Z-wave association basic question

Hello,

I probably get something wrong but I never figure out how to make Z-Wave associations. The way I understand this, I can associate, let’s say a zwave wall switch to another zwave wall switch in a way that when I turn On the first one, the second one will follow, same goes when I turn it off. I understand that when such associations are perform, the signal doesn’t need to flow trough Indigo, it can be direct from one switch to another.

I can’t figure how to make this work. Is it with the switches themselves? Or with the Indigo Manage Association Menu? I tried many things with that Indigo menu, nothings is working. I have maybe 30 zwave devices in my house, I tried different configurations while “managing” associations, nothing is close of even producing an observable effect!

The documentation for devices or on the Indigo web site is very short like as it was obvious. As I said, I probably got it wrong from the start. Any suggestions where I should start to make this work?

ZWave association documentation from Indigo Wiki:
“Indigo supports defining Z-Wave Associations (which are similar to INSTEON links) between devices that support that functionality. Note that battery operated devices which are asleep will need to be woken up (per their instructions manual) for associations to be edited”... and nothing more.

Thanks!

Thank you Ianbrown,

As for the alternative, what I need is not really to link two switches together, I know I can use Indigo to do that. But thanks for the suggestion!

What really interest me is to understand how to make associations work.

Your screenshots were very useful. I realize that when I was doing the association, I was always doing it trough Group 1, and the associated devices I was managing were "sharing" the association with the "Node 001 Z-Wave Interface" (example: Node 4 was associated with Node 5 and Node 1 through group 1). This time I used other switches supporting Group 2 and it worked flawlessly. So I guess it was simple after all!

But not completely obvious though. Why isn't working on Group 1? Why the Z-Wave Interface is associated by default to every nodes? Is it to make sure that the Z-Wave Interface, and consequently Indigo, is aware of all the activity on the Z-Wave network?

Thanks for your help !

The way I understand it, inclusion and association are two very different things. A device can be INCLUDED in a network via a primary controller without having that very device ASSOCIATED with the controller. I may be wrong...