Outdoor 4-way switch?

Discussions about Z-Way software and Z-Wave technology in general
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5boys
Posts: 1
Joined: 21 Jan 2019 01:07

Outdoor 4-way switch?

Post by 5boys »

We have 4-way outdoor switches controlling flood lights on our vacation rental property. I'd like to change one of the outdoor switches to be z-wave so that I control usage of the lights. My questions are:

1. does anyone know of a manufacturer of an outdoor 4-way z-wave switch?
2. would a z-wave work in this scenario? We currently only have them on 2-way switches. I want to verify that sending an on/off signal would toggle the z-wave switch rather than set it to a certain position...thus not working in a 4-way installation. Also would the switch know if the circuit was 'on' even if it was another switch which had been flipped in the 4-way. (I hope this makes sense)

Thanks!
Leif
Posts: 17
Joined: 19 Jan 2019 17:28

Re: Outdoor 4-way switch?

Post by Leif »

1) You don't actually need a 4-way Z-Way switch! It doesn't matter how many physical switches you have controlling it currently, because it still comes down to just two wires! One is always neutral, and the other one is either live or not. That wire is the one that currently goes to the actual light fixture, and that is the one that would instead go into the SWITCH input of the Z-Wave relay module.

I use a z-wave in-wall switch relay module (mine is a TZ04 bought through AliExpress) to control lights that are wired with 3-way switches. It is the exact same concept, more switches makes no difference.

2) Yes. The mode you're looking for is "Edge-Toggle" mode. It was not the default mode in the TZ04, but the manual told me how to configure it -- a single parameter change through the Z-Wave controller. Edge-Toggle mode means that whenever you flick a physical switch, the light changes state.
Note that if you flick the physical switch to ON, and then send OFF through Z-Wave, the light goes off -- and the next time you flick the physical switch to OFF, the light will go ON again, meaning the state is inverted. This is of course what you really want, because that's how N-way switches normally work! You will also of course know from Z-Wave whether the light is on or off.
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