Grouping an Aeon Labs Multisensor with a Z-Wave power plug in Domoticz
The Z-Wave technology allows for building a home automation network of sensors and switches. These sensors and switches, also called nodes, can communicate with each other through a central Z-Wave controller (i.e. a hub) or directly with each other. In this post we will show how to group an Aeon Labs motion sensor (actually a multisensor) with a Z-Wave power plug. By grouping these two nodes they can communicate independently of the central Z-Wave controller. That means I can turn off or remove the central Z-Wave controller and the communications between the Multisensor and the Z-Wave power plug still works. The setup we will go through here will be able to turn on a lamp when someone triggers the motion sensor.
What equipment do we use to group the Aeon Labs Multisensor with a Z-Wave power plug?
- Raspberry with Razberry Z-Wave add-on card running Domoticz (see this post for installation instructions)
- Aeon Labs Multisensor 6 (check this post for instructions how to add it in Domoticz)
- Z-Wave power plug (check this post for adding it in Domoticz)
Grouping the Multisensor and the Z-Wave power plug
In Domoticz, go to the ”Nodes” list for your Raspberry controller. You do this by selecting ”Hardware” in the ”Setup” menu in the upper right corner of Domoticz.
Then click on the blue ”Setup” button. Now you should see the ”Nodes” list. Go on by selecting ”Groups & Network” from the ”Node management” drop down menu.
In the table of nodes and groups, you can see which nodes are associated to which groups. Each node can add other nodes to its groups to make the added nodes listen to certain events without the need for going through the central Z-Wave controller (in our case our Raspberry unit). What we want to do is to turn on the lamp connected to our Z-Wave power plug when someone triggers the Aeon Labs motion sensor.
In our case, node number 6 is the Aeon Labs Multisensor 6 and node number 5 is the Z-Wave power plug. Node number 1 is the controller (i.e. our Raspberry). To make our Z-Wave power plug turn on and thus turn on our lamp, we need to add it to Group 1 of the Aeon Multisensor. So, we go to the row for node number 6 and click on the blue ”+” button next to the number ”1”.
In the pop-up box, we enter ”5” since this is the number of our Z-Wave power plug who should get the information that the motion sensor is triggered. Click ”Save”.
You might have to close the ”Groups & Network” view and open it again for the group information to be updated. Now, node number 5 should be visible in group 1 of the Multisensor (i.e. node 6). At the dashboard off Domoticz, we ensure our Z-Wave power plug is turned off and that the motion sensor is not triggered already.
We test if our group association between the Aeon Labs Multisensor and the Z-Wave power plug works by triggering the motion sensor (i.e. waving our hand in front of the sensor). And…
…yes it works! Success! If you wait until the motion sensor times out (default it’s 4 minutes), the lamp should go off since the Z-Wave power plug listens to the ”off” signal from the motion sensor. This only works if no motion is detected during these 4 minutes. You can also verify that the association between the motion sensor and the Z-Wave power plug works without the central controller, by simply turning off the Raspberry.
In future posts we will go through how to do more advanced controlling of sensors and switches by programming states, events and timers.
