Reliability of GE/Jasco switches

Good afternoon all,
My whole home is automated with 40 or so GE/Jasco/Engligten switches that you typically find at Lowe’s. Most are the simple on/off switches, a few dimmers, a few motion sensor switches. Most are of the older variety pre “QuickFit/Simplewire”. They’ve gotten harder to find recently, as I believe Lowe’s has discontinued their Iris home automation. Most of my switches were installed just under 3 years ago. Some are a little older than that and used in my old home.

Over the past year or so, I’ve had multiple switches fail with what I call the blue LED of death. This happens usually after a brief/very short power outage. They’ve all been the older variety, simple on/off swiches. I’ve had 3 die over the past two weeks. Prior to that, I had 5 others die.

I called GE/Jasco to ask about why this happens, and if there was anything I could do to prevent this. The response I got was “yes, we are aware of the issue; no, we don’t know why it happens; no, we don’t know what to do to prevent it”. The tech support was a little rude about it and really couldn’t offer me any other explanation.

Has anyone else experienced this sort of issue with these switches? Are any other brands more reliable?

I’ve had great luck with the GE/Jasco devices. They are probably the second most common wired-in device after Leviton in my network. I really like the GE receptacles–they make great functional “repeaters”. I’ve never had a Leviton fail, and I don’t recall a GE failing either. I have whole-house surge suppression, which I highly recommend. It’s hard to know for sure, but I’m pretty sure the overall high survival rate of devices in my home is in part due to this relatively small investment.

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I second whole-house surge suppression, especially if you live in lightning country, or are subject to frequent power dropouts.

I put in whole home surge protection a few months back. My neighbor is a master electrician and gave me a quick hand installing it. Even with the surge protection, 3 dead GE switches in the past two weeks. We tend to have a lot of flickering of power. We’re in a new development, however, we are also a little more rural than suburban. In my old home in suburban Maryland (Columbia, outside DC and Baltimore), I may have had one or two die in the 3 years we lived there. It was a town home, but 40 years old or so. I know it did not have the best wiring internally.

I unfortunately suspect it has to do with the quality of power that Potomac Edison provides. Not sure if it’s the transformers or distribution in the area, or what. We do have a lot of high winds in the area, and much of the power distribution is above ground. Our neighborhood is all below ground, but leading up to it is above.

Not sure what I can do about it but complain to Potomac Edison

I have only had maybe 2 GE/Jasco failures, out of over 20 switches. When it happens, they stop responding to the Z-wave network, and can’t be excluded and then re-included. I happily replaced with one their latest Z-Wave Plus 500 series…

I don’t mind too much 300 series devices failing and forcing me to upgrade - as long as they are not thermostats…

I’ve been grabbing the Z-wave plus switches as replacements when possible. I like that they are smaller and don’t take up as much of the electrical box. I’m hoping they are more reliable as well. Like I said, Lowe’s isn’t carrying them as much lately and I’m having to hunt for them a bit more.

I have had 6, 3 on/off and 3 dimmers. I have only 1 on/off fail. It was in my garage (unheated) for maybe 3 years when it failed. Z-wave still worked but the contactor would not close the circuit.

It has been on a shelf to be dissected for ever a year. Someday…

I’ve had good luck with GE/Jasco outlets and switches in the house but I have a pump on a waterfall in the backyard that I have to replace the outlet about every 2 years. Have a Honeywell in there now but I think it’s the same outlet with a different label.

I’ve had quite a few of them die. I have contacted GE/Jasco and they have required me to send proof that I had purchased them (receipts) and pictures of the front and back of the dead device. Each time I have provided the information they have requested (I keep a database of everything I buy, I keep the receipts too). I have had about 9 die and all have been replaced except two.

Those two, at the time, I did not know that I could contact them and request a warranty replacement. At the present time, I am awaiting 3 devices now.

Mine started making a clicking noise and would not work any longer.

If you here it clicking and when you press the button and/or use the app to activate it and it does nothing. It is DEAD.

The last rep I spoke to about my most recent failures said that they have extended the warranty for the devices to 5 years. YES, you have to have your receipts for proof of purchase and you have to send them that and pictures of the front and rear of the failed device.

I called them up about a month ago, because I had two die, one after another. What seems to cause it 99% of the time is a sudden interruption to power. The power flickered for about 10 seconds a month ago, and one of them died. I had a spare, replaced it, and then when I turned the power back on, another one on the same circuit died. I told them about this, and the recommended pulling out the air gap switch when reconnecting power. How I’m supposed to pull them all in a brief power fluctuation is beyond me, but if I knowingly have to turn off the power, pulling that air gap will hopefully save me some grief.

How they can knowingly design a product that can’t handle a circuit breaker coming back on, that’s directly attached to the electrical circuit is beyond me.

In any case, I had the receipts, and shared a video of the behavior, and they sent out replacements a month ago, and they are arriving today( priority mail my a$$), but whatever.

they die after about 3-4 years

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I have about 50 of these installed and I lose one or two of them anytime there is a power outage that has multiple on off episodes. Really annoying, I have had a number of them successfully replaced under warranty but really wish this would not be the case with these switches. I do have a whole house surge installed from years ago, the light still shows green so I wonder if that is still effective or if there is a better device to look at? Has anyone had success with whole house surge protector against these devices going bad during brief power outages?

I have a whole home surge protector, and I have issues as well. What Jasco told me is that it’s the sudden application of power that causes them to fail, so if you have the foresight to pull the airgap when there is a power outage, that should save you from having one die on you, but when it’s very brief, odds are you won’t have time. It’s the brief interruptions that always get me. The only thing that would save me at that point is whole home battery backup (solar bank). Even then, I’m not sure how it works. If it works like a UPS, where it filters the line power, then that would solve all problems. If it works more like a generator, where it takes a moment to cut over, then I don’t think it would help.

I’ve lost countless. (OK. Not “countless” but probably 15 or so…)

The issue is a little capacitor on the secondary side of the switching power supply. Pain to replace as you have to unsolder the two halves of the switch to get to it. I’ve done it a few times just to see if I can but I’m switching them out to Levitons.

(Little worried about Levitons now as I guess something is funny about their ZWave “hail” command and newer ZWave controllers. So I may go a different route after a little more digging… Concerned as I move away from my Vera Secure…)

Is there no way to fix this? Are the Levitons better? Any other brand? I just lost 5 switches on two recent outages