RF Lighting

[W8N4AFREAK]

Just picked up a MX-3000. I'm looking to put in a few RF light switches. Looking around it appears most come with remotes. I just want a switch I can place in the wall and operate via the remote or manual switch. I'm also looking to find a switch for my fan. So this one needs to be capable of handling a 3 wire connection. So I can control the fan speed and light power.

So why did I buy a 1K remote. Easy I install this crap for people with to much money. So a side effect is, I need it to learn how it works leaving me with lots of cool stuff.

Thanks.....

 

[Gimpy Ric]

Thats a bad boy remote. Too pricey for me, as I just bought a Harmony 1000.

 

[agarwalro]

Its a great remote. Its capabilities are limited only to how you choose to program it.

 

[BMXTRIX]

The RF frequency for almost all RF devices is proprietary to those devices. ie: The MX-3000 is designed to talk to the RF base station for the MX-3000 (MRF200).

Not only is it not designed to talk to other RF devices, it is actually incapable of talking to other RF devices directly.

Solution?

Liteon products, which I believe are available at www.smarthome.com offer RF switches that then have RF to IR converters. You can program the MX-3000 (or any IR remote) to hit the converter which will then send the proper lighting command to your switch.

 

[MDS]

RF remotes can't learn or transmit RF codes so even if you had a light switch or ceiling fan with an RF remote you would not be able to control it using the MX-3000 or any other remote.

However, there are light/fan/dimmer switches that use IR remotes and those IR commands can be programmed into any of the MX remotes. Both Home Depot and Lowes sell the Lutron Maestro remote controlled dimmers/switches.

To be able to control the lights you'd need line of sight for the IR command unless you could get one of the emitters from the RF basestation attached somewhere near the light switch.

 

[W8N4AFREAK]

Thanks for the posts.

This stinks on ice. Universal needs to make some switches.

 

[W8N4AFREAK]

Ok, So I just called Universal and they say any RF switch will work. That the codes are on the website. Well as soon as I get my pass code from the distributer I'll be off to the place I hate, Home Depot. I trust your advice but what the F, I'll give it a whirl.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Thanks for the posts.

This stinks on ice. Universal needs to make some switches.

As I posted above - do a bit of research on the stuff, it isn't overly expensive and I've seen it in action working pretty well. I have a strong feeling that in my next home I am going this route.

I personally ran IR to all my light switches in my home that I wanted control of when the house was built. About a dozen loads in my home have IR control that is fed directly. Pretty nifty, but not at all what you are after.

Don't hold your breath on MX branded switches anytime soon. UL listing products is very $$$ and a huge venture into a specialty market that is already owned by companies like Lutron.

 

[Warpdrv]

Yeah even Pronto has got Lutron Radio RA on board, but its quite and expensive adventure... Im still learning my Pronto TSU9600. Its an expensive remote, but holy cow.. this thing is simply amazing with all the things you can do.

I got mine at cost, so it was worth it for me... aside from all the hours I have in programming the thing...

Warp

 

[MDS]

I think the response from Universal Remote may have been misinterpreted. There are ZERO remotes that can learn and transist RF remote codes. The remote sends the equivalent IR code (remote codes are just numbers) over RF to the basestation and the basestation retransmits it as IR - either via the front blaster or over its hard-wired emitters.

Sure many remotes have codes built-in for lights/dimmers/X-10 control but they are IR. If the original remote actually uses RF, it will NOT work with any of the universal remotes.

If your light/dimmer/X-10 device uses IR codes then the remote can learn it (or it may already be part of the built-in database) and it will work using the RF basestation but only because it sends the numeric value of the code using RF. It cannot learn or transmit RF codes directly.