I have some old Inovelli and really liked their new concepts but are never in stock. I also have Zooz switches and they seem good. I need to buy some more and want to know if the price difference equates to something tangible.
Just different flavors of devices, with a bit different feature set. Neither is better/worse than the other, really.
Some really like the programmable light bar and somewhat easier 3/4 way installations on the Inovelli, for example. Some prefer the cheaper price (and MUCH better availability) of the Zooz.
No right or wrong answer here. I have a mix of both myself and really don't strongly prefer one versus the other.
Inovelli's LED bar is admittedly pretty darn cool and useful, but Zooz is nothing to sneeze at - they have very good customer support and @jtp10181 has been cranking out great drivers for them.
So for ZW stuff, it's hard to go wrong either way. Inovelli's Blue series has the advantage of being able leverage direct-binding to zigbee lighting.
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Good point. I didn't touch on zigbee vs zwave... 
Talk to me about that zig direct bind for lightning please. I currently have a room with Hue that I paired with Hubitat and have my Zooz switches controlling them via Hubitat (power always on). Is there a better way to do it?
In your case, if the Hues are paired direct to HE (not on Hue bridge), then a Blue can use zigbee direct-binding to the Hue group - it's done right from the Blue driver.
The main advantage to direct-binding is that even if your HE is down for some reason, the lights still work (just like a dumb setup). Plus, it's even a bit faster response overall since it's not going through the hub each time.
But both things (light group & Blue) have to be paired on the same controller (e.g. HE) - Hue stuff paired on a Hue bridge won't work.
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check out direct binding with Hue
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That is amazing and game changing. I have never been happy with the dimming on my current setup. This would fix that.
Thank you.
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I am about to buy some Blue series switches. Could you walk me through some more about the follow statement you made and maybe include a screenshot?
"Blue can use zigbee direct-binding to the Hue group - it's done right from the Blue driver."
- what is a huge group
- so the blue driver(device in the manager?) tells the hue group to also bind the zigbee devices?
- how does hue or ambiance get commanded?
Thanks!
Here is a good article from Inovelli's support site. It creates the light group using Hubitat's "Groups & Scenes" app, but you can also use the newer "Room Lighting" app to create the group(s). In either case, you get the corresponding Group's "group number" the same way.
Zooz has awesome customer service, and most of their products work very well (I have found at least 2 turkeys). I have a bunch of Zooz stuff installed and a bunch of Inovelli in the closet because our house has toggles. Inovelli no longer makes switches with toggles, so those paddle switches are in the back of the closet until I decide to install them in a room, I no longer care about looks, get motivated to switch styles throughout the house (I don't see either happening anytime soon) or sell them on the black market. @jtp10181 's drivers work extremely well. The first thing I do is swap out from the native Zooz drivers to his.
Iovelli also has awesome service. At one point i was messaging the founder (Eric something, can't remember his last name) for advice on installing a switch, and he was responding, walking me through it, from the floor at CES! In my mind they have always been equal, but the lack of Toggles (and better inventory availability) tips in Zooz's favor.
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