Learning Wireless

[Steve Laidler]

I am playing with 5854R4F2AA wireless 4 gang wall switches having visited a client to replace a broken unit.

I find that to put the wireless switch onto the existing network, I use the new switches learn mode, but also need to place a nearby existing switch into learn mode. The new switch then learns the local wireless network configuration from the existing switch. Difficulties arise if toolkit has been used previously to disable learn mode features in the adjacent switch you wish to learn from, which is OK is you have the appropriate toolkit and can access that nearby switch and temporarily enable its learn mode features.

If you don't have the relevant sites toolkit database, or if you're switch has been programmed before and you don't know what toolkit did it, what do you do then?

Can you use a wireless gateway setup on the test bench in some mode whereby it scans for any present devices, regardless of whether they share the same network configuration?

Or, can you cause a wireless switch to reset to factory configuration, if you don't have a toolkit connection and the learn mode features have been disabled?

Also, if you want to pre-program a unit and ship it to a site, can you do that without physically having another unit that was 'learned' on the sites wireless network? Can I do this by setting my test bench wireless gateway to the same address as the sites existing gateway and uploading the sites toolkit unit programming configuration, and then using this to configure the new switch?

Regards

Steve Laidler
Ecosystems NZ

[ashleigh]

There is a little known solution...

Turn off the mains at the breaker, and turn it back on again. Allow it to be off for about 30 seconds.

The wireless unit that you want to transmit the house code will then allow you to enter learn (and transmit the house code) even though learn might have been disabled using toolkit.

You only have 5 minutes though - after that, Learn stays disabled.

This is your get-out-of-jail-free card :-)

[Steve Laidler]

Tried that, it works, great help!