Perhaps this is more of a question for Zooz support -- but figured I'd ask the audience here, as well...
Most (all?) of the new zooz 700-series switches (zen71, zen32 scene controller) state not to connect to a receptacle somewhere in the product listing (usually hidden in the product images)... yet in the Installation notes, it mentions not to exceed 1800W(15A) for a resistive load -- which aligns with a standard US 120V circuit. Is there a technical reason for not wanting to have a receptacle downstream of these switches? Is it a concern over inrush current for motors, e.g. if someone plugs a vacuum into the outlet connected to the switch relay? My use cases so far involve outlets with a comparatively light load, e.g. used for lighting (so might as well just be a light bulb on the circuit)... Comparatively, the 500-series zen21 does not have this restriction mentioned...
It appears you are leaning towards the correct answer already. Electrically, having a downstream outlet is transparent to the switch .. the switch couldn't care less about that. But having an outlet presents the possibility that loads the switch isn't designed for are connected accidentally, and that's what they are seeking to avoid.
Several inappropriate loads are clearly mentioned in the product description for ZEN71.
yep, I think @HAL9000 nailed it - they are just trying to protect against general stupidity as best they can.
Would you consider using smart bulbs in the plug-in fixture(s)? I have a small older house and a switch by the front door controls a nearby outlet in the living room. For a long time, I just hard-wired those switch hots behind a blank-face wall plate and used hue bulbs in all of my various plug-in living room fixtures.
It recently occurred to me that I could wire a Zooz switch in that space in "smart-bulb mode" (but not connect the load) and use that as a wired scene controller -- it works like a champ! Sure, I could've used a Pico in there, but if I can use wired vs batteries, that's a win!
I used a Z71 instead of a Z32 since we just have a couple go-to scenes for the living room, so the Z71 is less intimidating button-wise.
It works really slick - I wish I'd thought of doing this a long time ago!
ETA: the corresponding outlet is still effectively hard-wired -- from the corresponding bundles in the wall-swich box, I simply wago'd in an additonal line hot, neutral, and ground to the Z71.
Thanks guys, that was my assessment - just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing some obvious reason...
@hydro311 yeah, that's pretty much my use case as well - I've got some old NuTone z-wave accessory switches in place right now, that don't even have a load side - so the outlets are hardwired in the switch box, with jumpers to power the switch. The NuTone switches are a little buggy sometimes, while my existing zooz switches work like a charm - so was thinking to swap them out, and run in smart bulb mode.
Just waffling about whether to connect the load side (so that I can just change the configuration if I put a "dumb" bulb back in at some point), or leave it as-is...
That's what I just did with 8 of the switches I had previously bypassed or put ugly switch covers over due to my ever growing collection of Hue lights. Another 10 of them got covered by Lutron aurora rotary dimmers, so they have the dumb switches still in place. I really liked the idea of the hard wired smart dimmers (Zen77s), but the aurora dimmers are soooo much faster (instant when connected to Hue) that it's like they are hard wired. The Zen77s still have features that are very nice, especially with the custom driver, and are working how I imagined they would after learning how to adjust them, but the misses prefers to just turn a dial.
