I am replacing my WEMO gen 1 WiFi light switches with local Zigbee controlled switches. I am looking at the new Enbrighten Zigbee switches. Has anyone installed these? Will the current GE/Jasco driver work with these? These are all stand-alone switches; no three-way circuits. Does anyone have another recommendation?
YapFlapper
I have several, and they are on the Official Compatible Device List and they work well.
https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=List_of_Compatible_Devices
It does support 3 way with an add on. The manual below covers requirements (See Multi location Wiring):
https://byjasco.com/mwdownloads/download/link/id/2065/
Go with innovelli or Lutron Caseta... You will be much happier (Lutron's are tanks)
Any particular reason for Zigbee instead of Zwave?
You can get a Zooz or Inovelli Red series, both Zwave, for the same price or cheaper, as that GE. They have more features than the GE/Jasco like double tap/scenes, and various other features. Both are fairly well regarded brands, and have excellent after sales support.
GE/Jasco 43080 has been performing reliably for over a year. It is in a steel electrical box 50 feet (15m) from my hub, yet it connects directly and routes several nearby sensors. It is in my garage, subjected to 100+F (38+C) temperatures.
As @neonturbo points out, though, the 43080 lacks features that I now realize are important to me. I have become rather fond of my Z-Wave Zooz ZEN22 (newer version is ZEN77). Of specific interest to me was being able to configure how the dimmer responds to manually pressing the switch. Not having this feature might have derailed my home automation journey in its infancy. I fumbled around with level pre-staging, but it was a clumsy band-aid at best.
If someone knows of a similarly full-featured Zigbee option, then I would also love to learn about it. All of my dimmers - ZB or ZW - are prolific repeaters, so having a few of each sprinkled around would be great.
I would be very curious to see how these work out. My ZB device count has increased over the years and now have about 85+ ZB to 70+ ZW devices.
Zigbee certainly is fast and somewhat more robust in changing conditions like power outages and device failures. For me the ZB locks have been less problematic and motion sensors more reliable/faster. Built-in security so don't have to choose at pairing. The Zigbee group command is nice to reduce "pop-corning" effect when turning on/off a bunch of lights simultaneously.. ZBv3 promises better device compatibility (still remains to be seen) and Matter supposedly will have backwards compatibility if HE goes in that direction with a future hub..
Z-Wave has the lower frequency (theoretically better individual device range) and the carrot of LR on the horizon. Also once established a Z-Wave network seems very stable. Really like the Z-Wave associations feature in more modern ZW+ devices that bypass the hub and make pairing N-Way switches together very easy. In theory Z-Wave devices are usually more compatible thanks to the standards however IRL device firmware can make a big difference in my experience - good or bad.
I made the decision long ago to go with zigbee rather than zwave. I have no regrets.. All of the devices in my system except for the WEMO WIFI plugs, dimmers, and switches are Zigbee.
I wish I had not gone WiFi with WEMO, but am too far down that path now. As I add new switches. etc. or replace old and/or failing WEMO.devices. I am continuing with Zigbee rather than WiFi.
I installed a GE Enbrighten Zigbee switch yesterday. It was a dream to install and setup. It paired instantly. Hubitat added it via device scan as Generic, but I changed it manually to GE Zigbee switch and it is working well. Response to voice via Google Home is near instantaneous. Ditto for the Device page.
I am going to install 2 more today after daybreak and coffee.
I replaced all five of the gen 1 Wemo light switches. It has been over a month and the GE switches are working very well.
YapFlapper
i have both zwave and zigbee enbrighten switches.. not one problem with zigbee models.. i have had a few zwave fail during power outages/surge.. the radios seem prone to dying.. anyway they are at least good about replacing them.
I recently replaced all my ge zwave with the zwave plus models when i switched over from smartthings to hubitat as i found in the first conversion older zwave non plus switches did not work well.
Jasco (GE Products) currently has both Zigbee and Z-Wave switches and Outlets on sale. You can get an additional 10% off using the code "INSIDER10" at checkout. When I ordered a few minutes ago, I had free shipping and no Sale's tax (which is 8% for my state). I use mostly zigbee for switches and outlets but I do have a couple Z-wave Plus also. My preference is zigbee but to have a dual mesh, I use the GE Z-Wave plus mainly for extenders. Another thing I admire is that 50% of the profits go to Humanitarian needs across the world.
With all that said, I think I'll place another order. http://byjasco.com
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