[NEEDS UPDATING] Bulbs, switches and sensors, oh my....what to buy (device class features FAQ)

That switch above should be able to do just that. You will need a physical way of dimming your kitchen lights in order to control them. Whether that is a zwave dimmer that replaces your current kitchen light switch or replacing the bulbs with smart bulbs.

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You could put smart bulbs in the kitchen, two bulbs are pretty budget friendly, even the hues…

You could then either cap off the offensive light switch our just ignore it.

Then use a remote button controller, like a Minimote to turn the bulbs of and on via a smart app.

Such as… (on a Minimote)
Button 1 - lights on at 25%
Button 2 - lights on at 50%
Button 3 - lights on at 75%
Button 4 , lights on at 100%

Also, you could go from 25 to 100 by pressing the appropriate button.

And a second press on each button would turn the lights off.

And you also have the use of the long press on each button.

This remote could be mounted on the wall, and you can use multiple remotes, one by each door.

This would give you a huge amount of flexibility, and could probably be done for less than $100.00, if you get the hues and one remote.

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The Cooper 9500 is one of the most popular choices, as it looks just like a regular switch.

There are lots of other options:

Or you can also use a $20 wifi no contract phone and use SmartTiles (.a very popular 3rd party customizable dashboard for SmartThings that runs in any web browser)

www.smarttiles.click

By the way, the distinction you were trying to draw is between a “load controlling” switch, which controls the amount of current sent to the light, and one that works just as a “remote” or “wireless controller.” The wireless controller may be wired into mains power on a different circuit, or be battery operated.

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I’m not the OP, but I gleaned a lot from this thread. I’ve read through it several times now, trying to store it all away. Based on this and some other research, I have purchased:

With these – and the Schlage smart lock I picked up in the clearance/returns section of Home Depot today – I’m looking forward to expanding my smart setup and (hopefully) writing some code soon!

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I’ve learned quite a lot as well.

I ended up ordering 3 more OSRAM Lightify Tunable White 60W bulbs, the SmartThings pocket socket, the Aeon Labs Z-Wave minimote, the SmartThings motion sensor and the SmartThings multi sensor…mainly for the temp sensor. I’m going to play around with the minimote to see if I can use that for the kitchen lights instead of the normal light switch. It will also be nice to be able to set up some rules like when I go to sleep to shut off everything…same for when I leave the house.

I’ve been really happy with the OSRAM bulbs and don’t really have a need for color right now. The only time I can see wanting color would be for notifications or something.

This thread hadn’t really gotten into wall switches, that’s a whole different topic.

You should never use a dimmer switch (smart or not) to control the current load to a dimmable smart bulb. You can burn out the switch. A dimmer switch controlling current to a compatible dimmable dumb bulb is fine.

You can use a regular binary on/off switch on the circuit with the smart bulb. Or a dimmer switch on a different circuit (or battery-operated) to control the bulb remotely.

See the following topic. It was started for Hue bulbs, but most of it applies to any smart bulb.

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There’s a light switch FAQ on dimmers that are not on the same circuit, it should give you some ideas:

You’re right, I just misspoke. Thanks for the correction, I fixed mine. :sunglasses:

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I use the GE Z-Wave Smart Dimmer (in-wall) and I find they work fabulously. Pushing the top part of the switch turns on the light, the bottom turns off the light. Holding the top brightens, holding the bottom dims. The switch returns to the last dim state when you turn it on.

My wife didn’t like how hard you needed to push the switch to get it to operate. It takes more than the normal amount of pushing to activate the switch than a normal wall switch. I don’t find it a problem. Installation is easy if you have a common (typically white) wire in the box, it requires rewiring if you don’t. I have an old house, so in places I had to pull a white wire from the junction box to the switch box and I have a 3-way installation for which I didn’t install the GE dimmers because a) I don’t want to take the time to figure out how to install the system as 3-way and b) there isn’t enough room in the box for the wires needed to install it.

Because of my wife’s concerns, I installed a Leviton Decora Z-wave Controls universal dimmer at another location. That unit has a single switch (on-off-on, etc) and a rocker switch that controls dimming. The rocker seems somewhat fragile, but I haven’t had it long enough to see if it will last. The switch requires less pressure to operate than the GE. Wiring was the same, although the Leviton has pigtails while the GE has terminals.

Both of these are Z-wave devices, so they act as Z-wave repeaters. I have decided in rooms that do not have Z-wave switches to put a Z-wave GE switched outlet, mostly to act as a repeater. I have absolutely no problem with connecting Z-wave devices in my house!

I’ve installed about 25 of the GE in wall switches. I have 25 more to go. So far, I love them. I’ve had no problems with them, at all.

I like that I can turn the led on/off/never

I highly recommend them.

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There are so many different issues on zwave switches that people may not be aware of. Things like association groups, physical traveler wires, instant status, LED options, Minimum dim levels, ramp rate, A couple of network issues… And then there’s the whole issue of multi end point switches.

And zwave plus switches (any brand) will have a significantly longer-range then older zwave switches of any brand. Usual rule of thumb inside a typical U.S. House would be a maximum of 40 feet for the older zwave and around 60 feet for zwave plus.

Also, if the switch will be the mains-powered device closest to a Z wave door lock, it’s good if it supports “beaming” to help the lock gets its messages. Otherwise you may have to add an additional device like a pocket socket near the lock.

The “Good enough” easy answer

The shortest answer is that the GE switches are fine if you get a good price on them and you want a budget switch. There are some known quality issues with those, in particular, and an unusually high number of them seem to go bad about six months after they come out of warranty. But that’s still worth it to many people because even if they have to replace say 15% of the switches they originally bought, they probably still saved a bunch of money relative to the better engineered switches.

What works when the network doesn’t

The issue of physical traveler wires is more complicated. It limits the number of set ups you can do, but it also means that the auxiliary switches will still work even if The home automation controller fails. That’s important to a lot of people especially for lights in basement and attics where switch failing might be physically hazardous. The GE switches use physical traveler wires for three ways, which means even if the network controller is unavailable, the auxiliaries still work just like a non-network switch would.

Some of the expensive switches that use virtual three ways will also still work even if the controller fails, because they use a type of association. It’s the mid price switches where there is no physical traveler wire, but there’s also no direct association, where if the SmartThings cloud goes down the auxiliary might not work.

Dim Levels: How Low Can You Go?

Dim levels matter when you’re using a smart switch to control a dumb LED bulb and you want to be able to dim lower than about 30%. A lot of people are fine only Dimming a light between about 40% and 90%. And pretty much any dimmer switch can do that if it’s paired with the right bulb. But many of the available dimmer switches just can’t get LEDs below about 25%. (This includes the GEs) That has to do with the physics of how LEDs work.

There are newer switches, particularly some Levitons, some Coopers (and Lutron, but the Lutron are not compatible with SmartThings) which use a different design and can dim dimmable LEDs much lower. These are much more expensive switches. But some people will care about this feature a lot. The GE’s just can’t Dim any LED as low.

On the other hand, the smart bulbs can dim themselves very well, so you can actually get better dimming from a smart bulb and a dumb switch then you can from most smart switches and dumb LED bulbs.

Ramp Rate and Transitions

Ramp rate is another one of those features that most people don’t care about at all, but some people care about a lot. And again, a smart Bulb can generally offer a lot more ramp rate options than a dumb bulb, even a dumb bulb with a smart switch.

Doubletap

Double tap is a feature where if you tap a rocker switch quickly twice in a row it will cause something different to happen then if you just tap it once. People often use this for zone lighting, where a single tap will turn on just one light but a double tap will turn on all the lights in the room. But in most cases you should be able to assign pretty much any smartthings action to the different taps.

Many people don’t use double tap because it’s obviously not intuitive. Visitors won’t have any idea what to do. And it can even confuse people who live there! But other people love the feature.

Theoretically, you should be able to set up software that would process it double tap for almost any switch, and indeed there used to be a smart app they did just this. The problem, as mentioned higher up in this thread, is getting the timing exactly right is tricky in a cloud-based system.

An alternative method depends on the switch hardware. A few switches, although not many, can themselves recognize different tap patterns and just send a different numeric code to the hub based on the pattern detected. These generally work very well. Cloud lag doesn’t affect the operation at all.

As of May 2017, the only ST-compatible load controlling switches I know that can do this are the new Homeseer line and the newest Z wave plus models from GE. But I expect more switches may support this in the future.

So if you really want to have double tap as a feature, I would look for switches that support that in the hardware itself.

Switch shape

If you want a traditional “toggle” switch, the only brands that I’m aware of are the GE and the new Zooz. However, it still won’t look quite like a regular toggle because instead of staying up for on and down for off, it always returns to the center position so it’s sticking straight out. This will be very noticeable if you put it next to a non-networked toggle.

Homeseer switches use a traditional “rocker” format, as do many brands including the GE rockers . These also return to the neutral position each time, but it’s less obvious.

Leviton’s zwave classic models had an unusual format that some people like and some people hate where only the bottom part of the rocker is used. So you always press down.

However, Leviton upgraded to their new “Decora Smart” line in 2017 with Z wave plus, which changed to the more conventional rocker where you press at the top for on and at the bottom for off, and a dimmer bar on the side.

http://www.leviton.com/sites/Satellite?c=Page&childpagename=LEV%2FPage%2FProductCategorySearch-OneColumn&cid=1469203767671&countrycode=US&d=Touch&packedargs=childpagename&pagename=LEV%2FDefaultWrapper

Back to the easy choice

So you can see why there’s a lot of different stuff to consider, if you want to consider everything. If you just want to get a decent switch at a value price and you’re OK with replacing about 10% of them in the year after the warranty runs out, then GE is an easy choice. They’re easy to find, they’re often on sale at the big box stores, they offer a choice of toggle or rocker, and the physical traveler wires mean they’re sometimes easier to understand and they work fine as non-network switches if for some reason The home automation controller goes flaky.

Plus everybody else goes “OK, GE switches, that sounds fine.” so building inspectors, landlords, other family members, electricians, all accept them easily.

On the other hand, if you’re comfortable With a lesser known brand from a small company, both Zooz and Inovelli are very popular lower cost choices for Z wave switches. Both use newer technology and both have staff members who participate in this forum if you have any questions. I myself would use either of these over the GE switches, I think they have better engineering.

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Lutron

Lutron is an excellent lighting company with their own patented technologies. (They invented the first analog dimmer switch.) there is an official integration with SmartThings which works well, but it does requiring buying an additional bridge device. And they stopped adding new models to it in late 2018, so while it does support the Caseta dimmers and switches, it does not support the fan switch or the motion sensor.

The Lutron Caseta dimmers do not require a neutral wire (More patents), which makes them very popular for retrofit situations. They’re available in white, black, or almond.


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my personal opinion is not the most popular choice

Me personally I like better engineering and more features and I’m willing to pay more for that. But that’s just me.

If I had the money and I had to pick zwave switches today, I would probably pick Coopers.

Or if I was going for style I’d use in wall micro relays and LeGrand momentary switches. This is one of @Mike_Maxwell 's LeGrand mods:

But again those are both expensive choices compared to GE.

2020 update:

I still like the looks of the Cooper switches, but if I were looking for Z wave switches today, I would also look at both Inovelli and Zooz. These are from small companies and have a lot of very interesting features, including scene control, and both are offered at lower prices than many of the bigger companies. Both are very popular in the community, and you can find many threads about them. Both are zwave plus with support for S2 security. Both also have the option to be used with smart lightbulbs by sending a message to the hub which then send a message to the bulb rather than cutting current to the bulb itself. So nice features at a good price.

As it is, personally I ended up going with Lutron Caseta switches, which I am very happy with. Excellent engineering, but they are more expensive than many of the other choices.

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Great info here guys. Im new in all this too. So for i really like the monoprice dual relay module. I have one dual and one single which i bought for testing. And both are working great. Dumb switch completely smart lol. U get instant status and installation is a breeze. $26 for a dual relay is an affordable price to convert two dumb switches into smart switches. Now the single switch relay for $25 is a bit pricey.

The dual module require some coding. Thanks to community there is a github link with all the steps and codes. Piece of cake!

Thanks for the help guys! If any body need help with the wiring installation please me know.

What a bout the Leviton Switches that Smartthings has on their list? or Homeseer switches?

Those are both discussed in the wall switches posts upthread, starting around post 40. Did you have some specific question that wasn’t covered there?

Well I am just looking to put in a zwave switch to control our outside lights in the porch and on the garage. Nothing special but we just want to put them on a schedule. I was looking at this website https://www.aartech.ca/zwave-wall-switches and I was just wondering if one is better than the other and if they work with ST?

They both work with SmartThings, although you will need custom code to make the Homeseer ones work, and then they aren’t officially supported.

And you bring up a good point that we hadn’t really discussed in this thread so far, which is that only some devices are officially supported. There are lots of other ones that will work, but may require custom code, and then SmartThings support won’t help you with them if you do run into a problem.

You can see the devices that are officially supported on the compatibility list:

If you want to stick only to those, your choices will be between Leviton, GE, and Enerwave.

As detailed in the discussions above, the GE are the “good enough” choice for most people, and very popular. They are a value brand in the Z wave category, and frequently much less expensive than other brands.

The GE are also one of the only brands that have a toggle rather than a rocker, again, as detailed above.

The Leviton are a better engineered brand, and among other things can dim lower than the GE. But they do have an unusual form factor, as mentioned in the posts above. So not everyone likes those. Also they are noticeably more expensive.

If you just want a simple switch that SmartThings Will officially support, GE is fine.

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/200879274-How-to-connect-GE-Z-Wave-switches-and-dimmers

BTW, Home Depot in Canada does carry a few z-Wave switches, typically Leviton and GE, but selection does vary from store to store.

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Thanks I just checked homedepot.ca to see what they have. This is what I found. https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.z-wave-wink-compatible-switch-white.1000818247.html From the reviews, it looks like these work with ST. What do you think? I just noticed these are Leviton.

That should be fine, it’s a good Switch. :sunglasses: Just be aware that as with all of the Leviton classic Z wave switches, it’s not a rocker where you press the top for on and the bottom for off. You always press the bottom on that switch. Most people don’t care, but some people prefer a traditional rocker.

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I don’t think I care except that it will be one of a dual switch. The other switch will be normal as I have a hues bulb connected to that one. I wonder if Leviton makes the same type of switch that isn’t zwave?

Just updating the thread for locks. :sunglasses:

Most people using SmartThings get Z wave locks, in part because then there’s no issue with Wi-Fi interference which allows you to boost Wi-Fi signal near the front door for cameras or Wi-Fi video doorbells without running into a problem. But most of the big lock companies also makes zigbee versions of their smart locks if you want one. As of this writing, February 2017, none of the Bluetooth locks are compatible with SmartThings.

Form

There are two main kind of zwave smart locks for homes: keypad locks, which replace the existing deadbolt and have a keypad on the outside of the door where you can enter a code, and retrofit locks, where the exterior piece is the same as always, and there’s a piece that goes on the inside of the door and fits physically over the existing turn bolt so that it can be turned.

Keypad lock on the exterior side. It replaces the existing deadbolt

Keypad lock on the interior side

Interior with retrofit lock. It fits over the existing turnbolt. The exterior will look the same as always.

Both can be opened automatically or from your phone. The big difference is that the keypad lock enables someone, such as a child who lives in the home, to open the lock from the outside without needing either a phone or a key. But for those who live in apartments or subdivisions which require that all exterior door locks look the same, the retrofits are a good option. Also, some people just prefer them aesthetically.

You can get a keypad lock which just replaces the deadbolt, or one that has a built-in lever handle as well.

If you live in the UK, there are also some keypad locks that are much thinner and designed to fit European doors.

keypad lock features

There’s an FAQ for Z wave/zigbee keypad locks that covers different brand features , so I won’t repeat all that information here. Just follow this link:

2017 did see the release of the August pro, which is the only lock which can be used with both SmartThings and HomeKit, so if you’re looking for that particular combination, that’s another one to consider. It’s a retrofit lock so that there is a piece that fits over your existing deadbolt turn the key on the interior, and the exterior looks the same as it always did. No keypad unless you buy a separate accessory device. So it will be good for some use cases, but not others.

https://www.amazon.com/August-Smart-Lock-Connect-technology/dp/B0752V8D8D

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