This smart dimmer isn’t Matter compatible. That’s fine by me

Price When Reviewed

$56.38 (dimmer mannequin ZW6HD); $52.78 (swap mannequin ZW15S)

Best Prices Today: Leviton Decora Smart Z-Wave 800 Dimmer (mannequin ZW6HD)

$46.99

Smart lighting controls that function over Wi-Fi are nice, as a result of they don’t require a hub; they join on to your router. The draw back is that they have to compete with all of the different shoppers on your house community: Your computer systems, gaming consoles, media streamers, sensible audio system, house safety cameras, sensible plugs, and lots of, many extra.

I dwell in a really small house—lower than 800 sq. toes—however there are nonetheless greater than 80 units related to the Eero 6 router in my Ring Alarm Pro. Given that the Eero 6’s practical limit is 128 clients, there simply isn’t a number of room for mild switches and dimmers. Hence, my affinity for Z-Wave, the related house expertise on the coronary heart of Leviton’s Decora Smart Z-Wave product line.

I first embraced Z-Wave once I constructed a sensible house from the bottom up again in 2007. A Z-Wave hub will take only one slot in your router’s shopper checklist whereas managing as much as 232 Z-Wave shoppers. And in contrast to Wi-Fi and Zigbee, which each function within the 2.4GHz radio spectrum, Z-Wave units use spectrum within the 900MHz frequency vary, which isn’t solely so much less-crowded, but additionally renders Z-Wave indicators much less vulnerable to being absorbed by a house’s constructing supplies. For the in-wall Leviton Decora Smart Z-Wave dimmer and on/off swap reviewed right here, Leviton specifies a variety of 50 toes from some other Z-Wave system or your house’s Z-Wave hub.

Unlike Zigbee, Z-Wave will not be a part of the Matter ecosystem—and I actually don’t care. I’m not throwing shade at Matter right here; I simply haven’t discovered that normal to be important to how my sensible house operates. I’m an iPhone consumer, and it could be nice to have all my sensible house units integrated into my Apple Home app, however I’m additionally an Alexa consumer and I exploit voice instructions spoken to my Echo sensible audio system way more typically than I pull out my smartphone and faucet on its display—or summon Siri—to function my sensible house units.

Michael Brown/Foundry

Given that the varied generations of Z-Wave comprise an put in base of greater than 100 million units, in line with Silicon Labs, it’s only a matter of time earlier than somebody comes out with a Z-Wave-to-Matter bridge. I’m not solely keen to attend for a Z-Wave-to-Matter bridge, however I’m additionally not satisfied I’ll ever really want one.

Specifications

Both the Decora Smart Z-Wave Dimmer 800 Series (mannequin ZW6HD) and the Decora Smart Z-Wave Switch (mannequin ZW15S) use the latest-generation Z-Wave 800 chipset, which is backward-compatible with each earlier model of Z-Wave, and the Z-Wave Plus protocol. As for the Z-Wave hub I exploit, I selected a Vivint Smart Home panel as the inspiration for my first sensible house in 2007, and I had it put in in my new house once I moved from California to the Pacific Northwest within the fall of 2023.

You don’t want a professionally put in sensible house system to make use of Z-Wave units, after all; there are numerous, many DIY alternate options, together with Ring Alarm Pro, LG’s Homey line, Home Assistant, Samsung SmartIssues (Samsung’s earlier hub and Aeotec’s model that’s; the newer Samsung SmartThings Station doesn’t have a Z-Wave radio).

Perhaps crucial factor you could find out about these Decora Smart merchandise is that they rely on the presence of a impartial wire within the field the place they’ll be put in. If you don’t have that and might’t deliver a impartial wire to the field, you would possibly wish to think about one in all Lutron’s Caséta or Diva Smart merchandise. They additionally rely on a hub—Lutron’s personal, which isn’t suitable with a Vivint system—however they don’t rely on impartial wires.

Michael Brown/Foundry

Both the dimmer and the swap can deal with incandescent hundreds as much as 600 watts, LED and CFL (compact fluorescent) hundreds as much as 300 watts, and MLV (magnetic low voltage) hundreds as much as 600VA (volt amps). These are each paddle-style switches that include white paddles mounted on the system that you could swap out with an ivory paddle that comes within the field. If you need one thing different than white or ivory, you should buy color-change kits in light almond, gray, brown, or black for about $4 every.

The industrial designs of the dimmer and swap are essentially barely completely different. Both have a small inexperienced LED centered beneath their paddles that glows when the system is receiving energy. These make the switches straightforward to search out in the dead of night. The Dimmer has a stack of seven inexperienced LEDs to the left of the paddle that mild up in sequence when the swap is turned on (lighting up from backside to prime), turned off (from prime to backside), or when the dimming degree is modified (the LED representing the brightness degree glows brighter than the opposite six). Dimming the related load is achieved by urgent and holding the underside of a slim toggle on the right-hand aspect of the paddle; doing the identical to the highest of the toggle will increase the sunshine output. The vertical orientation of the dimmer mechanism is an enchancment over the horizontal toggle on earlier-generation Z-Wave dimmers.

Installation and setup

I put in each switches as single-pole units, however each may also function in 3-way eventualities the place the related load might be managed by a swap—or switches—at different areas within the room. In a 3-way set up, nevertheless, you’ll have to buy one in all Leviton’s “companion” switches: the Leviton DD00R Wired Dimmer Companion or the DD0SR Wired Switch Companion (avenue priced at about $23 and $17 respectively).

The Decora Smart Z-Wave dimmer and swap each have pigtails (line, load, impartial, traveler, and floor) that you simply’ll connect with {the electrical} wiring in your house utilizing the supplied wire nuts. While each units are significantly bulkier than their dumb counterparts, I had no downside stuffing them aspect by aspect again into field after I’d made the required connections.

Michael Brown/Foundry

Both switches include two-piece wall plates that disguise the screws that connect them to the switches (you screw one piece to the swap after which snap on the second piece that’s uncovered to the room), however I couldn’t use them as a result of I put in each switches in the identical field. I made a run to the ironmongery store to purchase a standard 2-gang wall plate, which price lower than $3. I may have opted for one in all Leviton’s “screwless” wall plates, however the retailer didn’t inventory them and one would have price greater than twice as a lot as the standard plate, even on Amazon.

The subsequent step is to enroll the units to your Z-Wave sensible house hub of selection. Doing so with a Vivint sensible house panel requires contacting buyer help, which I did through on-line chat, and asking them to offer entry to the installer’s menu on the management panel. Once you’ve supplied your verbal password, they’ll unlock the panel and supply the installer password wanted for the following step. You received’t have to contain anybody else if in case you have your individual Z-Wave hub. In both situation, you’ll provoke pairing on the hub, then push a button on the swap so as to add the system to the hub’s Z-Wave routing desk. Rinse, lather, repeat for every new Z-Wave system you want to add to your system.

Performance

There’s not so much to say concerning the efficiency of the Leviton Decora Z-Wave swap, apart from it really works. I related it to pair of dumb BR30 LED ceiling lights in my hallway, and it dutifully turned them on and off: on the swap itself, with the Vivint app and on the bodily Vivint management panel, and with Alexa voice instructions (I have to say “Alexa, tell Vivint to turn on—or off—the hallway,” however that’s a Vivint factor). You can do the identical with a “Hey Google” command in case your sensible house revolves round Google Home.

Michael Brown/Foundry

The similar is true of the dimmer, besides that I can specify within the Vivint app, management panel, or as a part of my voice command the proportion of brightness at which I need the dual LEDs within the related ceiling fixture to glow). More importantly, the dimmer management to the correct of the first paddle easily dimmed and brightened the related LED bulbs and the corresponding inexperienced LEDs to the left of the paddle precisely displayed the brightness degree. Tapping the paddle to show the bulbs does so immediately however tapping it to show them off regularly dims them till they’re off—after somewhat greater than 2 seconds. At no level did any of the LED bulbs flicker or behave erratically.

This overview is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the best smart lighting controls.

Should you purchase the Leviton Decora Smart Z-Wave 800-series?

If you’ve settled on Z-Wave as your sensible house ecosystem of selection, nobody makes higher lighting controls than Leviton. The Leviton Decora Smart Z-Wave Dimmer 800 Series (mannequin ZW6HD) and the Decora Smart Z-Wave Switch (mannequin ZW15S) characteristic the newest era of Z-Wave 800 chips, and so they’re robustly constructed, straightforward to put in, and suitable with a variety of sensible house and residential safety hubs.

While Leviton doesn’t provide Z-Wave 800 in-wall shops or fan-speed controllers, or plug-in dimmers and sensible plugs with the newest era of Z-Wave silicon, it does provide these system varieties with earlier generations of Z-Wave expertise, and people merchandise are absolutely interoperable with these new ones.

Leviton is likely one of the largest producers of sensible lighting controls, and it was one of many earliest adopters of Z-Wave expertise. You can purchase its Z-Wave 800 sensible dimmer and swap with confidence.