Who makes the BEST Z-Wave dimmer? (Leviton, GE, Linear, Cooper)

I think you need to set up the remote as a secondary controller to get it to work.

I currently run Aeon remotes (plus a Hue remote), which gets the job done. No fine tuned dimming levels but if I hold a button it dims it to 30%

Aeon minimotes work fine, they use a different commandset which is compatible with SmartThings.

This is much discussed in the forums and I don’t want to hijack this thread further, so just search for The specific model threads in the forum for more details about how different secondary controllers are handled differently.

Well, my 45631 should show up today. I’m not that concerned about ST support, I just want to replace some X-10 lighting controls and put a switch on a wall where there is no power. I trust that it will at least control the ST Z-wave plug-in wall-warts directly?

Curios on it too. I had a similar issue for a kitchen island I was using color changing hues in. Phillips released their switch so I used that. I also purchased some of those Amazon tablets and have them near the couch to control lighting.

I’ve been using Zwave Cooper dimmers. Thought I would use the incandescent no neutral wire version to save some money (9534). All my lights are incandescent. I put several of theses switches in then started noticing the lights were not as bright as before. I did an experiment and jumped one of the cooper dimmer switches when they were set at the max setting. The lights got significantly brighter when jumped. I would say at max setting on the cooper 9534 you are getting 75% of the light output you get when the dimmer is removed and a normal switch put in. I checked the voltage reading to the light with the dimmer at max and it was only about 87v vs the 118v I had at the dimmer. The other cooper dimmer (9540) that uses a neutral performed much better. I would say light output was 90-95% when set to max of what it is when the dimmer is jumped. It showed voltage at the light of about 107v out of the 118v when set to max. I’m very disappointed in the Cooper 9534l dimmers especially since I’ve installed several. It will be a pain to remove all these and I’m sure I’ll have to fight to return them and their slaves. This is something the manufacturer should indicate. I don’t know why neither of their dimmers can brighten the light to a true 100%. Does anyone know if all dimmers are subject to this? Any suggestions on a better choice or should I just buy the better Cooper and live with the 5 to 10% brightness drop. I need about 40 or more switches to finish my house and want to choose one I will be happy with. Thanks

I did get the GE 45631 working as hoped with enerwave plug-in outlets. The net is that first you put the 45631 on the Z-wave network thru the hub, then add the lighting widgets to the hub, and then add your lighting Scenes to the 45631 manually by pushing buttons. The procedure is a bit of a PIA, but it works fine.

Glad to hear its working. I was thinking about adding one near my front door to control all the lights in the house

Why do you like the Coopers more than the Levitons?

I am between Leviton VRMX1-1LZ vs Cooper 9540. The Leviton can both be found for cheaper and “works with SmartThings.”

I will be hiding these in a closet anyway, so I care less about the physical feel of the switch and just how well the dimming functions work and how well it works with ST Hub.

what brand and devices is that (I’m looking for fan speed control)? Looks very cool.

First off, thank you JDRoberts for all your contributions to these forums. I hope one day I can be as helpful.

Second, I was hoping you’d share a bit more on your preferences for Coopers vs Levitons?

I am between Leviton VRMX1-1LZ vs Cooper 9540. The Leviton can both be found for cheaper and “works with SmartThings.”

I will be hiding these in a closet anyway, so I care less about the physical feel of the switch and just how well the dimming functions work and how well it works with ST Hub.

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I was doing some research, and something isn’t lining up right.

@JDRoberts - did you maybe get this backwards? Doesn’t Linear support group association because there’s no traveler? If GE supports it, I can’t find any documentation on it.

Take a look at my post history for linear association groups. The manuals are incorrect. The dimmer supports 0, not 3 & the transmitter (‘accessory’) supports 1, not 4.

I can’t speak to ge switches.

This preference is due entirely to the physical feel of the dimming buttons. If you aren’t going to touch the physical switch, then the Leviton Vizia RF+ dimmers are as good or better than the Cooper Aspire dimmers.

However, Leviton’s Vizia RF (non-plus) dimmers, such as the one you mentioned, do not have two-way communication with SmartThings and have to be polled like the lower-end GE dimmers.

I don’t understand what “instant update” benefits are completely when I compare say the GE which I have to one of the Leviton’s with instant update. What is the scenario that I need the “instant update” feature? @Ash mentions two way communications as well , is that what instant update is?

There’s no particular benefit to instant update if you just want to send a command to the dimmer so it turns the lights on. You can and they will whether you have instant update or not.

Instant update is the most useful if you want to have multiple things happen when a light comes on and so you need to know that someone turned it on at the wall switch.

So let’s say you have a switch which directly controls the current to the ceiling fixture by the front door but you also want a “virtual three-way” where another light at the top of the steps, on a different circuit, also comes on when you flip that switch.

It’s easy to have the two lights come on at the same time if the command is coming from the network. You just set it up so that A command is sent to each light.

But what if someone turns on the wall switch for the downstairs ceiling fixture? Somehow the hub has to know that that switch was turned on so that it can then send the command to the light at the top of the stairs.

That’s where instant update can matter. If the switch itself immediately tells the hub that it was turned on, then the hub can almost immediately tell the upstairs light to also come on.

If the downstairs light Doesn’t tell the hub that it was switched on, then you have to wait for the next time that the switch is polled, that is the next time that the hub asks the switch if it is on or off.

The problem is if you set up too much polling you can cripple your network because all the traffic is just questions from the hub asking devices “are you on or off?”

There are some workarounds involving association groups but they’re a little complicated and among other things require that the switch be within one hop of the hub.

So many people will never need instant status, and won’t even know that they don’t have it. But some people will definitely notice it in some situations.

If you search the forums for “the big switch”, that was a very popular smartapp for the V1 hub which allowed one light to follow another. You will see a few people complaining that there was a noticeable delay before the follower caught up with the leader. Now a noticeable delay for lightning might be only two seconds But it still bothers some people. One of the ways to fix that problem was to get an instant status switch just for the master. :sunglasses:

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That was a great answer! Thanks for the detail. I get it now.

I went ahead and bought two of the Leviton VRMX1-1LZ on Amazon for $39. The GE Dimmer 12724 are actually more expensive at $40 and don’t give some of the higher end functionality of the Leviton. I wonder if I just got lucky on sale or if Leviton is just getting more competitive?

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It does look like the price has been steadily dropping: http://camelcamelcamel.com/Leviton-VRMX1-1LZ-Universal-Magnetic-Voltage/product/B005Y8JC6Q

I just ordered some to replace my Insteon switches, which have been such a pain to get working with ST

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My guess is that Leviton is getting ready to release Zwave plus versions of their switches, and the price on the older classic Z wave versions is starting to drop as retailers try to reduce that inventory before the new models come on the market.

We’re seeing this in all kinds of Z wave devices from most manufacturers.

Zwave plus has a significantly longer range, about 50% longer, a longer battery life (although obviously that doesn’t apply to wired switches) and a feature which is very important for wired switches: greatly improved ability to pair in place even several hops away from the hub.

Cool, never seen this great website that tracks product pricing. :slight_smile:

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Leviton’s Vizia RF+ dimmers have instant status, but Vizia RF dimmers (like the one you purchased) do not. In the past, Leviton had to pay to license Lutron’s instant status patents, so their Vizia RF+ devices were nearly double the cost of their Vizia RF devices. Lutron’s patents expired earlier this year, but Leviton hasn’t updated their Vizia RF+ pricing to reflect this yet.

The good news is that HomeSeer’s HS-WD100+ dimmers just came out a few days ago. They have Z-Wave Plus and instant status for only $45. (That price wouldn’t have been possible before Lutron’s patents expired.) I haven’t tried them yet, but on paper, they are the best Z-Wave dimmers.

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