I have many Jasco/GE/Enbrighten (changes names a lot) paddle Zwave dimmer switches throughout the house attached so my ST Hub v3 (which support Matter).
I swore I wouldn’t buy any more smart stuff 'til the dust settles on Matter options, yet here I am.
My wife is requesting are dumb switches in the hallway get upgraded to dimmers. They need not be smart she says, but a basic dimmer that is still $30 at Home Depot, so at that price, might as well go smart I suppose.
I found a few Matter options, like TPlink and Kasa and a Lutron that support Matter, but all have different looks than the ones I have (multiple dimmer buttons etc). Not ideal. If I want to go super fancy, I can hold out for the new Innoveli White Edition I suppose, but it’s super overkill for the hallway.
Should I just get more of the same Zwave ones I have? Is it folly to buy Zwave now and invest further in it?
Or, is there a Matter one I’m not tracking that has a basic look and functionality?
Or should I just get the dumb dimmer and keep it simple?
I’m not planning to add anything in the near future but, like you, I already have a lot of zwave devices (many of which are dimmers) and wonder if it would be foolish to add any more. My situation is slightly more complicated, though, because I have a Smartthings Wifi hub which does not support Matter.
Actually, maybe that actually simplifies things for me because Matter isn’t an option. Accordingly, I probably will continue with zwave, and if my hub dies before being updated to support the hub-replacement service, I’ll certainly switch to another platform. And, it that case, it would most likely be Home Assistant which, I suspect, will support zwave for the foreseeable future. (And maybe Smartthings will, too? I don’t know, unfortunately; I wish they were being more open about their hardware / protocol -support roadmap.)
If you’re going to wait, I would wait for matter over thread in the look that you like. There are some good matter over Wi-Fi switches available now from Leviton, but personally, I prefer to limit the number of Home Automation Wi-Fi devices I have, just to keep the router slots open for devices which only have a WiFi option like appliances, and of course, all my streaming devices.
My own preference for light switches has turned out to be Lutron, and they do make one which looks like a conventional rocker now, the Caseta diva series. Rock solid, great engineering, very quick to respond. But I wouldn’t recommend that in your situation, there’s no reason to add a brand new bridged protocol if you’re already happy with your Z wave switches. (By the way, unless I’ve missed something, there are as yet no matter switches from Lutron. I suspect they want to protect their own reputation and wait until matter is less glitchy. Maybe you meant Leviton? )
I know a lot of people will disagree, but I don’t see anything wrong with just getting more Z wave switches that match the ones you already have. It will only strengthen the network you’ve got, family acceptance should be high, and a few more isn’t going to change any of the basic issues you’ll run into if you decide to either get rid of Z wave or move to a different Z wave hub. But that’s a field tech strategy, falling into the “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it“ category. I know it’s not as much fun as getting something all together new, but it would definitely make more sense to me than buying new dumb switches.
The Zooz line from the Smartest House will physically match your GE/Jasco devices. They have the new 800 series and may still have some 700 series on closeout. I have GE/Jasco Zigbee dimmers and Zooz switches in every room (dimmers for lights, and switches for ceiling fans and extractor fans). This gives me a very strong and mostly stable set of networks.
I’m a big fan of Inovelli, I’ve done my entire house in their zwave switches. Since then they’ve come out with a zigbee switch and now they’re launching a matter switch next month. It’s available now for preorder. I really like the customizable LED bar that can be setup for notifications and shows the dimming level when the switch is on.
We’ve just been discussing inovelli switches in another thread. Those are actually a different white than the GE switches.
Inovelli uses glossy white, similar to Lutron Caseta. Highly reflective, and will tend to call attention to itself against a standard white satin paint.
GE/Jasco uses a satin finish, which is the same as most dumb light switches in the US, and is intended to blend into a standard satin white wall, while still being visible in a dark room. The Leviton Z wave switches are also satin as they are intended to look the same as their dumb switches.
(To be honest, I’m not sure what Zooz uses, if anybody knows, can you post?)
Anyway, since the OP already has GE switches in their other rooms, going to Inovelli might be a noticeable change if design details are significant to household members.
It’s like the fact that some Z wave switches have green LEDs and some have blue LEDs. A lot of people won’t care, but many other people want them all to match. Choice is good.
I would say they (Zooz) are the glossy white, I have a couple of the (ZEN34) battery remote paddle switches next to my Inovelli switches and they look identical (minus the LED bar). Never used the GE/Jasco switches so I didn’t know they had a satin finish, I’ve got a couple of the GE/Jasco receptacles, but never paid attention to the finish as they are behind furniture. I was just throwing the Inovelli option out there as a choice since there aren’t many options for Matter devices at this point.
And a lot of people either don’t care or don’t even notice the difference in the finish.
Personally, I don’t care. But one of my housemates does. Our house was built in 1955 with many different upgrades over the years including electrical upgrades so somehow we’ve ended up with one outlet out of five in the kitchen that is an almond receptacle with a white face plate. It ended up bugging him so much that now we leave the blender sitting in front of it so he won’t see it when he comes in the kitchen. Lol!
That receptacle would trigger my OCD too. I replaced every outlet and switch in my 110 year old house to the decora style. That’s when I decided to make everything “smart”. Inovelli changed manufacturers a year or so ago. The white paddle is just a little different than the ones that I put in 3 years ago, but the LED had the most changes. I used to set my color to Orange which came out kind of amber. The newer Red series dimmers now have lemon as as the “yellow” color. I already had an Inovelli dimmer switch in my kitchen and after a remodel I added a bunch of LED down lights also did this in my dining room I ordered two of the newer Inovelli dimmers. I could not get the yellow colors even close to each other between the old and new. I ended up taking the old dimmer out of the kitchen and swapping it for the original dinning room switch. Now both of the new switches are in the kitchen and the older switches are in the dining room. All that effort just to get the LED bars to have the same color and the same white paddle color. Don’t get me started on the screw positions, they have to be straight, some people do theirs vertical and some (me) do them horizontal, either way, they have to be straight. The OCD is strong with this one.
I installed Leviton Matter over Wi-Fi switches and dimmers in my second house. Have a similar Decora look to my GE/Jasco dimmers in my primary residence with the exception of having dimmer level LEDs on the left side. Installed easily and work well.
@derekwbeck if LED indicator or paddle colors are important to you, there are 4 LED colors to choose from for the Zooz switch and 4 colors of replaceable paddles as well. It’s our house brand so feel free to reach out with any questions directly too
I’m one who would agree! My entire set of devices in two homes are (currently) Z-Wave and it has been pretty solid as of late. Matter is interesting–I’m following a couple of threads here (pun intended) on the forum–but it doesn’t look ready for prime time yet. YMMV, of course.
The Zooz devices are my current favorite. Also have a mix of Jasco/GE/Whoever (including fan controllers I like a lot: hint, hint, @TheSmartestHouse), Aeotec, Fibaro, Leviton, Ecolink, and even some ancient GoControl/Nortek devices.
Hmmm. I’d say I remember gloss. (We’re at the other place that has only Leviton or Jasco right now.)
The other point, noted by @TheSmartestHouse, is the ability to change LED colors on the newer switches. It’s pretty cool for us OCD types . Also noteworthy is the ability to turn on a scene control mode, allowing multi-clicks on paddle dimmers/switches to trigger scenes or routines. The Zooz drivers are required for the advanced/cool features, of course, but they are top-notch.
I agree! It’d be nice to know the roadmap so I can make informed decisions planning a possible entire home upgrade.
Yes, you are right. Meant Leviton.
Yeah, I’m in the reasonable OCD camp too, as is my wife. An almond receptacle on a white wall with a white face plate is just unacceptable. And I too agree the screws should be oriented vertical or horizontal, but I’m not so OCD to ensure they are exactly perfect, and some of our rooms might be one way while other rooms the other: that is, room consistency, if not home consistency. In other words, there are levels of OCD, I’m milder than some. Full OCDers would probably prefer the screwless face plates anyhow.
I think the multi-touch features of the new Innoveli could be interesting in a few select locations, but I don’t see myself wanting them throughout the house. The LED band on the right side is actually a distraction in my mind (unless: can you disable it?). I really like the push the paddle and hold it to dim as well, not a separate dim function. Seems like the Innoveli require you to push and hold the favorites button on the top right to achieve the same effect.
Thanks for pointing this out. Honestly, I’ve not tracked this topic closely, and wasn’t aware that the Matter over Wifi vs over Thread was something to think about it. I had heard “Thread” but didn’t know what it was. Now I do. Thanks! I agree, avoid over wifi then. I had seen some are at 2.4GHz and the thought had occurred to me that it might be a WiFi interference concern, but if it’s legitimately using the wifi router, yeah, not too excited about that.
Can I change colors based on events, or just in setup? Could I make the LED red if there’s some kind of alert, sort of like a silent alarm indicator?
Zigbee, Thread, and 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi all use the same radio frequency. You can do channel tuning on either the Wi-Fi or the Zigbee/Thread radio on your hub to avoid interference.
The difference between Thread and Wi-Fi Matter devices is that Wi-Fi is a hub/spoke model so the further you are from your Wi-Fi source, the weaker the signal. Another concern with Wi-Fi is if your ISP supplied router limits the number of devices allowed to communicate. Thread is a mesh network model like Zigbee so intermediate devices can relay messages from devices further away from the hub. Of course, you need to have multiple Thread devices to build a solid mesh for devices that are further from the hub.
Generally speaking, battery powered devices would prefer Thread because of its lower power consumption while mains powered devices would tend to be Wi-Fi which has a greater power requirement. That being said, Eve Energy uses Thread for both its plug-in and in-wall Matter outlets.
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), Aeotec, Fibaro, Leviton, Ecolink, and even some ancient GoControl/Nortek devices.
. Also noteworthy is the ability to turn on a scene control mode, allowing multi-clicks on paddle dimmers/switches to trigger scenes or routines. The Zooz drivers are required for the advanced/cool features, of course, but they are top-notch.