Best Switches and Dimmers - Reliability & Connectivity Most Important

Can anyone recommend which dimmers and switches are the most reliable and connect easily with Hubitat?

Thanks,
David

If you're starting from scratch, I would encourage you to at least look at the Lutron Caseta Switches and Dimmers (and soon ceiling fan controller too!) It also supports Lutron Pico remotes which are amazing and inexpensive. The Pico remotes can be used without any Lutron Switches and Dimmers, if desired. They make for some of the best button controllers I have ever used. And, they are inexpensive (<=$15) and have a 10 year battery life.

To use Lutron Caseta Switches/Dimmers/Picos, you need to buy a Lutron Smart Bridge Pro hub. It must be the PRO edition to support LAN connectivity with Hubitat via Telnet. This integration is incredibly fast and reliable.

The great thing about Lutron is that their RF protocol is rock solid stable. It just works, every time, all the time.

Each Lutron Smart Bridge Pro hub can handle up to 75 devices. If you need more than 75, you can add a second Lutron Smart Bridge Pro hub to your Hubitat hub.

Search through the forum and you will see nothing but happy Lutron Caseta users.

Your other options for light switches and dimmers are the Z-Wave Plus and Zigbee devices. Many users are pleased with the latest generation of GE/Jasco Z-wave Plus Switches, Dimmers, and Fan controllers. I use many of these around my house, including some of the older Z-wave (non-Plus) versions. The older ones do not report their state changes back to Hubitat when physically actuated at the switch. This is why I strongly urge you to avoid buying these older versions. The Z-Wave Plus versions work fine.

If I was going to start all over, I would definitely go with Lutron Caseta. I bought the Smart Bridge Pro hub from Energy Avenue just to use Caseta Pico remotes. I can't say enough about how awesome they are, especially when integrated with Hubitat as button controllers. I have them wall-mounted in various locations and on our night stands, affording very easy control of the house when going to sleep.

I hope this helps. Good luck and welcome to Hubitat!

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x2 to everything @ogiewon said above :sunglasses:

I'm in the process of swapping out all of my older GE devices for Lutron Caseta. Having used both, the look, feel, and operation of the Lutron stuff just seems a lot more refined to me. Plus, they are carried by both Lowe's and Home Depot (except the Pro hub, neither has that)....and I found out yesterday Home Depot will price match Energy Avenue. Win-win on local availability and price.

That being said, if you're wanting to stick with z-wave or a more traditional looking device, I'd recommend the GE/Jasco z-wave plus devices. They are widely available and widely supported, and I haven't heard many complaints about them.

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I have a bunch of inovelli switches and they work great and have a very full featured driver. They are not available right now, but newest version is going on presale today and it looks pretty good. they have eliminated the need for a neutral and have added energy monitoring to their switches. not sure what the prices will be but worth a look depending how much of a rush you are in.

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If you want 'normal' wall switches or paddles (I hate the luton devices), and/or don't want to pay the price for the Caseta, then I would go GE/Jasco Z-Wave Plus switches.

Zooz has a lot of fans on here, too, but I had very bad experiences with them so won't recommend them.

Inovelli is vaporware at this point, so certainly will not recommend them (not that you could actually buy them even if I did though... lol).

Homeseer also has some nice switches and dimmers. They take a little more work as the advanced features are not available with the built-in Hubitat drivers. So you will need to use user created drivers to get 100% of the functions.

But in a nutshell I would categorize the most common recommendations as:

  • Lutron Caseta
    or
  • Anything else z-wave plus

Not many people do zigbee for wall switches, but those are available too and would work fine, technically.

Pre-order price on the dimmer is $30 (nice!!!) with a target availability of 5/15. I can't tell at all what the rocker paddle is going to be like from the mock-up...

The device appears to have some great features, though - based on the description and hardware info tab. If they can actually DELIVER the product reliably (I have never been able to actually buy an inovelli device yet, after multiple attempts, so they'll have to prove it to me...), and the features work as advertised, that will be one bad ■■■ device.

No ETA on the site for a non-dimmer switch (if there is even going to be one - sounds like you can make the dimmer version work as a switch).

The pessimist in me thinks that they are still going to have massive supply issues, and in reality it will probably be fall before everything is readily/consistently available (my best guess).

Unfortunately, that is about the time Zwave 700 devices will start rolling out from GE/Jasco, et al... I fully expect Jasco to debut (or at least discuss) their Zwave 700 devices at the next Z-Wave Summit this fall.

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Yea I got lucky and cleaned up on the clearout on amazon :slight_smile: I bought 17 of them ! LOL

@ericm can you shed any light on availability, cost and lead times etc...

Some good discussions on their reddit page

https://www.reddit.com/user/InovelliUSA

And there is talk of the fan/switch combo next

Crazy thought, what is the markup on these switches and dimmers from Wholesale.
Would it not be worth becoming a reseller for these until you have outfitted your house?

Any ideas anyone?

Nice stuff!

They need a motion switch/dimmer, though, to really round out the offering. I can't believe how much I rely on my GE motion switch/dimmers now.

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I concur with @JDRoberts. Best overall is Lutron. If it's in your budget (approx 2x Caseta), RadioRA 2, especially if keypads and/or aesthetics are of interest. Leviton for Z-wave.

I agree that most reliable is Caseta/RadioRA 2... They have the best radio technology, in most people's opinions (and I agree!). And that leads to highest reliability of signal and function.

Best 'overall' though? ... Well, that's subjective, isn't it? I would disagree with that statement, for instance. :slight_smile:

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So I want to make sure I have this straight.

The recommendation here, in the Habitat community forum, is that the best dimmer you can get involves spending another $80 for a hub from another manufacturer?

Yup. That is the recommendation from some people if the goal is highest reliability.

I am perfectly happy with my zwave plus GE dimmers/switches. No doubt in my mind that RadioRA2 is a much better protocol and radio. But zwave plus is good enough for me, and the features on multiple brands meet my needs.

For instance, I have zero interest in pico remotes and the like, so that isn't a positive for Caseta to me at all. Others love their pico remotes.

You have to decide for yourself what are the features you are looking for, the price point you want, and the use cases. That can lead you to the best solution FOR YOU. It might be Caseta, it might be zwave plus or something else.

Recommandation : Jasco GE Motion Dimmer 26933 ZW3008
If i can give you a recommendation that i would have liked to received when i started to buy domotic stuff : if you buy a dimmer, buy it whit a motion sensor. Cost a bit more but when you enter in a room boomm light turn on really fast.
I use this driver hubitat/GE 26933 Dimmer switch.groovy at master · jrfarrar/hubitat · GitHub
During the night i put them in manual mode (no On with motion) with a Aeotec WallMote Quad ZW130-A
And when i wake up i push a button of my WallMote and the dimmer turn to Occupancy (Turn on with motion).

I have multiple GE ZWAVE switches I purchased from Lowes when my system was IRIS based. I have migrated them to the HE system and they work extremely well. I have had my GE switches for several years and had no issues.

Few will agree with me, but Insteon are excellent dimmers and switches. Connectivity and reliability to the own hub is excellent.

They score low with connection to Hubitat because of the extra Node.js server needed. However, once that’s setup, reliability, speed, hardware features, control, etc. they’ve got it all for about the same price as Caséta, but with much better hardware features. Connection to the hub is local.

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