Z-Wave Associations with With Vera UI

I couldn't find any to the point documentation on how to do this, so I am writing this.

The way I understand Z-Wave associations work is that once devices are in the same Z-Wave network, a device can directly send a command to another device without intervention of the Hub or controller.

For this to really work the master device sending commands must support this functionality. This varies from device to device, so you must look up the documentation of the master device and find the supported associations groups. In a nutshell, you look-up what each association group is for, and then you add to that group the slave devices that will receive the Z-wave commands from the master.

So for example, a TKB-Home TZ55D Wall mounted dimmer/switch with two buttons has the following association groups:

• Group 1: Control device using the left button.
• Group 2: Control device using the right button.
• Group 3: Control device using the right button after a double tap.
• Group 4: Control device so that it follows the switch state.

So this dimmer/switch has two buttons, the left button is used for local control. The right button can be used to control devices associated to groups 2 and 3.

In the Vera UI7 this is done as follows:

1. Go to the Devices list.
2. Locate the master device in the list and click it settings button.
3. Click Device Options.
4. Under Associations, enter the Group ID from the documentation as explained above, and click Add group. You may need to click Back and enter Device Options again for the group to be visible.
5. Once the desired Group ID is available, click on the Set button.
6. Click the Z-Wave devices checkbox to add them to the group. Leave the entry field next to the device is to enter sub-device ids. This is used for multichannel devices. For example, an RGBW controller may have multiple channels to control the different color LEDs. Check the slave device documentation for the valid sub-channel IDs to use.