Entering the Z-Wave Zone One Step at a Time (Continued)

WAYNE-DALTON Wireless Gateway

The next step in the process is to get my Key Chain Remote to announce my arrival to the house to turn some lights on. Programming the secondary buttons on the Remote was child's play. One needs only to remove the Gateway from the wall outlet, push and hold a "Scene Button" until the LED goes out, then hold the Remote transmitter down until the Gateway's LED flashes three times. Done? Not yet. This is where the real journey begins.

4.25 Ease of Installation Documentation Ease of use Value

The final step is to install the lighting modules in my house. It was at this point my true initiation into the Z-Wave world was to take place. It's best to locate the Gateway in a place that reflects your regular pattern of behavior. Do you approach the house from the far side of the garage or the near side? Do you need to turn lights on upstairs? What about the yard lights? What happens in winter? This will let you see the vast possibilities of home automation. Fortunately, the Wireless Gateway offers enough room to get started and expand without having to worry about having purchased too small a capacity.

The gateway offers up to three "Scenes." A Scene (or more accurately, a Scenario) can be as simple as turning on a light or as complex as activating every Z-Wave module in the house. To get started, I placed two lighting modules on lamps in the living room. I will be leaving Scene 1 open for a future project. Scene 2 will be defined as turning both lamps on dimmed mode and Scene 3 will be both lamps on full. Programming the Scenes was even easier than explaining it, but here goes.

	1.	Plug the lighting module in the wall.
	2.	Plug the lamp into the module.
	3.	Set the lamp to the desired lighting level.
	4.	Bring the Gateway over to the module.
	5.	Press the Scene button on the Gateway you want the module to associate with (until the LED went out).
	6.	Immediately press the program button on the lighting module.
	7.	Wait for the confirmation flashes on the Gateway.

It honestly takes twice as long to say it than do it, although the first time I managed to get the sequence wrong. The instruction manual is extremely literal. Trying to anticipate what to do next without reading through the document never worked. On the other hand, once I learned the proper sequence my training was over since every module I add will be exactly the same.

Placement of the Gateway was obvious in my case because the garage is the first part of the house I come to regardless of direction. Therefore, the device was placed in the mudroom - a common space found in a typical New England home that all but replaces the front door.

Figure 5. Gateway placement

An additional consideration is that the average mudroom is also the door where people enter after walking in from the street. We frequently walk home in the dark, so it's a real benefit to be able to turn on lights throughout the house from the first door we enter. In this way, the Wayne-Dalton Wireless Gateway becomes a second light switch. We even placed a nightlight above the Gateway to help zero in on the buttons should we want to go there first.

An interesting bonus is the fact that the Gateway is HomeLink® compatible, which means the remote transmitter buttons in our non-Z-wave compatible cars have a potential use after all. The only drawback is that the Gateway only permits one remote control at a time. So, for the time being, I will continue using the Key Chain Remote to open my garage door, Button #1 will still talk to the Car2U converter, and my wife will have her HomeLink® remote be the one that turns on the lights.

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Scott A. Lowe is the ZWaveWorld reviews editor.
You can reach him at scott@zwaveworld.com.