What are the best value for white vera connected lights?

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
1

I’m lookin to automate more of my lighting and I was curious what people prefer for the places you don’t need fancy color lighting. Just simple on/off. Is it cheaper generally to replace the switch or the bulb? I imagine the switch may be more costly initially but would allow you to use any old “dumb” bulbs?

2

As most of life, there are advantages and disadvantages for either technology. If your Vera is down, or you have folks visiting, a switch will still function or people can still control it manually. I use switches to control my 3 outside lights, and will add more for lights that are built in.

I have a bulb for my wife’s nightstand and will expand with more and more for similar lamps. In my case, her nightstand ramps up at 5:30am as an alarm. When we are in Away mode, it is turned off. At 8:30 pm, it comes on as she readies for bed, and turns off at 9:30 pm when I am reading.

Eventually I’ll add a bulb for my nightstand but I will add a z-wave remote switch to be able to manually turn it off when I am done reading. Otherwise it will be set to go on at 5:30 and 8:30, and off when in Away mode.

3

If all you want is a white light bulb, then I would buy a Z-wave switch for the reasons Don mentions. Excellent LED bulbs are extremely cheap these days. If you want color tuning or RGBW, then buy Z-Wave bulbs. A note: if you put a Z-Wave bulb on a switch, Vera will eventually flag it as “can’t detect device” when the switch is off.

4

Great advice! What are your favorite ZWAVE switches that you like? I feel like the GE ZWave PLUS ones are showing up a lot in my searches and have a ton of positive reviews.

5

I’ve been using these for the last couple of years: http://enerwaveautomation.com/products/

I have a number their switches, dimmers and outlets. They are very well made, look nice, are easy to install in the wall and feature energy monitoring (which is important to me.) They pair perfectly as a generic Z-Wave device and energy reporting works right out of the box—no issues.

I have a new GE Z-Wave+ Smart Motion Dimmer but haven’t had a chance to install it.