2-way switches

[James Sentman]

On Apr 13, 2005, at 11:02 PM, John Sievert wrote:
>
> Leviton 2 way – green line
> Switchlinc 2 way dimmer
>
> What I would like is to have a switch report in when it turns on or 
> off.
>

Don't go overboard with 2 way switches. There is some new technology 
coming out in the next 6 months to a year (they say sooner, but I'm not 
convined ;) that will be very nice for 2 way switches so blowing a huge 
amount of money on leviton switches at this point may not be the best 
idea. Course, they are a proven and known commodity where the new stuff 
is new and untested and unknown... So no decisions are easy ;)

Beyond that though, the more things you have transmitting on the 
powerline the more congested things become and the more problems you 
have with collisions and such. If you're dimming a lamp and someone 
hits the switch that dim gets stopped and no way for Xtension to know 
that the lamp isn't where you left it. If you're sending stacked 
commands or other long sequences then there is even more chance for 
things to bump into each other and get lost.

There are specific places where a 2 way switch is probably the best 
solution, but putting them everywhere I think would be a very expensive 
mess. If you already have a motion sensor in the room, then you need to 
think a lot about how you're going to use the signals from it vs the 
signals from the switch to control the lights. If the motion sensor 
turns the light on, then you don't need a 2 way switch. Even if the 
motion sensor doesn't turn on the light you may not need one. Depends 
on what you want to do with the data. I've gotten around many places 
where I thought I wanted a 2 way switch by just having the motion 
sensor create an event that sends an off for the lamp in that room say 
30 minutes later or whenever is appropriate. So if the light is turned 
on manually, I send it an off after motion stops, and if it wasn't 
turned on it certainly doesn't hurt to send it an off 30 minutes later 
anyway.

I'm a big fan of cheap switches, they don't do anything fancy, but 
probably 50% of the time you thought you needed something fancy, there 
is a way around it.

-James