One advantage to ZB switches is they (firmware-permitting) can easily be directly binded to one or more zigbee smart bulbs for additional "the system's down" resilience.
ZB direct-binding is a similar concept to ZW direct association. There are just a lot more ZB bulbs on the market than ZW, so that's where a ZB switch (like the Blue) can be particularly handy.
I'd like to find out more about this.
But, just like ZW associations, I haven't come across much on the forum.
A lot of us mix. For instance My house is a combination of z-wave, zigbee, Clear connect and a smattering of local controlled wifi. Don't limit yourself to just one protocol. If you do, you're locking yourself out of some cool stuff available only on z-wave etc...
Direct-binding works really slick... In our small house's small main bathroom, my wife prefers a warm light and I like a cooler light. So a couple Hue bulbs in the vanity sconces works great for us.
But that's the only room in the house where we rely exclusively on smart bulbs for lighting, so it was uniquely vulnerable to any hub-connectivity or hub-down issues... Direct-binding gives me peace-of-mind that those lights still work if the hub or mesh is down for any reason. And it indeed works great - you'd never know it wasn't a hard-wired connection.
This is very interesting. I don't have any smart bulbs, and am thinking of dabbling. You can do this without a Hue hub?
Are you using the Inovelli switches you mentioned? I know nothing about them. Do any devices allow direct binding?
Even without no power supplied to the hub? With z-wave there's a long lag.
The bulbs need to be paired directly to HE (these are my only 2 Hue bulbs that aren't integrated via CoCoHue), and I'm using an Inovelli Blue... With the Blues, the binding can be set up right from the Blue's Device page in HE.
I can't speak to how binding works with other switches/devices just because I've never tried anything else.
But yeah, the response speed is indistinguishable from a dumb hard-wired setup -- it's instantaneous. I test it for peace-of-mind every time I have my HE powered-off / offline (doing a radio reset or whatever troubleshooting/maintenance thing that requires pulling its power).
I always though ZW was similar, until I pulled power as well as shut down the hub. Then it slowed up greatly (by design...unavoidable, apparently).
Pretty sure he has said before it does not, but can't find it.
Help- how do you do this? I am using firmware 2.14 and Inovelli Driver from 12/22/22 on my Blue Zigbee switch. I tried to do it using the Zigbee bindings app, but doesn't appear to work
The latest driver is 2023-04-11:
raw.githubusercontent.com/InovelliUSA/Hubitat/master/Drivers/inovelli-dimmer-blue-series-vzm31-sn.src/inovelli-dimmer-blue-series-vzm31-sn.groovy
Maycock's thread about binding:
How To’s | Setup Zigbee Group Binding - Hubitat - How To's & Flex Zone - Inovelli Community
Well, there 'ya go. I've never even used Groups and Scenes or Room Lighting, lol.
I (of course) purchased a Jasco Dimmer and it is as dumb as the switch (as expected). It is so strange they would limit the usefulness by not sending out button events. Why even have two buttons if all it does is a state change...
Download the Hubitat app
