Just a simple thing, but it would be amazing if we could switch the button that directly controls the built-in relay. I can replicate this by turning off local control and using my hub to issue the command instead, but then it requires the hub to be running, and adds a slight delay.
Welcome to the Zooz Community, @Zncon. 
So, you’re looking for a way to have one of the four little scene buttons control the relay output–rather than the main, large button called the “Switch Button” in the ZEN32 Manual & ZEN35 Manual, the the “Dimmer Button” in the ZEN35 Advanced Settings, and the “Relay Button” in the ZEN32 Advanced Settings page on the Zooz Support pages?
It doesn’t look like that’s possible, other than the solution you already considered.
Curious: what’s your specific use case? Perhaps someone here in the community may have ideas for you…
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Hello!
That’s exactly what I’d like to do, have one of the small buttons directly control the main lights that the Zen32/35 is wired to. My house was built in an era where overhead lighting was really popular, so that’s what the original switch controlled. I can’t stand that light myself so I use the scene controller to activate smart bulbs or smart switches for lamps around the room.
When someone new uses the lights, the big button is always the one they press by default so it make sense to use that for the main lights in the room, and disable local control so the ugly overhead lights stay off.
However… When building out my smart home I’m trying to make sure that basic things still operate if the hub is offline. So if I disable local control over that relay and the hub is offline, that room no longer has any lights at all.
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What you’re trying to do makes total sense from a usability and reliability standpoint, but there’s a limitation in how the device works that gets in the way a bit.
In order to “free up” the buttons so you can reassign what they do including having a small button control the wired load instead of the main paddle you do have to enable scene control and disable physical control using the smart bulb setting. That’s the only mode where the buttons stop being tied directly to the relay and can be reassigned however you want.
If you don’t enable scene control, the main button will always directly control the load, and the small buttons can’t take over that function. There isn’t a way to shift load control to a different button while keeping normal paddle behavior intact.
So it really comes down to a tradeoff:
If you keep normal operation without scene control
The large button will always control the overhead light, and everything continues to work even if the hub is offline
If you enable scene control and disable physical control
You gain full flexibility to map any button to anything, including the load, but you lose direct control at the switch if the hub is down
Unfortunately there isn’t a hybrid option where a small button directly controls the load locally while the main button is disabled. The device just doesn’t support remapping the relay to a different button outside of scene mode.
So your instinct is right, you’re basically choosing between flexibility and hub independent fallback here.
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Yeah, after I exhausted my research options I was thinking that would be the case. I was hopeful that a post here might be seen by Zooz Devs and they’d consider adding this option in a future firmware release, or a hardware revision if it can’t be done with programming alone.
An alternative approach I’ve used in a few rooms now for similar situations was to not wire anything to the load side of the ZEN32. Instead, I added a ZEN51, ZEN52 or ZEN57 to control the “ugly ceiling light”. Then, I used direct association to map one of the small buttons on the ZEN32 to the ZEN51/52/57 for on/off direct control.
Note that in some cases I hardwired the light hot all the time, and located the ZEN51, etc inside the light’s box itself at the ceiling to save room in the already crowded switch box. In my case these lights are mostly ceiling fan light kits, so I wired the pull string into the relay’s SW input, so manual emergency control and/or re-triggering inclusion mode can be done by the pull string. (which I cut short so people wouldn’t pull it. ymmv)
(In addition, in one room I have the big button on the ZEN32 directly associated to a plug-in dimmer module, and the 32 can actually control a remote dimmer, without the need for it being a ZEN35. It was a nice surprise.)
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