Zwave, Zigbee, Matter, Wifi... What to choose for lights?

💡 Lighting
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After almost 5 years of the last "project" I did for my parents in law, Im wanting to some lite and economic basic automation on my rented place...

Im needing some dimmers, switches and sensors and I will be happy... Nowadays with mater out there, and a lot of wifi devices which tend to be cheaper, is not easy (at least for me that have been discconected) to choose which to buy... Matter is new (New should be better) but is not fully supported by hubitad, then, theres matter via wifi, wich is then a wifi device, etc etc... I wouldnt like initially to consider wifi devices because Ive read it can saturate my already crowded wifi network... but then, back with the old and trustworthy zwave switches and dimmers?

Whats your suggestion on which route to follow?

Thanks!

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Device selection greatly depends upon what country (region) you are in.

If you are looking for switches/dimmers and are in the USA, I would look at Zooz. Their price cannot be beat, and they have lots of features for the price. However being a renter, that may not be an option.

Matter is new, and new isn't always better, but may be an option for some devices. I think it is too early to tell where Matter is going as a protocol, the adoption of it seems to be a LOT slower than many people thought it would happen, and in my opinion that includes what the Matter people themselves thought would happen. That means there is still a lack of every device type, so you can't go completely with this as a solution. Matter seems good specifically for light bulbs and RGB strips in my opinion. There seems to be a decent variety of bulbs/RGB strips for a sane price in this category.

For sensors, and lighting, I still like Zigbee over anything else. I don't have a specific brand in mind, but generally speaking the protocol seems better suited for this use case in my opinion.

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My go-to’s are still Zigbee and Z-Wave for all devices. I have found the new Inovelli Matter switch to work well, but it has less functionality at this time than their Red (Z-Wave) and Blue (Zigbee) options.

As @neonturbo mentnions, Zooz is also a very good option if you decide to go with Z-Wave.

A 4th option is Lutron. Their switches are extremely reliable, though less feature rich.

If I were starting over from scratch at my parents’ place, I would go with a combination of Z-Wave and Zigbee switches if their features were of interest, or go with Lutron if 100% reliability was what I was looking for. I would hold off on matter for them for now.

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We are building a new home just a few miles away from our old one, so this is a very current decision for me. I will again go with the Lutron Caseta system for lighting, including their "Pro" hub. Most dependable part of my home automation for years now, and I see nothing in the new stuff that is better.

For other uses, such as dry contact relays, I'll likely stay with z-wave and use primarily Zooz equipment, which repeats when plugged in. Ring extenders will help to further improve the z-wave mesh.

I'll also likely experiment with Matter, but I can't see it replacing my Caseta lighting, at least based on what I know today.

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That affects everything.

You probably can't just willy-nilly replace wall switches.

So, you have, I would say smart bulbs and and plugs for choices.

Any battery devices would be okay too, like leak detection, maybe light security-anything battery.

Table lamps, you have the problem of someone switching it, if it's within reach, but you'd have to address that with smart bulbs or plugs.

I think your thread should probably have been something like: "What's the best choice for smart bulbs these days". :slight_smile:

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For myself I use bulbs for table lamps and switches for ceiling lights. That said, for bulbs I use strictly LIFX as they've been really solid for me and for switches/dimmers, well, I'm a Lutron fanboy. They are the most solid switch system I've come across. I love the look of the original style, but they have the more standard style now in 8 different colors. And with Lutron you get to use PICO controllers! At $15 a pop, you can have them everywhere! They can be mounted like switches as well. For everything else, z-wave and zigbee with few matter devices.

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There's some advantage to sticking mostly Z-Wave or Zigbee in that you can maintain a pretty solid mesh.

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Except that z-wave lr is mesh-less.

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I used to have a mix and switched to Zigbee about a year ago other than a Dome Mouser mouse trap and an Aeotec Gen5 energy meter. Of course my Z-Wave map is sparse.

The #1 reason I switched to Zigbee is because Z-Wave is finicky when trying to remove a ghost. If normal methods don’t work, then you have to buy a special piece of hardware, plug it into a USB port of a PC, and learn how to use Silicon Labs software that is not intuitive. Then you can remove the device. Too much hassle.

I’m sure there are benefits of Z-Wave over Zigbee, but nothing that would make me buy any more Z-Wave devices.

Another minor reason for my decision is I have OCDP. If there are two of something, like a salt and pepper shaker, they need to match. I’m not one to wash my hands several times, but I do yank on the front door several times just to make sure. Having those two renegade Z-Wave devices irks me, but there is no Zigbee equivalent to the Dome Mouser, and the Tuya Zigbee dual channel energy meter doesn’t work 100% with HE.