Disabling outputs and Zwave devices

[Keith Belt]

There doesn’t seem to be a way to disable outputs like you can inputs — I wanted to escalate to a new thread, as another issue has come up.

I have ZWave switches to turn on security lights and engage the garage door opener.  The problem is sometimes I need to bypass the automation.  I don’t mean “manually operate”, but turn off the switch entirely.  The hardware ZWave switch has a little lever that prevents the switch from working entirely by disconnecting power to it.  I think its a safety feature, but I can use it to keep the security lights off when the neighbors have a backyard party, or I can disable the garage door opener entirely when out of town, without having to mess with altering rules.  Its a simple manual disconnect thats a lot less hassle than getting into the automation and dealing with what might be multiple triggers and rules.

The problem is when power is removed from the switch, it stops communciating and triggers a “missing Z-wave device” fault, starts beeping at the keypad etc.  There’s no way to get the system to ignore an intentionally “missing” device.  Sometimes Z-Wave devices fail (happens a lot where I live where its dusty and 120 degrees in the shade), and it’d be nice to be able to have a way to temporarily ignore them and not trigger errors and faults until they can be replaced.  Basically, we need a “disable” feature for outputs and ZWave lights.

What’s odd is I only get the “missing device” notification on the keypad and on my phone, but nothing about it when I log on via ElkConnect on the website.

I also can’t figure out how to acknowledge the “missing Z-Wave” alarm and stop the keypad from beeping all night.

 

[Michael Burrell]

Keith,

I agree, a way to disable an Output as well as other automation devices would be useful. I will discuss with Engineering and add it to our development list.

Thanks

Mike

[Author]

Posts