If I leave the other switches in the three way as is (dumb) would it not still work, just without any dimming functionality?
One of the review says you have to pair these by cutting the power?
Any other zigbee switches you recommend? I heard the Aqara ones are non-standard and should be avoided. Maybe I should just stick with Zooz or Inovelli Red with zwave?
Zooz and Inovelli are definitely great Z-Wave switches. Lutron are also very solid if you want to invest in a Lutron Pro 2 hub.
If you prefer Zigbee and are not in any rush, Inovelli is planning to release a Zigbee switch in the near future. Not sure if they have a confirmed date yet.
I am not familier with Enbrighten’s switches, so will let others comment on those.
I’ve got a bunch of these and they’re great. To answer your questions:
Yes, you need their “add-on” switch for the 3 way to work properly. You can wire it without one, but you’ll get some pretty weird results: depending on where the switch is in the circuit, you will have either (1) the dumb switch will power the smart switch on and off, and the smart switch will do the lights (if it’s got power); or (2) the smart switch will do the lights, but only if the dumb switch is in the correct position.
The add-on switch splices the common and one of the travelers together, so that circuit is always complete. It uses the other traveler to send an electrical pulse back to the smart switch to tell it to do the actual switching. It’s rather clever, although if you don’t know this is how it works, the directions that come in the box may have your brain screaming at you that the wiring can’t possibly be right. I had to watch their instructional video (and I HATE instructional videos) to convince myself I wasn’t wiring a short on purpose.
You do have to cut power at the breaker to pair them the first time, but that’s because you should be doing that when you wire them in. When you restore power at the breaker they’ll go into pairing mode. Once paired, if you do need to reset them, you can do so with a pattern of taps on the paddle, no additional breaker popping necessary.
