I have around 50 dimmers, all various revisions of Jasco/Ge. A good chunk are old first generation back from the Iris v1 days. Several in between, maybe 5-6 are zwave plus and maybe 2 are the very latest.
So probably 40 of 50 are not plus
45 of 50 are dimmers.
Then we have ~10 ge accessories switches for multi-ways.
All ceiling fans have ge zwave fan controllers
We may sell our house and move to a “new to us house”. If we do buy a new house I’d replace every switch in the house prior to moving in
Before the question let me tell u about the rest of the house. Every room, hallway, area has motion detectors (they are coming with me). Every ext door, and Every bedroom door and some other int door has a door contact.
These are Iris v2 and currents SmartThings motion sensors.
We do tons of motion based lighting.
We have only a few hue bulbs, these are mostly lamps and hue go. This may change
The question.
So, move our old switches or get all new ones?
And most importantly If new, which switches?
The new house has one light that is a 5way. I’d love to replace that sucker with one that does not require rewire.
I'd take everything with you, but replace the regular zwave with zwave plus. Also I'd replace the switches before you start showing your house so there's no liability there. If it's attached to the house it's included in the house.
A lot of this has to do with personal preference, cost, and situation. Some lights you will want to dim, some its not so important (laundry room, garage for example) Some you may want RGBW, and some you may want motion detection along with it.
just a note... When you look at your 'new to us house' if it's pre-2011 construction then you may have some switch boxes without a neutral making them unusable for smart switches. Or at least extra effort would be required to get neutral to the box.
no I do not use Z-wave for lighting. Lutron integrates with HE so my devices (motion/contact) can turn stuff On/Off as needed. I have Z-wave/Zigbee outlets for mesh stability, and all lighting has been moved to Lurton (it works 100% of the time no matter what)
from the time I see the green motion flash to light is lees then 1 second. Our bathroom light "must come on before guest hands can touch the button"
Yes, I have Radio RA2 with Keypads that control scenes and non-Lutron devices. Once they are in HE via the integration you can do anything you can do with any switch.
FYI - you need a "Pro" hub if doing Casta, or repeater for RA2 for integration. Radio RA2 is not cheep but I highly recommend it.
EDIT: and that is not even mention the fabulousness of Picos! If you have not looked into them, you should, best button controllers ever! IMHO
Any new house I get will be RadioRA 2 only. Best performance, best aesthetics IMO. Yes it's expensive. But it just works and will work even without a HA hub. But a HA hub makes the system much more flexible.
A hint: the entry level "Essentials" system (up to 95 devices) requires a few hours of free on-line training. The next level "Inclusive" (up to 190 devices) used to require in-person training. They're now offering it live over the internet via MS Teams. It's 2.5 days and $650, but that cost includes a lot of hardware including a Main Repeater and Connect Bridge.
