The Many Names of Nortek
GoControl is not an “off brand” in the Zwave world.
Instead, they are one of several brands made by one of the largest Zwave device manufacturers, Nortek.
Nortek also makes two gig, linear, and some of the Nutone devices.
The different Nortek brands are aimed at different market niches. Linear is mostly aimed at professional installers. Gocontrol is the DIY brand. Two gig is a little bit higher end then Linear. Often these are exactly the same device just rebranded.
In the Zwave World, GE is a Basics Brand
The “GE” switches are actually manufactured by jasco, but they licensed the GE name because it goes over well with consumers. These are some of the cheapest switches you can buy and they have one of the highest failure rates and shortest warranty periods. They also have fewer zwave features than many of the other brands. They’re strictly a basics brand. But still very popular, because they’re so cheap.
Even if say, 20% of them fail after the warranty Expires, and you have to replace them, you probably still Pay less for your total project than you would with a better engineered brand. Many people also like the fact that you can run out to the big box stores and buy a replacement switch. (Which is a good thing, because you may have to do exactly that after two or three years.)
So which brand you get is always a personal decision based on your budget and whether you need any of the advanced features.
The GE switches use an older design which requires physical traveler wires between three way switches, for example. Most of the medium cost and higher cost Zwave switches use wireless 3 ways only, which gives you a few more options with regard to switch placement.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with going with all GE switches, just understand that you’re choosing a bargain brand, usually on a cost basis.
The High End Brands
In terms of engineering quality from highest to lowest, the big Z Wave brands are probably Cooper, Leviton Vizia, Leviton D Series, linear (all brands), evolve, Dragontech, GE, Enerwave. Only the Cooper and Leviton offer instant status update, for example. check the length of warranty on each, it will tell you a lot.
Cooper may be listed as either a “Cooper”, “cooper aspire” or “Aspire.” They’re all the same models.
But people choose switches for all different kinds of reasons. Some people prefer blue LEDs to green LEDs and that’s enough to make a preference.
Different People Have Different Preferences
There are several forum topics were people share opinions about different zwave switch brands. But again, different people like different ones.
Personally, because I’m quadriparetic and can’t do a lot of tinkering, I prefer to put more money into the switch upfront and get something which is better engineered, will last longer, and is less likely to require that I run around to the switchbox and throw the breaker in order to get it to reconnect to the network (a known problem with GE switches). But that’s just my requirements. 10 years ago before the wheelchair thing I probably would’ve been very happy with the GE switches, you can save a lot of money with those.
Finding Deals
By the way, we have a deals thread in the forum where people list good deals, and switches are frequently there. Right now as it happens Iris, which is the Lowe’s house brand, is switching from one generation to another and consequently they are marking down a lot of devices in the old boxes. That includes a bunch of GE switches, and people have been able to get them locally for as little as 10 or $15. So you might take a look at the Deals thread just to see how that works.
Does the Switch Need a Neutral?
It’s also very important to understand what kind of bulbs work with which switches. Switches which do not require a neutral, which include some models of GE and some models of Cooper, will typically only work really well with incandescents and some dimmable LEDs. They may have problems with other dimmable LEDs and CFL’s. But then the other switches do require a neutral. So you need to know which models you’re ordering and whether they fit both your wiring and the bulbs you intend to use.
.
And for the never ending argument: