How To Program 3 Zooz Switches In a Virtual 4-Way With Smart Bulbs

We designed Zooz switches so that you could connect them to regular mechanical on/off switches in 4-way installations to save time and money. But in certain scenarios, you may want to use multiple smart switches in a 4-way. NEVER connect 3 Zooz switches together according to the diagrams in the user manual which covers the traditional installation, instead, use these wiring instructions. In this article, we cover a virtual 4-way using 3 Zooz switches with smart bulbs (click here for instructions featuring regular bulbs).

The recommended models for virtual 4-way installations are the ZEN71 on/off switch, ZEN72 dimmer, or ZEN32 Scene Controller. You can use different Zooz models in the same installation, it will not affect the wiring or the programming of the switches as long as they're fully supported by your hub.

You need to put your primary smart switch (physically connected to the load) 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 smart bulb using wireless commands in your smart home system rather than linking the 3 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:

Dimming from all locations in a 4-way, just like in the case of a virtual 3-way.
Uniform look and feel on all of your switches, just like with the virtual 3-way.
Multi-tap triggers aka scene control available from all locations.
You have load and line in separate locations and you purchased the ZEN71 or ZEN72, or ZEN32 models instead of the ZEN76 or ZEN77 models. Since these models cannot accommodate this type of a 4-way scenario, one approach is to create a virtual 4-way instead, especially when you would like to incorporate the ZEN32 Scene Controller, a unique device without an equivalent to work in larger multi-way set-ups with regular on/off switches.

Please click here for wiring instructions of your virtual 4-way set-up.

Once the switches are wired, they will need to be included to your hub, put in smart bulb mode, and programmed to control the smart bulbs through wireless communication first.

You can program the virtual 4-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 8 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.
If switch C is turned on, then turn smart bulb(s) on.
If switch C is turned off, then turn smart bulb(s) off.
Is smart bulbs are on, then turn switches A, B, and C on.
Is smart bulbs are off, then turn switches A, B, and C off.

If you run into any issues when programming your virtual 4-way installation with smart bulbs, please contact us and we'll be happy to help.