I'm now fully migrated from ST over to Hubitat and so far so good, but now that everything is running locally I'm noticing annoying delays from my Zwave (Inovelli) dimmers. It just seems like sometimes commands take their sweet time to traverse the Zwave network back to the hub. I have a number of dimmers controlling smart bulbs (mostly Zigbee bulbs).
From what I've read, it seems the "best" would be Lutron, but at a price.
I have a very robust Wifi network in the home (Ruckus with a local wireless lan controller), so I'm wondering if wifi switches/dimmers might be just as good in my situation. Seems I could run TPLink units in local mode (but not sure of the limitations?), or get something I can load Tasmota onto to run locally.
Is it worth giving wifi switches/dimmers a try? Or just forget it and take the Lutron plunge?
Operation needs to be fast, bulbs reacting in under a second consistently. WAF is a huge component here due to the lag problems we've had.
Also btw, we do have a handful of three way setups, not sure if that would affect the suggestion or not.
Hello & welcome, I have the inovelli dimmers and they're fast, very fast. How's the z-wave mesh? And check z-wave details-> connection speed. Z-wave plus should be at 100kbps with a good mesh/connection.
The lutron are no doubt working well but very expensive, I mean why even have a hub if you have to dump 1000.00 for light switches, plus the lutron pro bridge. I mean maybe I'm just cheap or poor & cheap, but that's something I can't grasp
AFAIK, the only officially supported WiFi switches are Shelly relays.
FWIW, I am completely satisfied with my Lutron switches/dimmers. My response time from triggering event to a change in dimmer/switch status is under 200 ms.
However, my (few) z-wave+ switches respond very similarly. So my first suspicion is that something is awry with your z-wave network.
I have very little first-hand experience with WiFi bulbs, other than one LIFX bulb that came free with an Amazon Echo Dot.
On the other hand, I have replaced all of my old Z-Wave switches and Dimmers, as well as all remaining manual switches, with Lutron Caseta and could not be more pleased. Yes, the Lutron gear is more expensive, however... "It Just Works!" every time. The WAF jumped through the roof once I started adding Lutron devices, and she actually started asking me to automate more lights throughout the house. This was a first!
The other great thing about the Lutron Caseta SmartBridge Pro2 and associated devices, is that it provides native integration with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Hubitat, Home Assistant, Node-RED, SmartThings, Ring Doorbells, etc... And all of these can be used at the same time if desired.
So, when you buy a Lutron, you;re investing in a Lighting System....not just some switches and dimmers.
Oh, and Pico Remotes!!! They are amazing button controllers that you can use with Hubitat to control anything in the system.
All the devices are connected S0 and currently show 100 kbps. Most of the time, responses in the single dimmer setups are pretty quick, but often enough commands get "lost" where the switch indicates it's off (LED off) but Hubitat still thinks it's on. Or vice versa. And then other times commands seem to take multiple seconds to get back to the hub. The slowest by far are the virtual three way dimmers using Zwave association between the dimmers. I've done and redone and redone the setup many times always per Inovelli's guidance with no improvement. Sigh.
It's a great idea and I have considered it, but somewhat dismissed it because of the other issues with commands from dimmers in simpler setups sometimes being slow or seeming to get lost. If the three way setups were the only ones with issues, that'd probably be a solid solution.
This still suggests mesh issues. Z-wave messages should not be lost in the "ether". Can you describe your z-wave mesh in more detail? Also, any ghost nodes? Any stranded nodes?
Everything looks clean as far as I can tell. After I finished migrating off ST and disconnected that hub, I did Zwave repair twice (the first time had one node fail so I ran it a second time).
Maybe one last thing before I give up totally, maybe I break all the Zwave associations and do everything through the hub. See if that helps. I don't know what else to try other than jumping to a different dimmer tech (hence this thread).
There is a community integration for TP-Link devices (disclaimer: I am the developer). It is free and supports all the current Kasa bulbs, plugs, and switches. Full functional control is provided for all and energy monitoring for those with built-in energy monitoring.
Community drivers have varying degrees of development stability and support - so you need to check closely in this community for recommendations.
Dave
PS. The local integration has used for a year the "raw socket" capability that has been tagged as "beta" for well over a year. Reason is raw socket supports receiving the full return message from the commands while UDP does not.
OUCH. That is going to really slow down things. And there is no way to fix this now, short of pairing them again. The only thing that should be paired S0 are locks and garage doors, and even then only the older versions of these. Newer locks should be S2.
You can look at it another way. Some people desire a top quality, rock solid lighting system that can integrate with many platforms. Lutron is arguably the winner in this category and Hubitat is just an inexpensive add-on to their top quality home automation lighting system.
Disclaimer: I have 40 or so zwave plus light switches and several other zwave plus devices. I have a Lutron bridge with a few light switches and several picos. I have zigbee locks and window sensors. I like all three standards. The only wifi I use is Hubduino.
Would I need to reset the whole network and re-pair everything unsecured? Or can I do a few devices as a test? Excluding/including a few of the most used dimmers wouldn't be a big deal, but rebuilding totally only to find no improvement would suck.
The issue will be, at what point do you make things better? Will one device fix it? Probably not. Or what about 5, 10 or whatever number of devices? You are totally guessing which devices and how many of them are causing a problem.
You could try just start doing the exclusion and inclusion and work your way through to the list until it gets better. But what happens in the future if you add more devices, will it remain stable?
So I hate to say it, but you are probably going to need to do everything that is S0 again. Personally, I would not start fresh (reset radio) unless you only had a few devices, especially if these are used in automations and rules. I would probably work my way down through the list, "delete" and then re-include each one individually.
I would say sooner than later. Because even if your re-pair a small number of devices as unsecured, your z-wave network is going feel the effects of increased traffic between the controller and other devices that are S0 paired.
Got it, so the test would be to blast the Zwave network and start over. I don't have the patience left with it to chance it (neither does the wife). We'll see how that goes and then if it still isn't good enough, circle back to this wifi vs. Lutron idea.
FWIW, even though there are community integrations for WiFi dimmers/switches, and a built-in integration for Shelly devices, I would strongly recommend the Lutron route. It will stand you in good stead even if you decice to later move to Home Assistant or something else.
