How is everyone controlling light scenes?

I have my GC3 system pretty much up in running and would like to start adding lighting control. The first thing I’d like to do is control 4 living room lamps with plug-in lamp modules. I’d like to have something attractive mounted on the wall that is intuitive to use for triggering different light scenes (i.e. all lamps off, all lamps on, 2 lights on at 50% brightness, etc).

Eventually I’d like to do something similar to control 4 or 5 dimmers in the kitchen, some of which are part of 3-way circuits. Actually I don’t even care about keeping the dimmers if I can replace them with one or more scene controllers.

I’m a bit confused about what works best with the GC3 and alarm.com, and what the relationship is between a primary controller, secondary controller, and scene controller.

What are other people doing to control their lights?

I’m looking at the GE 45631 Z-Wave Wireless Keypad Controller (http://a.co/bI93WwX) but my understanding is that it would have to be a secondary controller and that the GC3 cannot work with another secondary controller. Would it work if I had another primary controller like a Vera, and then made both the GE and the GC3 secondary controllers? If so, then my understanding is that I would have to configure all my Z-wave devices in the primary controller and then copy them into the secondary controller(s). What would then happen if I add a new Z-wave device? Would I have to add the device to the primary and recopy everything to the secondaries again, or could I just copy over the new device? It sounds like devices like the T2000 thermostat have to be reconfigured after they are copied into the GC3 and I’d hate to have to do that every time I add a new device.

Lastly, has anyone looked at the Wink Relay (http://a.co/bX7r4iE) and how it and/or the Wink hub work with GC3/ADC?

Thanks,
Alan

I’m a bit confused about what works best with the GC3 and alarm.com, and what the relationship is between a primary controller, secondary controller, and scene controller.

Keep in mind that virtual scenes can be created through Alarm.com on the Alarm.com website and then run from your app or even with home-screen smartphone widgets.

I’m looking at the GE 45631 Z-Wave Wireless Keypad Controller (http://a.co/bI93WwX) but my understanding is that it would have to be a secondary controller and that the GC3 cannot work with another secondary controller. Would it work if I had another primary controller like a Vera, and then made both the GE and the GC3 secondary controllers? If so, then my understanding is that I would have to configure all my Z-wave devices in the primary controller and then copy them into the secondary controller(s).

This is correct, what you are describing, as far as our experience goes with that product.

What would then happen if I add a new Z-wave device? Would I have to add the device to the primary and recopy everything to the secondaries again, or could I just copy over the new device? It sounds like devices like the T2000 thermostat have to be reconfigured after they are copied into the GC3 and I’d hate to have to do that every time I add a new device.

This is difficult to say without testing the exact version of both controllers and firmware versions. In a perfect situation, the secondary static controller should be shared the new device inclusion. For some panels and controllers we’ve seen this be successful. Often however a manual update is needed as the panel does not receive the new device.

It can be cumbersome. I’ll see if I can find any details on wink and GC3 interacting this way and test the Vera on the newest firmware.

Lastly, has anyone looked at the Wink Relay (http://a.co/bX7r4iE) and how it and/or the Wink hub work with GC3/ADC?

Some threads related to using the Wink with GC3 can be found here and here.