I don’t know much at all about zigbee but I’ve got a house full of zooz zwave dimmers I’ve been mostly happy with. Thesmartesthouse has them on sale often.
homeassistant
Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io
Yes, my inovelli are great.
Get zigbee, I wouldn't invest in anything zwave (I run both).
Make sure you set your WiFi and zigbee to not conflict. https://www.metageek.com/training/resources/zigbee-wifi-coexistence/
Awesome thanks for the advice. Id seen conflicting info on zwave vs zigbee for switches. One of the main things was wifi interference, but i live in a remote place and dont have a ton of wifi devices or outside interference. Also ill most likely be running a ubiquiti ap cause i use ubiquiti at work and am comfortable with it. Should be super solid.
Zwave is a closed standard and all your components will be slightly more expensive and harder to buy.
Zigbee is much more open, plus maybe threads will become a big thing one day.
I only use zwave for legacy reasons, I've been using it since before zigbee was a thing and I still have a handful of devices on it.
IKEA is a good source of cheap zigbee components to play with.
Keep in mind more and more devices also seem to come with their own Wi-Fi internally adding to the overall noise even if you’re secluded.
From tv set top boxes, appliances, light bulbs and even cable internet modems where it’s on and the provider won’t disable it
Adding another vote on the inovelli blues. Zigbee network has been rock solid for me. Integration with homeassistant has been flawless too - could not be happier with my purchase. It also helps that the company has a great track record with transparency and working with the community to improve their product.
One detail I don’t see mentioned often is the zigbee switches are a little smaller than the zwaves, making them easier to fit into the junction box. My house is old and has very small boxes - not sure these would have fit in some places if they were any bigger!!
In my extensive experience, use Zooz zen series for the bulk of your switches. Buy inovelli for special switches such as by your front door or anywhere you might want the use of the LED indicator strip and scenes.
Majority of other smart switches will give you issues with dimming flicker. Trust me, I’ve bought thousands of dollars of smart switches. Zooz and Inovelli are great choices.
I absolutely love Zooz. Their customer service is fantastic and products just work, if you can provide proper Z-Wave coverage. If you prefer WiFi, I have several Shelly products behind traditional switches that have been rock solid.
Inovelli Red is z-wave
If you want Zigbee or Thread, the Blue series come as Zigbee and claim to be flashable to Thread
I have both and am very happy with them
Thats really good to know. I ordered Blues but wasnt aware that it could be converted. Thanks.
I've never used either zigbee or z-wave. Matter is vaporware as far as dimmers go.
I went with lutron caseta, their Diva line is really nice. And now they have 2 button pico remotes that aren't fugly.
I went with the inovelli switches but just checked out the site really liking the Lutron blinds. Thanks for the tip.