A Z-Wave Blog

The ACT ZRW230 is the European equivalent of the ZRW103.  It is a Z-Wave wireless home automation light switch with a single paddle.

It looks like this when installed:

From behind:

Before going any further please note that I AM NOT AN ELECTRICIAN.  I strongly suggest that you use a qualified electrician to install these switches for you, and in any event make sure you obey local regulations.

Before you buy a load of ZRW230s, check your light switches to make sure you have three wires: the live wire, the load (which connects to the live when the switch is ‘on’) and a neutral.  If you don’t have a neutral then you won’t be able to use the ZRW230 unless you get a neutral wire installed.

All is not lost however, since you may be able to use an ACT ZRW232 dimmer instead.  The ACT ZRW232 dimmer does not require a neutral, so you may be able to use that.  Note however that it is a dimmer, meaning that it might not be suitable for all lights (fluorescent lights for example).

When I opened up my light switch this is what I saw:

As you can see, there is no neutral.  I got the additional neutral wire installed and wired up:

The Live wire goes into the "L", the Neutral goes into either of the "N"s, and the Load goes into "1".

"2" and "3" are not used for this installation.  You’ll destroy your switch if you put the Live wire into "3".

Once installed I used my controller to add it to the existing Z-Wave network:

If you have more than one switch controlling the same light

If you have more than one switch controlling the same light, then you replace one light switch with a single ZRW230 to control the light, and where you have other switches you should use a ZTW230.  The ZTW230 is purely a transmitter (it has no load).  You can configure it using the controller to send a message to the ZRW230 when it is switched on, and the ZRW230 will then switch on the light.  I’ve found that the ZRW230 can also be set up to act purely as a transmitter, with no load attached.

Conclusion

Once I got a Neutral wire installed I found the ZRW230 easy to install and configure.  It is extremely configurable.  For example I found it handy to make the switch send a signal to a second switch so that when it is pressed, two lights go on.

The ACT ZIR010 is the European version of the US ZIR000.  It is an infra-red motion sensor device that supports the Z-Wave protocol.

The box

Inside the box

Inside the box there are four batteries, some wall mounts, an instruction sheet, and the ZIR010/ZIR000 itself.

Inside the ZIR010/ZIR000

To physically configure the ZIR010/ZIR000 you need to take the lid off of the device, using a single screw at the base:

Batteries

The really cool thing from my perspective is that theZIR010/ZIR000 is battery powered, which means you can plonk it anywhere in your house, without needing a power supply nearby.  The down-side to it being battery powered is that the ZIR010/ZIR000 will not relay Z-Wave messages to other devices.  When it detects movement it wakes up, sends a message, and goes back to sleep again.

It comes with the four AA batteries that are required to power it.  It is supposed to work for "up to" two years.  I’m always wary when I see "up to" … I’ll report back here when the ones I’ve installed expire.

Once the lid is off you’ll see where to install the batteries.  It isn’t immediately obvious, but you need to insert batteries on both sides of the battery holder.

Jumpers

Inside there are a couple of sets of jumpers on the circuit board.

The first set (to the right of the brown switch) define how sensitive the ZIR010/ZIR000 is.  You should double-check this when you receive the device to make sure that it is as high as you wish.

The second set (below the brown switch) turn the LED on and off: when it is off the device does not light up when movement is detected.

Positioning the ZIR010/ZIR000

Before you configure the device to be part of your Z-Wave network you should position it in its permanent position.  This is because when it is added to the network it works out its location relative to other devices.

I used some double-sided adhesive fixing tape rather than using the screws.

Configuring the ZIR010/ZIR000

Assuming you have a hand-held Z-Wave controller then you just need to go through the standard procedure to add a device to your network.  You’ll need to press the brown button on the ZIR010/ZIR000 when prompted:

My controller (the ACT ZTH200) simply reported that the ZIR010/ZIR000 was added to the network, and that it couldn’t do much else with it. 

Modes

One thing I could do was configure what mode the ZIR010/ZIR000 should run in.  It can run in Lighting Mode, in Alarm Mode, or in Sensor Mode. 

Since I wanted to have the device tell my PC when it detected movement, I selected Sensor Mode.  I did this using my hand-held controller by sending the value 2 to parameter 17.  Send 0 for Lighting Mode, and 1 for Alarm Mode.

Groups

If you’ve played around with a hand-held controller, then you might be familiar with grouping Z-Wave devices into groups in order to control them simultaneously.

The ZIR010/ZIR000 has a different concept of groups.  When it needs to send a message (such as motion detected) it needs to know to which Z-Wave devices it needs to send the message.   It does this using a group (list of devices) stored inside itself.

There are actually three different groups in the ZIR010/ZIR000.

The first group (group 1) is the set of devices to which the ZIR010/ZIR000 sends a message when it detects motion (when in Sensor Mode).

The second group is the set of devices to which the ZIR010/ZIR000 sends a message when the top is taken off (yes, it has a tamper-detection mechanism).

The final group of devices (group 3) is the set of devices to which the ZIR010/ZIR000 sends period updates about the level of the batteries.

In order to configure it, you need to "wake it up", since it spends most of its life asleep to preserve battery life.  To wake it up, press the brown button on the circuit board.

Pressing this button wakes the device up for fifteen or so seconds, giving you time to configure it.

To add my PC into the ZIR010’s Group 1 (motion detection), I used the excellent xPL ZWave Configuration tool (note it requires a ControlThink SDK license which I have).

In use

I used the ControlThink SDK to create a program to display simple messages whenever movement was detected.

If there has been movement, and then for two minutes there is no movement then the ZIR010 sends a message to say that there is no movement (after two minutes).

In other words in order to save battery life it only reports no movement after two minutes of no movement have elapsed.  If it then detects movement it sends a single message that movement has been detected (it doesn’t continually send ‘movement detected’ messages).

This saves battery, but it was initially confusing my tests.  I was getting no messages displayed in my computer program , until I waited two minutes (and kept very still).

I also wanted to add my PC to both the "motion detected" group in the ZIR010, and the "battery life" group.  This worked fine, however when my computer program received these messages there was no way to discern whether the message that I’d received was a "motion detected" or a "battery life" message - not very handy.

Verdict

This is an excellent device that I found very easy to configure, install and use.  I especially liked the fact that it runs on batteries, since running new wires through my old Swiss house that is largely made of concrete is not a simple proposition.

The only downside was the issue of differentiating "motion detected", "tamper" and "battery life" messages when a PC is added to all three of these groups.

I’ll report back on battery life.