How To Program 2 Zooz Switches In a Virtual 3-Way With Smart Bulbs

While we developed Zooz switches with an innovative solution to accommodate 3-way installations with simple mechanical switches, you can also use 2 smart switches to control the same light, especially if it's a smart bulb. Remember that the wiring instructions in the manual can only be used in traditional 3-way set-ups so do NOT use them connect 2 or more Zooz switches together. Please follow the wiring instructions here for a virtual 3-way set-up with smart bulbs (click here for instructions featuring regular bulbs).

We recommend using the ZEN71 on/off switches, ZEN72 dimmers, or ZEN32 Scene Controllers in virtual 3-way set-ups with smart bulbs. It's important to remember that smart bulbs can never be dimmed directly by any type of dimmer since this will damage your equipment. You need to put your smart switch in smart bulb mode immediately after you power it on anytime you connect it to smart bulbs. If your hub doesn't give you access to advanced settings, you enable smart bulb mode straight from the switch: hold the lower paddle for 10 seconds until the LED indicator starts blinking, then within 2 seconds, tap the upper paddle 5 times quickly to change this mode.

TIP 1: You will always need to program an automation for each switch or dimmer to trigger your bulb using wireless commands in your smart home system rather than linking the 2 switches together.

TIP 2: Instead of trying to achieve "live dimming" with smart bulbs which is usually challenging due to different wireless technologies involved, we recommend saving your favorite brightness and color settings as scenes or presets and using the buttons on a ZEN32 Scene Controller to program them so you can easily trigger them with a click.

Here are the most common use cases for this scenario:

More functionality. You can now have two scene controllers with 5 programmable buttons to easily access your favorite color and brightness presets for your smart lighting.
The same look and feel for all of your wall switches, making it easier for everyone at the house to use smart controls.
You purchased the ZEN73, ZEN74, ZEN76, or ZEN77 models which cannot be used in a 3-way set-up with simple on/off switches reliably since these switches will still cut power off to the bulbs even if the smart switch is in the smart bulb mode. But if you want to keep a toggle style switch and use it with smart bulbs, installing 2 ZEN73 switches in a virtual 3-way will work well.

Please click here for wiring instructions of your virtual 3-way set-up.

Once the switches are wired, you'll be able to control your lights from the primary switch or dimmer. This is the dimmer that has the load connection in. The remote switch/dimmer (the one that only has line, neutral, and ground in) will need to be included to your hub and programmed to control the main device via Z-Wave first.

You can program the virtual 3-way for smart bulbs in 3 different methods:

1. With direct association for Z-Wave bulbs only where each of the switches associates with the bulb and communicate outside of the hub. Your Z-Wave system needs to support this feature and both switches as well as all of the smart bulbs need to be added to your hub with the same level of security. We recommend that you use the ZEN72 or ZEN77 models with the latest firmware for this scenario and program them according to the instructions below for the best experience:

Zooz dimmer: set parameter 7 to value 11 - this is a new parameter that hasn't been added to selected platforms yet so you can accomplish the change by clicking the bottom paddle 4 times quickly after you add the dimmers to the hub (the LED indicator will flash 3 times to confirm the change - it will only do that the first time the change is activated so watch closely)
Set direct association for Group 3 only, adding the device ID's for the smart bulbs in the group. So you need to add your smart bulb ID (or smart bulb ID's if you're controlling multiple Z-Wave bulbs) to Group 3 on each Zooz dimmer.
IMPORTANT: The dimmers can then only be used from the paddles (you need to hide them in your interface not to trigger it via Z-Wave) while any Z-Wave or wireless control of the light needs to happen from the smart bulb device. This will ensure all devices stay in sync at all times.
- SmartThings users: Group 2 can be programmed in the Basic Set Assoc. Device Network ID setting, and Group 3 can be programmed in the Multilevel Set Assoc Device Net ID setting.

We've included Direct Association programming instructions for the most popular Z-Wave hubs below:

2. With central scene commands for any smart bulb that's controllable from your hub (Z-Wave, Zigbee, or wifi) where you use the multi-tap button functionality of the switches. They communicate through the hub which needs to support central scene commands, including "start level change" and "stop level change" commands for remote dimming. Here are detailed central scene programming instructions for the most popular hubs:

Z-Box Hub
Home Assistant
Hubitat
SmartThings (no support for remote dimming with this method)

3. With smart rules using the status reported by each switch where you need to create an If... Then... scenario to link the devices together. This is only recommended if your hub doesn't give you access to direct association or scene control features. The steps to create these automations will depend on the user interface of your hub so please refer to the manual of your system for details. Here is an example of the 6 rules you would need to create to sync the switches to your bulbs:

If switch A is turned on, then turn smart bulb(s) on.
If switch A is turned off, then turn smart bulb(s) off.
If switch B is turned on, then turn smart bulb(s) on.
If switch B is turned off, then turn smart bulb(s) off.
Is smart bulbs are on, then turn switches A and B on.
Is smart bulbs are off, then turn switches A and B off.

If you have any questions about programming your virtual 3-way installation with smart bulbs, please reach out to our customer service team and we'll be happy to assist you.