I just moved to a new house and am looking to do all the switches from the same manufacturer. My other home had casetta, inovelli, ge and other z-wave switches.
I was thinking of going Inovelli red series, but I will need more 30 switches. So before I purchase I wanted to see what others thought of the price vs quality of each brand and benefits to keeping all switches the same.
Also who provides bulk pricing?
Inovelli has 10 packs. I settled on the Inovelli Red Series as soon as I got my first few through the preorder and they have only gotten better since then as they listen to the community and provide firmware updates to make improvements. The main problem I had with GE/Jasco besides being just a basic switch was the on button being the pair/unpair signal, I had switches unpaired accidentally multiple times while trying to unpair another Z-Wave device because I or someone else turned a light on.
I'll throw out that I've had success with the Zooz switches and dimmers. They work well and are enhanced regularly. Their support has been great and the participation of @agnes.zooz in the Community is an added plus. There may be quantity discounts and The Smartest House regularly has sales.
All ge here.
And I'll point out that on newer ones you can change the pairing/exclusion button sequence, if you so desire.
All Jasco/GE/Honeywell (which are essentially the same switches). I have a combo of older Z-Waves and newer Z-Wave Plus versions.
Costco has two-packs (Honeywell Z-Wave Plus dimmers, switches, outlets) for $49 right now.
They pair easily, @JasonJoel has a neat driver for the newer Z-Wave Plus verions, and both types have been reliable long-term for me. I did have one of the add-on switches for a three-way setup fail physically (spring failure in the switch), no electronic failures.
Using all of one brand will likely be easier on the family, as they never have to worry about differences as they move around the house. Also makes it easier for you as your switches all pair/work/automate/configure the same.
Innovelli's have some cool LED capabilities via a community driver that are nice. On the other hand there were a lot of pairing problems w/Innovelli switches w/the C7 hub for some folks. I haven't followed if those have all been worked out.
There's also color to consider. It doesn't matter that much to me, but the switch color better match or else my wife won't be happy.
I like Zooz, I've been using them for a few years. Their support has been very good in the past when I've reached out. Avoid the ZEN23 and ZEN24, I've had a lot of mechanical problems with those, the ZWave controls continue to work but mechanically the switch fails. I've since switch to ZEN26, ZEN27 and ZEN30.
I did have 3 GE switches wired in for my out door lights. Over the coarse of a year or so they have all died. No ZWave controls or local controls. I've switched those to Zooz also.
I have a few Inovelli smart plugs that work well. I feel like a lot of companies rebrand their smart plugs or Inovelli does, not sure. I have a ShowHome smart plug that looks and works just like my Inovelli. The Red series of Inovelli switches look interesting. I believe one of them can be wired in without a neutral wire.
Sometimes you can't avoid going with toggles... as they are required for consistency of the "style" of the place... I have Zen23/24's in my house and 65+ for another project. I would say they are working fine - have had a failure or 2 (expected in a large install) and some switches need to be fully pushed up in order to trigger an event ("down" generally seems to work though). Also installation can be tricky - careful to use the short screws that come in the box NOT standard long ones.
The issues with smart switches can be the slightly different look and "feel" in being always being centered. This is seems more logically consistent though since "up" will always repeat a certain function like "on".. as opposed to a normal switch whose function can change depending upon the state of the other switch in a 2/3-way configuration.
In my other project we had to combine regular secondaries with primary smart switches so it's kind of a mixed look - not as jarring as I thought it might be though.
I don't know maybe I just had bad luck or maybe the kids are hard on the switches. Zooz support was great they replaced several but I just got tired of swapping them out and went with some paddle switches instead. Sometimes it would be the "up" direction that would stop working, sometime the "down" direction and sometimes both. I still have a few toggles in low use areas. The one in my room, the up works fine but to toggle down I have to tilt the toggle slightly to the right so that it catches the internal switch.
Thank you for the heads up will keep it in mind.
My switches have been mostly okay, my daughter's room the "up" part really takes some effort or it doesn't work. It was kind of acting like that at the beginning though - I may replace it. The other switches seem to be fine. I have the U/L listed V2 switches (other versions are ETL) - they have been working for about a year or so.
The V3 switches/dimmers have just recently been installed for the other project. Have not had any complaints so far but will keep an eye out as still very early in the game.
Maybe @agnes.zooz has some thoughts on this.
Thanks for sharing your experience with the switches!
We've seen some issues with mechanical failure of the toggle part occasionally, which we found might have been caused during the side tab removal if it was done forcefully bending the metal plate. In some cases it might have been just forceful operation, like if you have small kids playing with the switches toggling them on and off constantly ( me 
). We have reinforced the toggle mechanism some time ago already and removed the heatsink tabs from the design in the latest 4.0 run so that should minimize any issues with physical operation going forward.
FWIW, I dont think you can really go wrong with any of the three mentioned in this thread. I personally have a mix of all three, and prefer the Zooz for most switches, with a few innovelli Reds for notifications, and I really like the new Innovelli fan controllers.
Queue the Lutron Caseta contingent!
S.
Iām leaning toward the inovelli, but will need to figure out how I want to wire the three way switches (using a dumb switch or two smart switches). I like the leds on the reds, and have a few at my other home.
Just buying 30+ dimmers seems expensive.
Wiring three way switches is pretty easy. I don't think inovelli uses the traveler wire they use an auxilary switch for the secondary and just wire it up as a 2 way, but if the switch you get calls for it, the traveler wire is almost always on the same side as the neutral wire. There are a couple oddballs out there but not common. The traveler wire is really just a communicator wire.
True that. I'd definitely lean towards the Zooz or Innovelli over the GEs if budget is a consideration. The new Enbrightens are nice, but costly. Zooz Zen-27 is presently going for $27.95@QTY 1, the Innovelli Black Dimmer is $31.97@QTY 1, and the Red Dimmer is $38.97 while the GE is $79.99 @ QTY 2 ($39.99 ea) -- individually, they are $44.99 each!
Tough call. As @JasonJoel has pointed out in the past, the GE/Jasco stuff generally "just works". I think they're feature limited compared to the Zooz and Innovelli, but sometimes that is a better choice from a stability perspective.
Personally, I'd probably build out with primarily Zooz, then add Innovelli Red's in where I wanted/needed notifications or Fan Controllers, and use the GE/Jasco Zigbee and Zwave-Plus in wall outlets for mesh enhancement. If I had to pick one brand, I'd prefer to go with Zooz, but the Innovelli fan controller is just the bees knees, and the Red LED bar is really useful, so I'd likely end up with a mix of Inovelli switches.
But...I don't have to, so my network leans towards Zooz, with a smattering of Innovelli, and a couple of GE/Jasco/Honeywell's (I have two Honeywell Zigbee switches strategically placed to provide Mesh support to my HBFC controllers).
S.
One thing to consider is Zooz switches are not recommended for bathroom fans.. in my "other" project mentioned above - I used Zooz for everything except bathroom fans which I am using the newest Enbrighten toggles.
Also thanks for chiming in @agnes.zooz!!! That is good info to know - I'll pass that along to the electrician as we still have more to install.
EDIT1: I also noticed that some of the installed dimmers the "slider" at the bottom are stuck, not sure it came that way or it was something with the installation process. Will be swapping those out as well.
EDIT2: I also use Enbrighten switches for the fans on my 2nd floor bathrooms as well (Zooz everywhere else). Has been working well.
Honeywell Z-Wave Plus switches are currently 22.50 each in two-packs from Costco. Great deal.
they did have dimmers and outlets also very much marked down but that looks like that's over now.
I just use dumb switches for the 3 and 4 way setups, I know Inovelli and Zooz support this. The only trick I've found is getting the smart switch wired in the right position. The switches are usually daisy chained together, with direct "Line" starting on one end and direct "Load" on the other. You have to wire the smart switch where the power "Line" starts and it's not always obvious. So if you wire it up and it's not working correctly, its probably wired in the wrong position, try again.
That is good if you have switches.
That isn't a workable solution if you have dimmers - unless you are OK not being able to dim from any of the other locations I guess (I'm not OK with that).
This is definitely one use case where GE et al get it right. Good point!
S.
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