Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikeyouse | Hacker News Reader

Lutron has a physical switch that you replace your lightswitch with -- it works via the Caseta smart stuff, or it just works as a normal light switch that's 100% bulletproof. Also they use a much lower and less busy frequency (433mhz) so you get great range, no interference, and very low battery consumption when using the remote products. I went from 1/20 button pushes not doing what I wanted on Philips to 0 failures ever when I bit the bullet and replaced everything with Lutron.

View on HN

So do many Z-Wave and Zigbee manufacturers?

https://inovelli.com/collections/z-wave-light-switches-red-s...

https://www.getzooz.com/products/

https://leviton.com/products/dz15s-1bz

https://byjasco.com/products/smart-home-automation/z-wave

How are any of these functionally different?

Well I just went into the first one, and you can't use it if you have e.g. low volt LEDs in your kitchen like I do.. and they all look to be in the 900mhz range. I'm sure there's some combination of Zigbee stuff that could match the Lutron setup -- they look more customizable so maybe that's a plus for people too. We were just tired of fighting to get our smart home to not be annoying so plug and play with Lutron was a big win, and you can layer in more control with HA that has no danger of breaking everything. If I were starting over, I might take a look at some of those, and I'm glad there's some competition in the space.

> and they all look to be in the 900mhz range

Why is this an issue? Z-Wave is a mesh network, all hardwired switches/outlets/etc. are repeaters by default.

> low volt LEDs in your kitchen like I do

What is "low volt?" 12-24V? I have this in my kitchen using a 110V -> 24V dimmable LED PSU and a Z-Wave triac dimmer.

Zigbee is not Z-Wave - Z-Wave has far more definition and structure to available devices and can do everything Lutron can do at this point.

Zwave is a proprietary protocol. Its old and unnecessary complex. Zigbee devices are a lot cheaper. And in many cases better performing than zwave mesh networks. A few years ago you still had zwave devices you did not have zigbee variants for. But now? Cant think of one.

> Zwave is a proprietary protocol. Its old and unnecessary complex. Zigbee devices are a lot cheaper. And in many cases better performing than zwave mesh networks.

That’s not entirely correct. Zwave is more expensive because if you want to sell your zwave solution there’s a monopoly on zwave. Nothing to do with complexity or age.

As for “better performing”, I don’t even know how to respond. Latency? Reliability? Power? Bandwidth?

Zwave in general is better then zigbee due to lower frequencies and staying out of WiFi/bt. However it is more expensive and less options.

Thanks! I've been wanting to automate my home. I'd prefer something like these with backup and without proprietary hubs.

Any that you'd recommend in particular?

I had a house full of a variety of switches I just moved out of - some Lutron, inovelli, and Leviton.

For zwave, the best actual physical control was with Leviton - they have a rocker switch for dimming and are therefore easier to use than most. They don’t support multi-press scenes or anything like that but I found that to be a bit of a gimmick anyway, and dedicated buttons are a better option.

Inovelli had the most features, but aren’t precisely colour matched to other brands - they are kind of whiter than the standard white colour so stand out if you put them in a bank with others or against certain face plates.

In my new house I have a few zooz switches for special cases alongside Lutron for everything else and Zooz work fine.

Inovelli and Zooz dimming controls are both done by holding down the on/off paddles which isn’t intuitive for visitors, and it’s hard to fine adjust without resorting to app control.

Of everything my favourite is Lutron Diva for hands down the best looking and easiest to use actual physical control but these use a proprietary (albeit easy to integrate) hub.

Inovelli is now color matched to Lutron Claro plates.

Good to know, though they don't have replacements for the remaining switch I have.

The Inovelli Red series Z-Wave dimmers are probably the best dimmers around with the most customization, software features, and spec compliance.

Zooz is probably a close second, and probably the go-to for switches, relays, smart plugs, sensors, etc. today.

I honestly haven't tried those products, but what I don't see is the ability to have remotes control switches (or plug-in lamp modules) without needing to use a controller. Caseta allows this because there is a pairing process that just involves the remote and the switch. I'm not aware of any similar Z-Wave or Zigbee thing, but it would certainly be cool if those existed and honestly would make me reconsider Z-Wave/Zigbee if I was redoing my system.

I only recently (3 months ago) set up my new house with Lutron devices because their diva dimmers are truly the best of anything out there I’ve used - their slide dimmer control is easy to use and their lack of flicker and buzzing with leds is the best out there. Their battery powered remotes also last forever (10 years?) without needing battery changes and work very reliably.

I do have a couple of zwave dimmers for special cases (dimmer and fan in one switch), and they support zwave association. Without the hub being available, one switch can turn on another - you could have the light turn on a fan, for example, or associate a remote control to a light. Zigbee has a similar feature.

Worked for them in various capacities for 6 years. It’s still what’s mostly in my house and mostly what I recommend for lighting control on projects. I’ll admit I have been eying Casambi with some interest.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com