Zooz vs Leviton 800 series Zwave Light switch

Does that affect the answer? :wink: (I am contracted for this type of work if that is what you really mean.)

By "wonky," I just mean that I am not aware of any builtin apps (or many at all) that use this feature.

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A bit, yes. But the Leviton driver is one if that helps.

I use it in the InfluxDB Logger.

I would have used it in the Simple series apps, particularly for the Switch Off Timers which is the use case above. I didn't include it because the event wasn't reported by the built-in drivers I was using. As I think about it, I probably should put it back in -- at least it would work with @jtp10181's drivers. :slight_smile:

For the dimmer, you can set the brightness level a single tap turns on too. Either to the same place every time or to what it was set for when it was turned off. I have mine set to come on between 30% and 70% depending on where they are. Then a double tap on goes to 100 percent in case I need more light. Then there is the dimmer control rocker on the side. Or I can just tell Google Assistant to set a level or I can use Hubitat to set a level based on what I put in the rule controlling it. The duration the led status lights stay on can be adjusted from never to always. The rate of dimming is adjustable. Tip... after installing them enter the min level setting mode and calibrate them to your particular bulbs. The default minimum seems to be about 5-10%. But once your find the minimum the bulbs need to start, and set it, that becomes your 1%.

I have a couple of Zoos scene controllers, and they are okay; but Leviton is an industry standard that can be bought at most big box stores, and Leviton is well understood by electricians. This may be a factor if your spouse needs to get something fixed when you are not there or sick.

Will Zoos be around 10-years from now - not sure. Then again, big companies fail too so pick your poison.

Call me a grandpa, but I am pretty conservative with basic household lighting. It is great to go wild with accent, but most lighting has a safety function I do not ignore.

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Leviton makes dedicated secondary switches and dimmers for 3-way and more. I have a five way switch setup on my main Y shaped entry foyer / hallway. Leviton uses the same child (multi-way) switch for Z-Wave as their WiFi and other remote control lines. Same for their child dimmer.

One thing to consider when comparing Zooz to Leviton in-wall is load type and size support. Read the details carefully. For example, Zooz recommends not using Feit Electric LEDs. If you buy LED bulbs at Home Depot, be aware that most of them are made by Feit. Leviton switches don’t care. Leviton switches can also handle higher current motor and other resistive loads as compared to Zooz.

I tossed over this for a while and decided upon Leviton. I had a few key factors:

  • All switches in my house have to be the same brand and style (I’m picky about my home’s appearance)
  • I need brown paddles
  • I have bathroom heaters and exhaust fans I want Z-Wave switched
  • In don’t want to have to worry about LED manufacturers
  • Some switches control in-wall plugs (indeterminate loads)
  • I needed matching multi-speed in-wall fan paddles for ceiling fans.

One pro for Zooz is that they have a smaller body and are easier to stuff in shallow and wire crowded switch boxes. Since i went with Leviton I just got really good at wire management in my switch boxes installing over 70 switches and dimmers (inclusive of children devices) throughout my home.

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Don't discount the impact of Z-Wave Long Range (LR). The Zooz supports this and in my experience so far, it is absolutely amazing. The range is fully covers my home.

LR devices directly connect to the Hubitat without the mesh (you can continue to use the mesh for your legacy Z-Wave devices). This may be be better for reliability. It prevents a malfunctioning rogue Z-Wave device from hurting the rest of the mesh.

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800LR has its benefits mainly on the edge of range, but reliability is more about the underlying device hardware, device firmware, Hubitat placement, mesh structure, and drivers in Hubitat.

I have 49 Leviton 800 devices (switches and dimmers) and three Leviton 700 series fan controllers installed through a 3200 sqft home. At this moment every single one of them is routing directly (single hop) and all are performing reliably. Leviton upped their game with the quality of their 700 and especially new 800 devices as compared to the older 500 series I have suffered in the past. Even my 4 Schlage locks are direct / single hop,

I also have another 22 800LR devices installed (all Minoston). The non-LR devices have been as reliable and performant as the LR devices for me, but I do have a fairly “clean” Z-Wave mesh with almost no less-than-800 and devices.

In a previous >4k sqft (predating 800LR) with some outside controllers on acreage I still had a pretty good mesh structure than kept most devices within 2 hops and all devices reliably connected. My biggest issue there were some flaky Leviton 500 series that needed occasional factory resets and reinclusion.

This may come across as a Leviton fandom, but it’s really about ensuring validated information (experience) is out there. For most smaller homes, LR is nice but not a game changer. 800 with or without LR is a game changer. I am using a C8 Pro, so it’s fair to factor that in for discounting my experience with non-LR 800 devices.

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I think a bigger factor at play in a mesh system is not always the hops but other noise as well. If a device is sending out too much messages in a mesh, it is like a multicast IP message. Every device in range hears it and then has to ignore it, even if that device routes direct to the hub. Thinking about it though I am not totally sure if LR would actually solve that problem or not.

I think we assume this would be solved by LR since it is not a mesh. If the spammy device is connected via LR the messages would be on the same frequency as all the other LR devices. So all the in range devices may also be seeing that and have to drop it, same as if on a mesh. Only advantage might be a device could possibly read a little less of the message before it determines it is not meant for it.

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Re: spamminess: I agree.

What LR has done is massively upped radio power output and eliminate the need (and ability) of any Z-Wave device in LR mode to act as a repeater. This reduces the potential per-device workload due to the reduced amount of radio and message traffic overall that each device needs to process, even if that processing is simply rejection.

In theory however, within a physically tight mesh, traditional Z-Wave traffic should not require routing (repeating) and the net effect would be similar. It's worth pointing out that Z-Wave power output, and effective point to point range, was increased three times, in 500, 700, and 800 series chips.

700 series chips might even have gotten consumer-available LR support but for the pandemic that, due to chip shortages, accelerated 800 series adoption. Nothing is stopping manufactures from adding LR to existing 700 or 800 series devices other than any specific manufacture's hardware design and willingness to develop and ship OTA firmware updates.

800 series even without enabled LR support, have 200% faster CPU and more memory than than 700, 400% over 500 series. 800 series devices have an increased range over previous generations (including 700) and this means by simply jumping up to 800*, you already have a stronger, in theory quieter**, Z-Wave network even without LR mode.

* assumes you use all or at least mostly 800
* * Longer range requires less, maybe no, repeating

I can say that jumping to a C8-Pro with my new house and using mostly 800 series devices (most in mesh mode) with a few 700 and a few 500 devices, that my Z-Wave network reliability has been leaps and bounds higher and the amount of latency has dropped drastically as compared to my previous house using a C7 and a mix of mostly 500 and some 700 series devices.

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I've seen several reports on here where somebody is having Z-Wave mesh issues, which are preventing lights from turning on/off. They find the issue is a rogue device that is malfunctioning and not routing correctly. With so many devices, it would be extremely difficult to find the problem device. Z-Wave LR completely eliminates this potential issue. The reason I picked Zooz over Leviton was because of this feature.

I really hope that Leviton reconsiders and adds LR to their Z-Wave products. I do like their dimmers more. Leviton Z-Wave dimmers have the physical dimmer so you can easily tell if the switch is a dimmer. With Zooz, a dimmer looks like a regular switch.

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But does it? All LR traffic is on the same channel so all devices will hear all messages, they just can explicitly ignore anything not for them.

I've dealt with this by becoming VERY strict on what goes into my Z-Wave mesh.

Leviton's 800 series devices and firmware have, so far (knock on wood), been solid. I have a few Leviton 700 series fan controllers which other than not self-including using SmartStart have otherwise also been solid. I currently have no other device types in the Z-Wave mesh.

I did originally manually include all my Minoston 800LR devices in the Z-Wave mesh, and when they were present did not seem to cause routing issues. I have since excluded them from the mesh and (re)bootstrapped them as LR using SmartStart.

I will not include anything less than a 700 series chip in my mesh, and even there I would require a strong use case need before using a 700 device.

I've painfully learned to avoid GE/Jasco Z-Wave like the plague. Leviton's old 500 series could also be flaky in the mesh, but usually limited themselves to dropping out of the mesh (requiring a re-inclusion as a new device).

It would be nice if Leviton did decide to update the the 800 firmware, assuming the hardware support is adequate, to support Long Range. Of course then my issue is the remaining (4) Leviton ZF4SF 700 devices that will no longer have a sizable mesh to connect through.

A little more crude:

A rouge or malfunctioning LR device (C) could block another device (B) from hearing the hub's signal (A). B's radio selectivity and potentially weak sensitivity could be overwhelmed by the rogue device in continual transmission mode such that it is unable to hear the router.

Because there is no mesh/routing in LR mode, there is no chance that device D, positioned such that it can communicate with A and B better than B hears C, D effectively overpowering C at B acting as a routing go-between for A and B.

In layman's terms: signal jamming, intentional or accidental, it's all the same.

I have their ZW4SF fan controllers and it's a love/hate relationship. Leviton discontinued them before they even got started which meant no firmware updates. At one point they promised one but then it never happened. When they work it's great but I usually have to power cycle them about once or twice a month as they lock up. Leviton did invite to participate in their beta testing of a couple of 800 series switches earlier this year but I'm assuming it was just to kake me feel better about their unreliable fan controllers :sweat_smile:

Nearly all my other devices are zooz and one thing I love about them is the power cutoff at the switch itself. Makes it handy when you need to do maintenance on the device connected to the switch or even power cycle the switch without heading to the breaker panel.

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I've been pretty lucky, knock on wood. The only lockup I've experienced with a ZW4SF was during the last installation I did. After that reset, I've been good. I did recently have Leviton ZW6HD freeze (wouldn't even respond to the paddle) and had to throw a breaker to get it back online.

I'm partial to the toggle vs paddle switch format.

I was told recently by Zooz that it doesn't plan to offer a toggle switch with a lighted toggle. Their 800LR series paddle switches have a color changing led on the surround.

I like my several-year old GE/Jasco toggle switches. They have a lighted blue toggle that can be programmed.

The 700 series of the Jasco toggle switch has a toggle that lights in different colors that can be programmed.

Unfortunately, the latest 800LR series of the Jasco toggle switch is only being offered by Jasco to professional installers.

Did I say I really like the toggle form factor? :slight_smile:

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I’m a paddle guy. Wait that sounds funny, but let’s go with it anyway.

I like just mashing the top or bottom of the switch area.

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That's what happens with my ZW4SFs. When they lock up there's no physical paddle function so have to throw a breaker. I mentioned this as part of my feedback to Leviton when testing their 800 series switch. While I didn't have a lockup I felt if there's history there, the ability to disconnect power to the switch would be great. Heck, I use that disconnect switch on my Zoozs fairly often especially as I've been installing recessed lighting around the house to improve lighting.

The Leviton dimmers have an air gap for the controlled lights - pull out the bottom of the dimmer bar. Not sure if it cuts power to the dimmer internal circuitry.

https://hubconnecteddecorasmart.leviton.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/26408795997851

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Well dang, I pulled the manual for the ZW4SF and the side switch acts as an air gap as well - I never saw that. Per the manual it's suppose to cut power to the dimmer so assuming it actually cuts power to the circuitry. The ZW15S I have is just a switch so doesn't have an air gap switch but fortunately it's rarely used.