Favorite wall switches

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
1

I’m in the processing of replacing my failed/failing Evolve/GE wall switches that have been around for three years. Do people have preferred wall dimmers/switches? How are Levitons long-term? Looking for something that might last 5 years or maybe as long as an LED bulb!

TIA

2

I’ve never had a failure with Cooper. I’ve replaced several Linear and only one Leviton though.

3

Thanks, how long have you had the Coopers?

4

I believe the oldest is Dec 2013.

5

Most of my network has Leviton switches and dimmers. I started out (2013) on the older generation VRMX1 universal dimmers, since I was changing most fixtures over to LED loads (direct via bulb changes, or using magnetic fixtures in two cases). In a few spots where I used incandescent (halogen, specifically) for mood/effect lighting, I used the VRI06 dimmer (to save cost a bit). I also have a bunch of switch-only devices on VRS15 switches (bathroom and ceiling fans, mostly). My only gripe about these older units is about the dimmers–the dimmer rockers are a little clunky to operate, taking a lot of force very directly applied. Fortunately, most of the time I’m using non-finger UIs to set the light levels.

I also have a handful of their 4- and 1-button scene controllers. Everyone seems to have mixed results with these, but I’ve written a bunch of Lua to make them work the way I want/expect, and I don’t have any trouble with them. Vera seems to have little interest in stable, native support for them, but I get by fine.

Later, as my network grew, I started using the newer DZMX1 (universal dimmer that replaces VRMX1) and DZS15 (replaces older switch VRS15). They’re both better and not than the previous generation. Better is the dimming bar on the dimmers–much easier to operate with the finger UI. Not great was that “instant status” seems to have gone away. For much of my use, that’s OK. By adjusting polling settings for those devices, I worked around the problems somewhat.

I’ve never replaced a Leviton device anywhere in my network.

But to save cost in some places, I also mixed in some Evolve, GE, and Linear. The Evolves started to die right away, and by now most of them have been replaced. Usually, they would just stop talking ZWave, and if I was slow to replace them, about half would eventually go completely dark, not functional at all.

The GEs and Linears have fared much better. I don’t have any trouble with them. My wife really likes the toggle-handle GE switch (12727), oddly. I put a couple in just to try.

I only have a few non-ZWave switches and dimmers left (in my own workshop/lab) to replace, and I’ll likely try the Coopers, which others have indicated here that they like, and I think the consensus seems to be that they work well.

FWIW, I also have a Leviton VRCPG, the old handheld controller. Although I don’t use it much, when I go through an event like I have recently, where I’ve had to re-include every device on my network for an upgrade (Vera3 UI7 to Plus UI7), it has been invaluable for resetting devices that Vera can’t include or reset/exclude itself and saved me a lot of time, and probably money, as some devices simply don’t have a way to reset them other than exclusion, and if Vera can’t/won’t do it, I’d be S.O.L. The VRCPG will whack anything right back to zero very reliably, and inclusion with Vera usually then succeeds on the first try after.

I’m also very busy knocking on wood as I write this. Murphy. Always lurking.

6

After buying and installing over 45 Linear/Evolve (same company) switches since early 2013, I have sworn off of them now. Initially they worked great. Reliability after a couple of years is just poor. At least 10 have failed for no real reason and in different ways.
Since 2015, new switches and Linear/Evolve replacements have been GE . I have not had one fail yet, but maybe not long enough to know for sure.