I just got my first piece of Z-wave home automation; an Aeon Labs USB stick and a Düwi blinds controller.
Getting things working was a breeze: press the button on the usb stick, press first the top button on the Düwi three times and then the bottom three times, insert the USB stick in my DCERouter, and everything is configured automatically.
Only one thing bothers me a bit: the blinds controller was recognized as a dimmer. No big deal; it still works, the On command corresponds to pressing the Up button on the module and the Off command corresponds to pressing the Down button.
Similarly setting a dimming level higher than the current level corresponds to the Up button and a lower dimming level corresponds to the Down button.
The Up and Down buttons on the module raise and lower the blinds respectively for 2 minutes, or until the end stop of the blinds has been reached, or until the button for the opposite direction is pressed.
So I can control it, it just looks a bit weird to setting a dimming level in my Orbiter, since that dimming level does not correspond to the level of the blinds at all.
Also, I cannot send it an Open or Close command, I have to send it On or Off and the effect of those commands depends on whether the blinds are already moving when the command is received. So to be sure to open or close it I have to send it the same command twice.
So, no big deal, but I was wondering what is going on.
Maybe the Düwi blinds module cannot be distinguished from a Düwi dimmer?
The wiki suggest that both the dimmer and blinds module are the same (
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/D%C3%BCwi_ZW_ESJ_05436)
But the Düwi website has two distinct product numbers for the dimmer (05433) and blinds (05436) module.
Then again, the capabilities field in the webadmin shows "114,134,130,135,117,112,133,39,37,38" for my blinds module, and I found that 38 and 39 means that it is a binary & multi-level switch so I can see why LinuxMCE handles it as a dimmer.
Also, does LinuxMCE even have a device template for a blinds controller? So far I wasn't able to find it.
Or is there some way to fake it such that I can make "Open" and "Close" commands appear in the Orbiter? I guess I could make a scenario to do that, but then I wouldn't be able to put it on the floorplan.
Anyways, I don't think its a big deal. I'm just curious