AVL300 as Secondary Z-Wave Controller

The AVL-300 cannot act as a secondary controller yet. It really should be the primary at this time.

he AVL300 can trigger scenes and they can be associated to any of the AV Activities. It cannot automatically trigger the original default scene when the activity is ended. The only way to end an activity is to choose an alternative activity and map another lighting scene to that other activitiy:
Example:
ACTIVITY: "Watch Movie" - SCENE:" MOVIE SCENE"
ACTIVITY: "Listen to CD" - SCENE" Entertainment"
ACTIVITY: "Easy Listening" - SCENE" Reading"

Selecting different AV Activities will trigger different scenes.

Alternatively, the scenes can be independently access through the Lighting button at the top of the AVL-300, thereby making the AVL-300 a dedicated whole home lighting/appliance controller.

In addition, The RF Range of the AVL-300 to the OmniLink for AV Control can also be extended through the Lighting network (need to use IlluminEssence Lighting modules for it to work).

I have also been trying to find a way to change the lighting scene when an activity is ended. After trying quite a few experiments, it seems to me that the AVL300 is not able to invoke a new lighting scene when the "System off" button is pressed (e.g. when you want to shut everything down and go to bed for example).

I have attached a ZWave power outlet to all my AV gear. I would like to be able to trigger it to switch off all the power to my AV equipment when "System off" is pressed. This would allow me to save on electricity bills since I could completely cut power to most of the components in my AV rack. At the moment the best the AVL-300 can do is to set all the components into "Standyby" mode, but the components still draw significant power in standby.

Elbert - Would it be possible for you to make an enhancement request to the developers at Monster/Logitech to allow mapping of Lighting Scenes to the END of an activity as well as the start of an activity?

Thanks too for any suggestions or workarounds that people can suggest.

Hi - I'm sorryb but Z Wave development has stopped as we've reached hardware limitations on the platform. That being said, there is a workaround as you can create a customized activity as "system off" and map a scene to it. Because it tracks state, it should be the same as hitting the "system off" button as well.

BTW - the AVL300 is going to start shipping with enhanced lighting software with PC control, automation, scene controller set up, schedules/timers and the ability for remote access.

Hi Elbert,

Thanks very much for the response.


Does that means that you have decided to develop future product with a non-ZWave technology (perhaps ZigBee?). I certainly hope you make a follow-up product - preferably compatible with the AVL-300 so I can have 2 controllers. It would also be great if you could get your engineers to make the lighting and the AV features better integrated so that activities entry and exit can be flexibly mapped to control any component (regardless of whether that component happens to be an AV device or a light). Perhaps the mistake was not to simply treat lights as components in the first place...


Yes - that is exactly what I have done in the end. But it's not an elegant solution and it certainly reduces the usability of the device by anyone other than myself since the intuitive button that people would think to press would be "System Off" but doing this leaves the lighting on.


What does this mean for all of the customers who have already purchased an AVL300? Can they download and use this new software, or are they out of luck?

Thanks,

Mark