I have something kind of different in my master. Since I did a HW Wireless retrofit I had multi-gang boxes everywhere. There is a 4-gang at the entrance to the Master, so it goes Maestro, KP, Maestro, Maestro. I know it probably sounds odd to not put the KP first, but that first Maestro is programmed to the main scene which includes its load of recessed lights, and the bathroom light. But when it is on, toggling it turns off every light in the Master. It may sound odd, but it works great. The KP then has a few scenes and a button for the Recessed Lights that the first Maestro is connected to. Wife also has her Panic button which is just security mode global scene.

My Home/Away scenes are on the 4+2 keypads in the +2 area. When they first came in my wife looked at them and said they made a mistake. But they hadn't. We use the KP in the Mud room to set the Away scene, so it is above the Home scene. But we use the KP in the garage to set the Home scene, so it is above the Away scene. This is because you would have to reach around to hit the garage keypad leaving, but the mud room KP is right there. Probably confusing if you were to look at it, but now we always know to hit the top button (of the +2) coming or going.

But in reality, we rarely have to use the Maestros except in the bedrooms and kitchen. I have been tweaking the programming for 9 years now and most of the lights are on timed events based on Home or Away or one of the Entertain modes.

I also have a KP in the MBR closet that sets conditions. There I have a button called In-laws. If this button is activated, some of the buttons on the keypads in the basement go into dumb mode so they don't sit around in full light because they turned everything on. And the KP in the dining room changes so both buttons (Dining and On/Off) set the dining scene because my MIL kept passing over the Dining Scene and hit the On/Off button which activated around 800 W of light which is way too much to sit and eat. (These are the In-laws that after having been to my house multiple times and using my URC MX-980 and knowing it is a universal and sits in a charging cradle, got me a remote caddy for Christmas one year, so that is why the keypads go into dumb mode.)

wow! im surprised most kps are mostly toggles? i rarely use toggles for loads or rooms? thats to easy. i like scenes for 5 out 7 buttons then maybe toggles for that room and adjacent...

i feel like we control a house from one button why not do it?

The toggles are because it's one button instead of 2 otherwise we would do an ON and an OFF for the room.

Shades are probably the biggest thorn in our side...especially rooms with doors to the exterior because then we have to break out window shades and sun shades. So for a bedroom you end up with.

Bedroom
WIC (Walk in closet)
Win Sun (sun shade)
Win BO (black out)
Door Sun (sun shade)
Door BO (black out)

In a typical bedroom we have minimum 3 keypads. Usually 4. One at the entrance, 1 at the door to the exterior and 1 (or 2) on either side of the bed. This makes life a little easier because you can have "entrance" commands on one keypad like...

Bedroom
Hall
WIC
Pendant
Windows (Shades)
Door (shades)

Then by the exterior door you can break out the shades like...

Bedroom
Patio (or deck)
Win Sun (sun shade)
Win BO (black out)
Door Sun (sun shade)
Door BO (black out)

Then by the bed you can break out individual load control...

Bedroom
Reading (lamps)
Pendant
Sconce
Windows (Shades)
Door (shades)

Out GUI also has a floor plan view with lightbulb icons and house scenes for global control.

Similar topic - I recently took over a Homeworks job where the previous programmer (a very well known local integrator) created a global scene for every single button press on 60+ keypads in a 8,000 sf house.

I have never seen this before - even when there are multiple loads involved, I program the button presses locally unless the "scene" is going to be used on multiple buttons such as "Away", "All On", "Goodnight", etc.

Other than being counter-intuitive to me to review and make changes to the program, it seems to work fine. Is this a common practice? Am I missing something?

It's called trying to justify your existence to the boss and the inflated programming charges to the client. "Yes we are expensive, but you can control pool-party lighting/audio/firepit/waterfeature scenes from every keypad...yes, even the ones that are no where near or related to the pool; yes even from the mother-in-law suite above the garage".

IMO keypad buttons are for quick on the fly mission critical control. I walk into a room...I want the damn light on in that room. I walk out of a room...I want a pathway created. I'm leaving the house...I want all off, if sensors report no occupancy. Fancy, hey look how I can do 100's of scenes and full access to every load is for touchpanels and web navigators. To me, there is no reason to have any more than a 6 button with up/down at any entry/exit/bedside. I want to walk in and not have to stare and think about which of 18-24 buttons I should press in order to go to bed or pick out my clothes.

For those that program the top button of the keypad for room on/off based on a scene (toggle scene): Doesn't this confuse the customer or the system?
For example: I want to leave from the room and I have another scene active - or any load -, pressing the room on/off I would expect it to switch off all lights in the room - since there are lights on - but it will actually trigger on/activate the scene.

P.S. Not sure if my question is clear enough.

I set top button as room on, but not as a toggle, a single action.
This sets the room or area to the day to day setting the homeowner likes.
If you want to get a bit fancier, you also set this based on a day or night setting.
Only other thing added would be a double tap to bring lights up to 100%
Bottom button also a single action, room or area off.
Clients that have a hard time with the idea of scenes, and end up wanting buttons for fixtures instead, even they seem to grasp the room on and off buttons.
The whole idea of a lighting control system is to make things easier, and with home run type of systems it also gets rid of wall clutter too.

Your question is clear. Users learn to press the botton again instinctively.

Because at the end of the day most customers just want to turn the lights on for the room they are in. Our typical system has 100 keypads in it. A couple dozen are near entrances and those have some global scenes but the rest pretty much just cover the rooms they are in.

I did a project awhile ago where each room had 5-6 loads. I did a dual gang, 2 KP setup for each. One keypad was room loads with raise/lower split at bottom, next was 3 button

room on (set to a unique "scene" that is essentially the daily used levels)
learnable scene, ambient, by default
room off

The top button can always be double tapped for BRIGHT, bringing all levels to 100%.

at a Main hall wneteance in the lower living space consisting of the kitchen, living room, dining room and nook, each containing 6 loads except the nook, there is a 3 button keypad.

AREA ON (turns kitchen, living, dining. And nook all on to their "room on" scene)
Nook (hall and nook light)
AREA OFF (turns all those rooms off)

out of 8 keypads among these areas, the only use that one keypad and those two buttons, that's it.

Someone ne recently explained to me that lighting designers don't think of each load in a room individuall, but more as part of the "room's light". For example a long strip of low voltage lighting may have lights shining in various areas through the room, but you never think of each light on its on once they are set, you think about how the room looks and feels with those lights all on.

so a lighting designer still imagines a single lights witch that would turn the room on and have it appear the way the want, but using preset levels and types of lighting throughout the space.

So so try not to think about the loads in the room as sow thing to interact with daily, think about them when creating the rooms 2 or maybe 3 scenes.
ROOM ON
LOW or Ambient
ROOM OFF

or throw in Task, if it's a space they occasionally need brighter lights,

i personally dont don't like having 5 or 6 buttons for someone to look at and have to memorize or read. 3 or even two buttons is simple and can be operated daily like a light switch.

pathways are useful also and can often be handled just by Bringing up all hallways to a low level.

More ore and more for me, if customers are wanting load control, it goes on that odd KP by the stove that rarely gets used or maybe just inside the pantry, no need to make the daily use interface complicated. The room is on, or off :)

i would also also note the shades throw a wrench in some this, and I've often considered always giving shades their own keypad. And retrofit throws all this out the window as you will likely be adding to the total number of user interfaces, however I think still have a KP with room on, room off, can quickly make the mess of existing switches never get touched.

Mac,

I am thinking to try this but I wish there was a way to do it to work "correctly" always. I know it can be done by programming e.g "if any loads are on switch them off"/"if all loads are off, activate scene" but honestly who wants to program logic for every button? I will check on C4/Crestron there might be a setting that this can be achieved easily (e.g button to also follow loads and act accordingly).

Is the reason you do it like that to avoid another button for the room off? I guess the answer is yes and I understand it since our biggest problem always is that we have very few buttons to do what we want - especially when we have blinds which again is almost always.

In many rooms we could have an On and an Off button but in others there just isn't enough space. And i am in agreement with you about logic on lutron buttons. I have only had to do this for 1 project where the client had a misting system that required extra thought. Luckily someone at the Lutron forum was able to help me. I cant imagine a valid reason for doing this for 100 keypad locations.

Mac,

I just checked if this can be done with C4 and it seems it is possible, as below. I am guessing this should also be possible in D3Pro.

Steps:

1) Create a Scene "Room On" with load levels as desired
2) Create a Scene "Room Off" with all loads at 0%
3) Enable the "Room On" scene to be a "toggle scene" and use the "Room Off" scene as the toggle
4) Choose "track all loads" for "Room Off" Scene
5) Choose "Tracking" and "Scene at Final Level" for every load in the "Room Off" Scene

The important steps:

6) Choose "track any load" for "Room On" Scene
7) Choose "Tracking" and "Is On" for every load in the "Room On" Scene


I think the above will work and the Room On/Off button will always work correctly: if all the loads are off it will activate the "Room On" scene, if any off the loads is on it will activate the "Room Off" Scene. Basically the important step is to set the following: if any load is on in the room, it means the "Room On" scene is activated.

I will try this home later and report back. I will also try to check if possible in D3Pro.

I think this is very useful and can be standardized for all projects.

Depends on the logic used. I used an Advanced Toggle and Room Logic in your situation.

For example, the top button of my basement keypad (a 4+2) turns on most of the basement lights except in the bedroom down there (double tap adds the bedroom & mechanical just in case my wife needs to go down there at night and I'm not home). But if she just pressed the top button once, but turned on the mechanical room light, when she got back to the top of the stairs, another press of the top button would turn off all the lights including the mechanical room.

Now when I have overnight company I have a button in my master closet labeled Inlaws (could have called it guests, but I didn't) that changes how that top button works. Since they are too stupid to learn to press the Evening button, they press the top button which turned on all the lights and they would sit in a bright room watching TV. So with the Inlaws button activated, the top button mimics the Evening button on first press and no longer turns off the bedroom load on a second press.

Great responses. We do a LOT of Lutron systems and have NEVER had a lighting designer give us their wishes. So our M.O. is to do what we think they want, then a few weeks later go back and get their desired changes. it would be so much easier if they gave us all the scenes they wanted from the get go.