I’m on my 3rd manufacturer of Z-wave switches and wanted to get folks input on which z-wave dimmers/switches are being used “successfully”. My latest adventure with Inovelli switches and dimmers has my family missing me - son hasn’t seen his dad in 2 weeks and I’ve recently emerged from my basement with a beard. The only positive is that I’ve lost 6 pounds going up and down the stairs (add/removing switches from the network. Honestly life is too short to be spending ridiculous amounts of time making some switches work.
What I’ve used in the past:
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Leviton Z-wave Vizia RF+ - these were my first z-wave devices. I went “all in” and did my whole house back 10 years ago. These started to fail but like a first girlfriend, found myself going back over and over again.
I now have a box of 60 these sitting in the garage and I should probably sell them on ebay as a lot, along with my fax machine.
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Cooper/Eaton - these kept losing association, limited functionality. These drove my bonkers. I would associate two switches, they would work for 2 weeks and then for some unknown reason, they would remove themselves from the z-wave network. It was maddening. My wife almost divorced me over these switches.
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Inovelli (Gen 2) switches and dimmers: just spent about 9 hours total over the past 2 weeks trying to get 2 switches to talk to each other consistently via virtual 3 way and still not working right. Association kept acting flaky, Vera support actually stepped up, tried their best to help but to no avial. Inovelli was actually on some of the email threads but were unhelpful/non-existent. Needless to say, I just got the RMA from Inovelli to send all the switches back.
So….now I’m reaching out to this community.
Please help save may marriage, re-unite me with my son and if nothing else, save me from having to buy all new clothes from extreme weight loss… Advise Please. What do folks recommend? I’ve seen folks using the Homeseer WD/WS 200+ switches. They look promising. Any thoughts?
Hi Patrick,
If you mean to use the switches/dimmers and smart plugs with Vera controllers, I would suggest Leviton, GE/Jasco, Honeywell, GoControl/Linear. All of those, as long as they are regular On/Off or dimmer in-wall Z-Wave switches usually work even if the specific model is not integrated with Vera, you just need to pair them as Generic Z-Wave devices if the model is not listed in the device pairing wizard. If they, however, have any special features such as acting as scene controllers as well like some Inovelli switches do, it’s best to ask first if the particular model you’re looking for is integrated with Vera.
If you are looking instead for two or more loads from a single switch/relay to display each load as a separate device in Vera (for instance the Fibaro FGS-223 double switch), then it’s best to make sure it is a model that is integrated with Vera to prevent compatibility issues.
I can tell you for sure that none of the Inovelli switches are integrated with Vera, so if you manage to pair them, they will probably only work for On/Off, and not for their scene control capabilities.
Regarding associations, keep in mind those are direct switch to switch (or device to device) connections without involving the controller once those associations are made, so I would instead create scenes if I need let’s say switch A and B to turn On/Off together instead of creating associations. But that’s my personal way to see it, you probably have your reasons to use associations instead.
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Thanks, Leonardo and thanks for all your help the past couple of weeks. Yes - I plan on continuing to use Vera controller.
I figured that stuff being sold/linked to on the Vera Shop site was a good bet as well, which is another reason I thought the Homeseer switches/dimmers would be a possible solution…
I use the Homeseer switches and love them. Both direct association works, and they have Aux switches if you have a traveler for 3 way switches. That all works even if you don’t install the plug in. If you install the SceenController plug in from gengen you also get access to program the LEDs as well as double, tripple, quad click funcitonality.
Most welcome Patrick.
I suggest you go to the following link and make sure you select the controller you have from the filter options on the left side to make sure it only lists devices that are compatible with your controller:
https://getvera.com/search#productLists
For instance, to see devices compatible with the Vera Edge:
Also, be careful with some of the Amazon links since Amazon sometimes reuses the same links for newer versions of the products that are not necessarily compatible, so as a rule of thumb, in case of doubt for compatibility of a specific device, feel free to ask here or directly through our support email support@ezlo.com and we will let you know whether or not the device in question is listed as compatible for your controller or not.
how do you add your plugin?
I just got the WS200+ switches and am anxious to remove the Inovellis and try the Homeseers.
I have Zooz devices in a Home Assistant set up and they work well. I just added Zooz (Zen21 and ZSE29 motion) to a Vera Plus and they work well. The Zen21 is set up in an association to switch a lamp plugged into a zwave outlet. The motion sensor works great also. Both were easy to setup and work well. Most other devices are GE/Jasco and work well, but all used in scenes, not associations.
okay - I’ll be installing (2) of the Homeseer HS - WS200+ switches in a virtual 3 way scenario today (no traveler wire). anything speical I should know, any tips?
For setting up the Direct Association for single click actions you can either use Vera Advance Options or the Plug in. Since there is no way to poll the direct association table on the device (only set it), the two might be a little out of sync (one won’t know that that the other has set it). But as long as it is working, I wouldn’t get to wrapped arround the axle about it. Remember you have to point them both at each other. To fully keep them in sync.
quick update; installed (2) of the Homeseer HS - WS200+ switches in a virtual 3 way scenario over the weekend (no traveler wire). works flawlessly. Associated each of the swtiches to each other on group 2 (tried group 1 at first and didnt work).
