I have a hubitat for controlling my water main. I need help finding the proper decora switches for my kitchen.
I have (2) 3-gang boxes on either side of the kitchen. In one of the boxes, there is a switch that does nothing. When the electricians wired the house, they forgot to run a 3way wire between the boxes for this circuit.
I've done some reading and it seems that I should be able to install 2 zwave switches in both boxes and make one a virtual switch to replicate what 3 way switches do. I have neutral wires in the boxes.
Question: which switches should I get that can do this and operate closest to the feel/look of typical rocker decora switches? Basically I don't really want people noticing these are not normal switches. Hoping to be somewhat cost conscience.
May not even need the battery powered ZEN34, depends on if both boxes have a hot feed or just one. If both you could just get two ZEN or any brand really, and tie them together on the hub or with associations. If only one does then yes you could do one of the powered ZEN switches on the hot side, and the ZEN34 on the other side.
Be warned though, pretty much all the Zwave smart switches are more of a momentary up/down toggle and return to center style if that makes sense. So they are not like the traditional up/down decora style. They are actually better IMO because up is always on and down is always off (if you program it that way). There was an entire thread about this not too long ago if I remember correctly the person got quite upset that no one made switches which worked how they wanted.
Thanks for the answers here. The battery powered switch is nice to save like $10 for one of the switches.
I looked into the rocker style mentioned and it appears no one makes a standard switch that stays in the up or down position. So I guess I'm stuck with that design.
I do have power/ground/neutral in both boxes.
Are there any non z wave alternatives that don't require hubs, WiFi, and work like standard decora switches?
I've seen the lutron caseta and pico but that's too many buttons.
In my searches, I've seen z wave and direct association mentioned so that no hub is needed. Do you have any recommendations for that method with more standard looking switches? There are so many model numbers for each manufacturer my head is spinning.
You could use the Sonoff ZBMINI (zigbee, I know you mentioned zwave) smart relay. But this could do what you want with one limitation.
The zbmini installs inside of a switchbox. It has 2 terminals that you can connect a regular toggle or decora style paddle switch to.
Here's a picture of the wiring. In the picture the red/blue wires are your line/neutral/load and the black is only to trigger the sonoff to toggle its current state. There is no mains voltage on the black wires.
However up is not always on as the switch simply toggles the current state of the zbmini.
That looks like a great option. Was just looking at a Shelly now. I like that this one is cheaper and is natively supported by hubitat. I'll give it a shot. Thank you!
One thing to consider it it matters to you. The Shelly has the option of buying UL listed models, the sonoffs are not. I have a bunch of zbminis, I've been phasing them out in the main house and using in outbuildings. They are not very strong repeaters. There are other companies that make in the box relays like fibaro and I think zooz just introduced one.
Thanks for all the replies here. I wanted to report back. I picked up 3 zbminis on ebay for a great price. I put 2 in on the kitchen switches. One is on the working 2way switch to the lights and the other is in the triple gang box with the switch that did nothing.
The hubitat recognized the zbminis very quickly. After experimenting with different device types (settled on "generic ZigBee switch" for both) in hubitat and settings on Rule Machine, I got everything working as hoped for.
So both switches now control the light and I'm using standard decora switches so the original look and feel match the rest of the switches in the box. The delay for the virtual switch is probably half a second to turn on the lights.
Overall I'm very happy with how it turned out.
Next project now also involves a zbmini. I'm going to use it with a 240v contactor to turn off my well controller if the leak sensors by the washing machines go off. Currently I have the dome water main shut off, but there appears to be a glitch where when it shuts off the water main ball valve; right as it finishes turning the valve off, the motor "bounces" indefinitely as if it doesn't think it has bottomed out in the off position (which it has because the water valve is completely off). I've adjusted and tightened the motor's position every which way, but the motor keeps bouncing. If I help it by barely pressing the lever into the off position, it will stop "bouncing". Seems like I remember it didn't originally do this. I opened up the dome water valve enclosure and I don't see any obvious parts worn or misaligned.
Plus one for the ZB mini. I have a bunch of them throughout the house and they're great. My living room electrical trim is screwless plates in matte black. Good luck finding something smart in that color.
They work great and they're cheap. Just watch the amps if you're going to use them directly on a well pressure switch.
To disconnect the well. It requires controlling 240v 15a. To do that, I'm going to use a contactor. So the actual amps the well controller uses will go through a 40a contactor, not the zbmini. The zbmini will just act as a switch for the contactor.
