Use cases of the "Release Event" on a smart switch

Question

I have a Nodon Z-Wave remote (user guide). It has 4 buttons which can react to 4 events :

• Single press
• Double press
• Long press
• Release

The three first are pretty straightforward. But the "release" part is very particular : it will always fire after any press action!

On Domoticz, the only way to register this release action is to push the button, then activate the button detection feature, or else it will detect the press action before and say it is already registered.

Apart from automatic blinds/shades I don't know how I can use this feature since it is always linked to a press action, especially a long press because we need to maintain the button and release it.

Have you ever found any uses for release scenarios or is it only specific for this model (i.e. other devices don't send the "press" event)?

Answer 1

The release event is more likely intended to be used as a pair with the press event, allowing you to indicate a duration. My dimmable lightwave-rf lamp control overloads up/down buttons as both on/off, and increase/decrease brightness.

A short press is identified as a switch action, a long press starts a increment/decrement process which is ended by the release action.

I have not monitored the transmission to confirm if it is the lamp or the remote control which performs the increment/decrement, but implementing this logic at the lamp reduces the number of codes which need to be transmitted (and is more generic).

Presumably, the codes for these 4 actions can be computed knowing the code for any one, in the form nnnnaa (aa encoding the 4 actions for one of 16 buttons).