Can a Z-Wave Remote control Zigbee Devices via SmartThings?

Hi - I just picked up a number of Cree Connected LED bulbs (Zigbee) and was wondering whether these can be controlled via a Z-Wave remote (GE, Minimote, whatever)? I’d like to mount remote on the wall in each room to allow easier control of the Cree bulbs in the lamps within those rooms so my kids don’t have to rely on their iOS devices to turn lamps on or off.

Yes, as long as both are installed to ST anything can be controlled by anything :smiley:

I have a minimote that controls zigbee, cloud integrations, and zwave all with one button press

Yes and no. It’s the word “remote” that introduces the problem, specifically for the GE line.

Any device where the SmartThings hub can recognize each individual button press can then be used to trigger actions on any other device that Smartthings controls. The protocol won’t matter. This is very useful.

The Minimote is the obvious example. The smartenIT 3 toggle (Zigbee) is a better form factor for wall-mounted, and also works very well with SmartThings.

The cooper aspire RF 9500 (Zwave) is a battery-operated will switch which also works.

The Enerwave SC7 and the Leviton RCS4 multi button wall mount switches are also popular in the community.

However, most of the GE “remotes” ( either the handheld button type or the wall mount multi buttons) and the Leviton zone controller multibutton wall-mounted devices won’t work in this fashion, as they use a different set of zwave commands. They can be paired to smartthings as a Zwave device, but smartthings will only send them an on/off, and it won’t recognize their individual button pushes. So you can’t push a button on a GE remote and have it tell SmartThings to toggle a Zigbee bulb.

But there are a number of options depending on your aesthetic preferences and specific needs for each room.

The following is specific to Hues so not all the options will apply to your Crees, but should still be of interest (this is a clickable link):

And this has more on button options:

2 Likes