It’s got a nice faint orange LED when it’s off so you can see the switch in the dark.
When I put it in inclusion mode, SmartThings found it no problem too. I can turn the switch on and off from the SmartThings app.
The only thing that’s a bit disappointing about the integration is that if I turn the switch on by tapping the actual switch, it doesn’t update the status in SmartThings.
I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of how I might modify the device type in ST to update? Should I poll, or is there an event I could subscribe to or something?
In SmartThings, the switch identified as a ‘Z-Wave Device Multichannel’ device. I was a bit surprised, I thought it would be ‘Z-Wave Switch’
It’s a Z-Wave physical switch. This switch can replace a normal light switch. You can use SmartThings to turn the switch on and off, or you can touch the switch to toggle it.
I started converting my house to Philips Hue lights, but I quickly discovered that smart bulbs are quite often not the best solution for your house because you use have to use an app to control them (mostly).
Using an app to turn on and off lights can sometimes convenient, but at other times a physical switch is much more convenient - especially if there is more than one person living in the house, you have kids, or you have visitors.
But with these switches, you can still do all the automation in SmartThings, as well as turn them on and off physically.
In my case, I prefer to use mostly normal bulbs and z-wave switches to control the lights. I still have a few lamps with Hue lights for areas where I like to dim / color the lights in certain situations.