Most of the Leviton dimmers don’t require neutral. The switches w/ relays do, to power the relay.
Leviton says that under some circumstances you can control fluorescent lights with a dimmer. You need to have a big enough load (40W min I think) to get the “switched leg” dimmer to run. It steals power from the load and needs some leakage when the load is off to power it. You then set the min/max brightness both the max (the instructions with the dimmer explain) and this should work. If the load is too small the lights will flicker and buzz. Be forwarned, the zwave setting overrides the presets, so you must set the on command for those loads to 100%.
The premium brands for ZWave (in the US) are Leviton and Cooper. There is a premium line form Intermatic as well, but I’m not sure how well worked out it is. The generic intermatic and the ACT stuff are not very good. The intermatic outdoor plug in modules seem to be OK.
All of the ZWave light devices will work with Vera, except that support of special features, like the feedback from the switch in Leviton, are not supported (patent minefield).
Thanks for the info. That’s pretty much similar to what I have found out when I was installing switches and dimmers around my place.
So, the old Vizia-RF line only had one 15A relay switch, requiring Neutral. The new Vizia-RF+ line has an additional incandescent-only 5A switch, supposedly not requiring Neutral. Here is an excerpt from their Switches description:
Vizia RF + Scene Capable Switches fit into standard wallboxes and replace regular switches or dimmers (where a neutral is present for 15A switch) to provide local and remote ON/OFF switching for Incandescent, Fluorescent, Electronic Low Voltage and Magnetic Low Voltage lighting loads (5A switch is for Incandescent loads only).
Now, the question is - is there any way to have a Z-Wave switch to control a CFL w/o having Neutral?
Are there any non-repeating (i.e. non RF+) swithes that on is up and off is down?
I know one of the early posts in this topic is the fact that’s just really a toggle, not a switch.
I like the design of the Leviton brand switches, dimmers and outlets, but I want to find an actual switch replacement that has Z-Wave, not a just a toggle, and then stick with that brand for all my switch replacements.
The Leviton brands seem to have a standard rocker, but up isn’t always on. Intermatic seems to have a centered rocker switch where you can go up or down and it just changes the power to off or on depending on what it was before.
Can anyone confirm this is how it works for those?
We don’t have any inside info. However, one of my big gripes with the Leviton dimmers is that ‘up’ is not on and ‘down’ is not off. It’s a toggle switch in a single direction.
I guess there might be some discrepency in what a toggle, switch and rocker might be.
I’m looking for something that function’s like a normal switch. When you press the button up, or rock is up, it turns is on. But if you push it down, it goes off.
From what I can see, and from the ealier post from MiCasa, even in their show room, it’s more of a toggle, and up isn’t always on and down isn’t always off. Depends on what the current status of the circuit is.
It seems that the premium switches are all toggle function (push to change state). Both Cooper and Leviton do this. The Intermatic and the ACT are more conventional momentary rockers with up for on and down for off. I agree that its not intuitive, especially the Leviton. The top of the Leviton button does nothing, its the pivot point. A redesigned button with a clear indication of where to press would make a world of difference. but probably cost $30K to tool.
So, then it seems the Intermatic switches might be intuitive as they are defaulted to the middle, that way it allows you to push up or down, though it doesn’t really matter.
There is no up. The switch always looks like a rocker that in the “on” state (as opposed to resting in middle). In other words, the top is depressed. However, the bottom portion is the only one that can be depressed–it is a toggle, so that each press of the bottom portion of the switch changes the state. They’ve put the LEDs on the top to try and make it more clear that the top does nothing.
