some ge and brighton switches
and basically they're running a mishmash of different firmwares
and there's no obvious way to update the firmware
okay so the firmware on the devices is
updated through your hub
there isn't any out way of updating the firmware other than
with the hub right so i'm using a uh a home assistant
server to run it so i need the firmware file so that i can upload it to the
switch okay so unfortunately we don't give out that information it's all done
through the hub right so that's my hub and that's the
way that my hub requires it to be done this it's my device like i bought it i
need the firmware file for it we don't have those available
okay so then what your hub support your hub support
would do that okay so hold on so do do
you guys are this is jasco right
that is correct okay so you guys make the switch for ge
that is correct including the firmware that is correct cool okay so that
firmware i need it again unfortunately no it's not fortune
you no no i don't want you to use the word unfortunately because it's not
fortune this is not chance this is
you guys deciding not to provide a customer for your
product with a firmware update when the
functionality of it is fundamentally broken right now i can't even disable
the motion sensors on these things so what i need is
to unfortunately you guys send me the firmware files
so am i able to get the firmware from aotech because they're the ones who make
the z-wave stick that i'm using
yes that is who you would get a hold of
why because they are the ones that the uh
evidently if you've got an aotec stick
then they are the ones that would have the support to be able to update or uh
change your firmware but you guys make the switch
that is correct and you guys write the firmware that is correct but we do not give it
out that is a proprietary information that
is only handed out through the hub well that's the stupidest thing i've
ever heard in my life thank you very much you're very welcome
jasco you
so i emailed aotech it's possible they might be able to save the day garth
could still come through for us garth's not gonna come through clearly their policy is to withhold
critical updates from their customers
no it's not unbelievable where's the okay he said
try pushing the configuration button with the on and off button at the same
time where is the configuration what the hell
is he talking about i mean if this puts it in manual mode this will at least solve the problem for now oh my god that
is not the solution though well i agree i'm just saying if it works right now
yeah i found it Jake it's right here yeah that's why i was clicking but it's
not working they want you to take every wall plate
off to do this i seriously don't remember the last time
okay there we go enraged it blinked three times
holy it worked i know i know it's awful
you don't need to do it on all of them but for now at least
i can go around and take the plates off
every switch in the house that i want running in manual mode i'm not saying
it's a good thing i'm just trying to help you for now until aotech will come save the day
faster to put tape over top this video was supposed to be
hey g and brighton switches by jasco
cool product we'd love to use it and show how cool it is it turned into you
can go yourself like honestly i just want to rip every single one of
them out of the wall regardless as someone who bought this product and
went and installed it in my home my recourse is someone in some other
time zone when jasco has the firmware but it's just like we won't get
it no no no no no no we won't give it to you
no oh my god
oh my god what you know what garth just told me i asked him where can we find
the rest of these config options like holding the switch he found them on youtube
this is literally their customer service
this is just a basic product overview
why were we expecting garth to save the day exactly firmware is updated through
the hub so you may contact them to see if it's updated oh my god no firmware is
updated through you having a firmware download page
to what end jasco to what end
what what are you trying to accomplish
they don't want their proprietary z-wave
firmware stolen you know it's very high-tech by who definitely not an open
standard my question is if aeo tech is supposed to have the firmware updates
then shouldn't they just propagate well because i don't think the stick is is
meant to push firmware updates or you just mean aotech makes a hub so they
might be able to provide it um the stick is the diy approach right yeah it just
allows you to integrate z-wave with whatever thing in this instance we're
integrating with home assistant right they also make a hub so i'm thinking
maybe if jasco just gives them the firmware to distribute it maybe they
just have it and they can just give it to us to update with its e-stick well if
jasco won't send out the firmware to the public then i'm sure whatever agreement
they have with aotech doesn't allow them to send it out to the public i also said
as an alternative option they could send us a hub to see but that is i know i
would rather take them out i'd rather take them out put them in a box and fly
to jasco's hq and throw them in their face honestly
i think all we can really do is say to be continued ladies and gentlemen
at the end of that day i was understandably very frustrated i just
spent ten thousand dollars on product alone switches that we could not
reliably put in manual mode adjust the motion cooldown of or disable the fade
in and fade out on adding insult to injury they outright refused to provide
any firmware updates that at the time we believed could have solved my problems
which is an enormous no-no in my books
i shared the experiences that both myself and others in the smart home
community had gone through on the WAN Show and to our surprise
jasco actually reached out pretty much immediately so we pushed for them to
provide firmware update files not just for us but also to the rest of the
community after a few emails back and forth we ended up on the phone with some
of the higher-ups at jasco and the product manager we were speaking with
insisted that version 5.50
is the only firmware they've ever released for the motion dimmer which was
very confusing to me because as you might recall our switches reported
version 5.32 they eventually figured out that when
the motion dimmer was submitted for certification to the z-wave alliance
they had accidentally entered the firmware version in decimal form when
the form asked for hexadecimal this means the 32 of 5.32 got converted from
hex to decimal as 50.
that means my switches were indeed on the latest firmware which meant there
had to be something else going on or the
original firmware was just buggy now within a z-wave network when you
adopt or include a device it's given a unique id number starting from one and
what we found was that when adopting more of the switches
certain switches would adopt the same device id as another existing switch
and in turn z-wave js the application that runs within home assistant to
manage the network would crash and after a reboot only the originally adopted
switch would show in the list so in the video we were trying to edit
the configuration of a switch in my son's bedroom as it turns out that
switch had the same id as one downstairs
in the rec room hallway as you might have guessed these
configuration changes were actually applying to the downstairs switch
instead even though we hadn't yet adopted it
into the network we don't know exactly why this was happening but apparently
weird issues like this were common in the earlier days of z-wave and since
these switches are based on a several-year-old design i think they
said six it could explain why they're particularly prone to it after we
realized this we were able to exclude both of those switches then re-adopt
them one by one and we were finally able to disable the motion sensors with that
said we still can't disable the fade in and out or tweak the motion cooldown so
maybe new firmware is actually needed or
maybe i'll still need to switch to a different solution
first we need to talk about the elephant in the room firmware updates
for a product like this especially in an industry that's changing so rapidly
being able to update your firmware is a huge deal and no
go through your hub's proprietary update system that your hub might not even have
because it's actually a stick and not a hub is not an appropriate answer for a
product that is designed to be used in an open ecosystem so in my call with
jasco they said they would provide me with the firmware files and figure out a
solution for sharing them publicly and i'm happy to report that as of just two
weeks from sharing my issues jasco has already followed through the files for
12 of their most popular products are now available on github and on their
support site with the rest to follow shortly so we did it read it and also thank you
jasco for taking my admittedly not very level-headed
criticism and turning it into a w as for what's
going to happen with my house that's still up in the air if we can't
fix the above-mentioned remaining issues with the jasco switches i might still
have to pull them out and go with a different solution innovelli has pitched
working with us to develop their own motion switch and we've also looked into
hardwiring motion sensors actually multi-sensors into each area where we
need motion which would give us a lot of really cool options for automations let
us know in the comments if you have a preferred solution that you'd like to see any brilliant ideas
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off your first purchase if you guys enjoyed this video maybe you'll enjoy let's say the home theater
episode that was a really fun one a little more positive a little more yeah
a little more positive massive shout out valencia those seats
are amazing not enough love for the seats made it into the edit they're
amazing