I’m looking for up to date information on light switches. I’ve read a lot on the posts about switches. New stuff comes out everyday.
I have just built new home, so I believe I should have Neutral.
I want to be able to use LED or CFL (good bulbs).
Want enough watts, but have 3 pendant lights on 1 switch.
I like the 3-4 way switches that don’t need a slave.
I would like to have them as zwave repeaters also.
Paddle switches and white is fine.
Don’t have to much need (or imagination) for all kinds of scene controls, but if they have it that’s ok also.
Manual use a must
I think that’s about it (I hope). Need to get about 7 3-ways and 15 regular and 5 fans.
So which ones do you like for 2021?
Thanks
If you live in the US - -you will it’s been code for years.
Add up the load and compare to the max load of any switch you buy - but most of them should do standard voltage / amperage no problem. Consider it tablestakes. Capability varies by country and wiring specs.
Personal preference - but more and more are doing this every day, see Zooz, Inovelli for instance.
Hardwired Mains powered devices are almost always repeaters - this is tablestakes now, assume they all are.
Most new devices do scene control. GE/Jasco was the notable exception for a while.
If it doesn’t do this it’s not a good switch is it? Don’t even worry about this one.
My personal preference is Inovelli (Red series) for everything except fan controls because I prefer two separate switches and have the wiring for it. For those I use GE/Jasco Fan controllers.
For light switches and dimmers, I like the new GE Enbrighten switches. They made them physically smaller than their older switches and removed the heatsinks from the face plate, making them easier to put multiple switches into a multi-gang box. They also added scene control to the switches, which I don’t use yet. They still require their “dummy” switch for 3-way and 4-way applications, which I also don’t use.
I bought and like the HomeSeer HS-FC200+ fan controller. It has RGB LEDs along the side, so you can see the fan speed with a glance to the switch (this is the main reason I chose this switch over the GE fan switch). I also use WebCoRE to change one of the LEDs to red when the house heater is running, and blue when the AC is running (via Ecobee thermostat), but you can have those LEDs represent just about anything you want them to, like an unlocked door, open garage door, etc. I created a scene with this switch to turn the fan off when you press down twice (through WebCoRE), keeping it at the same speed when you turn it on again.
Agree with all your points on the GE Enbrighten devices. I had issues with the Enbrighten 2 Z-wave dimmers not being compatible with the “canless cans” LED lights I’ve got all thru the house. GE Zigbee 3.0 dimmer is working with those as are both Leviton and Zooz dimmers.
If you’re going all LED lighting then wattage is unlikely to be an issue. And in a new home you should definitely be going all LED.
Several of us who hang out here have had issues with SmartThings after reaching some number of Z-wave devices. For me, going over 25 or so Z-wave plus switches and dimmers resulted in odd delays and what I interpret as lost commands. Just something to watch for.
If I was starting over, I’d do 90% Zigbee. In particular the new GE/Jasco Zigbee 3.0 line. They’re priced nicely, have significantly smaller housings (helps greatly in multi-gang boxes) and work great. I’ve got 4 of them so far and 3 more purchased but not installed.
Aside from the general Z-wave issues, I’ve been very happy with Zooz ZEN27 dimmers and ZEN26 switches. Zooz was one of the first, I think, to allow 3-way and 4-way installation while using existing dumb switches. In the car of the ZEN26 and ZEN27, you can usually install the smart switch in a 3-way without even rewiring the other side.
And Zooz just this week came out with a new 700-series choosey based series that have extended range and smaller housings.
Last comment: regarding scenes. Don’t. In order to support multi-tapping for scene control you will have to run a custom DTH. Which means you are forced to cloud execution. It’s maddening to tap a switch and have it take a couple of seconds to work. All of the brands of switches and dimmers will work with the standard DTH which executes locally in the hub. So your smart switches react as quickly as dumb switches. Your spouse and children will be much happier. For scenes, create named scenes in the app and trigger them with Alexa or Google.
Well, if we’re going to talk about other protocols, I’m really happy with the Lutron Caseta switches. That’s not to say I’m happy with the smartthings integration, because I don’t use it. I use them with Alexa and HomeKit. But really nice devices.
The 700 series is the very newest zwave generation and only a few manufacturers have started releasing those devices. There’s a lot of pent-up demand and pretty much everybody who has released 700 series devices has sold out of the first production run very quickly. I wouldn’t read anything more into it than that.
