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What's your favored smart switch brand? I went Leviton as they looked the most like low-key, plain-old On/Off lightswitches. But the reliability has been terr

What's your favored smart switch brand? I went Leviton as they looked the most like low-key, plain-old On/Off lightswitches. But the reliability has been terrible - constantly dropping off the network or requiring a reset (at least the early models I have). It's disappointing considering I thought it was a well-established brand; after dealing with some of their tech support / engineers I'm of the solid opinion they should stick to non-smart appliances.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
The feature I want doesn't seem to exist. I'd like what looks like a conventional switch, but with a solenoid that flips it up and down to reflect the status of the light. It'd be even cooler in two-ways, where using the switch on the one side of the room causes the other switch to match. Not sure why this isn't available either.
- sdflhasjd 3y ago
  A British company called Den had a product that was exactly this. Sadly it was very expensive and also locked down to their private cloud. The company went bust and took everyone's 'smart' homes with them.
- ThatPlayer 3y ago
  The next best thing I've seen are the smart switches that are just two buttons, up and down for on and off. I just want to be able to hit up for on, the actual switch state is less of a concern. That's been my annoyance with two-ways. I've ordered some Inovelli switches which do this and have an RGB LED if I need a state status indicator.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    Grew up when they were always switches... not sure I can change. I can't feel around in the dark for two buttons, and know what the hell they are.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- saltcured 3y ago
  I grew up with the small toggle mercury switches from the 70s. I was able to adapt to the kind of z-wave smart switch that has a similar shape, fitting the same face plate in a bank of three switches where I only swapped out one for a smart switch. It's kind of like a joy stick, so in a neutral center position and you flick it momentarily up or down from center to ask for on or off. You have to learn not to lift and hold for too long, because that is how to get it into a very primitive reconfiguration mode. As I recall, you can reconfigure the LED and maybe its behavior on power restoration. I configured mine so the LED is on when the light circuit is on, to show me the status of an exterior light on the other side of an opaque door. But, I think the default is the inverse so it acts a bit like a night light to locate the switch in the dark. Of course, it's a hideous blue as is the modern fashion. I linked it to an existing alarm system to set some rules like turning on and off around dusk and dawn periods and turning on in response to camera-based motion/people.
efitz 3y ago
I went with Lutron Caseta. It is way more reliable than z-wave when you have a large number of devices, but they limit each hub to 75 devices which kinda sux. As a side note Lutron did a pretty good job with led brightness which is a big deal at night with lots of devices.
mapmap 3y ago
I was in the same boat as a Leviton HomeKit switch early adopter. Between poor firmware and a critical Ubiquity UniFi AP multicast bug, it was frustrating. Eventually both were updated and the switches have been solid since.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

The feature I want doesn't seem to exist. I'd like what looks like a conventional switch, but with a solenoid that flips it up and down to reflect the status of the light. It'd be even cooler in two-ways, where using the switch on the one side of the room causes the other switch to match. Not sure why this isn't available either.

sdflhasjd 3y ago
A British company called Den had a product that was exactly this. Sadly it was very expensive and also locked down to their private cloud. The company went bust and took everyone's 'smart' homes with them.
ThatPlayer 3y ago
The next best thing I've seen are the smart switches that are just two buttons, up and down for on and off. I just want to be able to hit up for on, the actual switch state is less of a concern. That's been my annoyance with two-ways. I've ordered some Inovelli switches which do this and have an RGB LED if I need a state status indicator.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  Grew up when they were always switches... not sure I can change. I can't feel around in the dark for two buttons, and know what the hell they are.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
saltcured 3y ago
I grew up with the small toggle mercury switches from the 70s. I was able to adapt to the kind of z-wave smart switch that has a similar shape, fitting the same face plate in a bank of three switches where I only swapped out one for a smart switch. It's kind of like a joy stick, so in a neutral center position and you flick it momentarily up or down from center to ask for on or off. You have to learn not to lift and hold for too long, because that is how to get it into a very primitive reconfiguration mode. As I recall, you can reconfigure the LED and maybe its behavior on power restoration. I configured mine so the LED is on when the light circuit is on, to show me the status of an exterior light on the other side of an opaque door. But, I think the default is the inverse so it acts a bit like a night light to locate the switch in the dark. Of course, it's a hideous blue as is the modern fashion. I linked it to an existing alarm system to set some rules like turning on and off around dusk and dawn periods and turning on in response to camera-based motion/people.

efitz 3y ago

I went with Lutron Caseta. It is way more reliable than z-wave when you have a large number of devices, but they limit each hub to 75 devices which kinda sux. As a side note Lutron did a pretty good job with led brightness which is a big deal at night with lots of devices.

mapmap 3y ago

I was in the same boat as a Leviton HomeKit switch early adopter. Between poor firmware and a critical Ubiquity UniFi AP multicast bug, it was frustrating. Eventually both were updated and the switches have been solid since.