Which Z wave dimmer

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Which Z wave dimmer

Decal

222 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#214265 4-May-2017 13:28

Hi Guys,

I am building a new house and are looking at getting Z wave micro switchs for lighting.

I have been talking to the guys at Active Automation and they have given me two options. The Aeotec Nano Dimmer or the Fibaro Dimmer 2.

I had put an order in for some Fibaro Dimmer 2s but they called me up asking if I would rather have the Aeotec Nano Dimmer instead as they had just come into stock.

Talking to them the Aeotec Dimmer has just come out and no one has installed them yet so I was leaning towards the Fibaro due to it being more likely to have better support with HomeSeer.

Question for the guys running these switches would you go for the Aeotec or the Fibaro? The only difference I can see between them is the Fibaro costs more.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks

1 | 2

298 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1775531 4-May-2017 13:42

I've got a couple of the fibaro ones and they have been bulletproof since I've had them, 6ish months now.

jnimmo

1097 posts

Uber Geek

#1775560 4-May-2017 14:27

I had an Aeotec and it worked beautifully, swapped out for the Fibaro- now the LEDs flicker badly when dimmed below half, and that is with the Fibaro dimmer bypass installed.

RickW

298 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1775577 4-May-2017 15:01

Our fibaro units are the new ones (v2?) They are controlling led down lights and led gu10 bulbs with no issues.

Talkiet

4787 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1775605 4-May-2017 15:15

I have the previous aeotec Micro Smart dimmer and it's been great. I'm about to buy a houseload of z-wave equipment and I think I'll be staying with the aeotec devices for the lights.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

davidcole

6021 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1775871 4-May-2017 20:08

I've give fibaro for relays (no dimming yet). But aeotec for wall plug and sensors. All from active automation

Previously known as psycik

Home Assistant: Gigabyte AMD A8 Brix, Home Assistant with Aeotech ZWave Controller, Raspberry PI, Wemos D1 Mini, Zwave, Shelly Humidity and Temperature sensors
Media:Chromecast v2, ATV4 4k, ATV4, HDHomeRun Dual
Server Host Plex Server 3x3TB, 4x4TB using MergerFS, Samsung 850 evo 512 GB SSD, Proxmox Server with 1xW10, 2xUbuntu 22.04 LTS, Backblaze Backups, usenetprime.com fastmail.com Sharesies Trakt.TV Sharesight

mclean

581 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#1776094 5-May-2017 10:02

davidcole: I've give fibaro for relays (no dimming yet). But aeotec for wall plug and sensors. All from active automation

Agree with all that. I've found the Aeotec relays to be a bit flaky sometimes, a couple of failures, but the Fibaro ones seem to be fine. They're not the same - download the setup manuals and you can see the Fibaro relays are more versatile. But I do like the new Aeon smart switch 6 plugs - they are cool and very simple to set up.

davidcole

6021 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1776114 5-May-2017 10:33

mclean:

davidcole: I've give fibaro for relays (no dimming yet). But aeotec for wall plug and sensors. All from active automation

Agree with all that. I've found the Aeotec relays to be a bit flaky sometimes, a couple of failures, but the Fibaro ones seem to be fine. They're not the same - download the setup manuals and you can see the Fibaro relays are more versatile. But I do like the new Aeon smart switch 6 plugs - they are cool and very simple to set up.

Yeah just put one of those aeotec smart switch plugs in. In looking I found Aeotec did a 6way power strip. Active Automation offered to go find a price. Said we'd need a run of about $100k to get them made for the AU/NZ market.....pity.

Tradepub

Free professional, reference and technical white papers (affiliate link).

Shimmer

54 posts

Master Geek

#1785528 21-May-2017 17:17

My vote it the Aeon nano dimmers. I've just swapped out my micro dimmers with them and they are WAY better. I've had flicker with the previous gen on everything apart from dimmable CFLs (hard to find these days), although not that noticeable on incandescent/halogen. Anyways the new Nano ones are flicker free and support leading/trailing edge.

I haven't seen any power meter readings come through from it yet, so may have to check the commands for that or upgrade the zwave plugin to get that working, but frankly don't care about that too much.

scottjpalmer

5972 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1785654 21-May-2017 21:20

Excellent thanks, I've been waiting for them.

kryptonjohn

2523 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1796752 8-Jun-2017 15:54

Hi you z-wave experts! I have a double light switch in the hallway. One is hall lights and the other the lights in the stair well. I'm interested in adding an in wall dimmer to the circuit for the hallway. The idea is that I would setup the controller to ensure that the hallway lights are on but dimmed right down at night time - so that the kids can get up and go to the toilet even if it's pitch dark outside. In effect it's just a night light in the hallway.

So, if the wall switch is off, I'd want, based on time, to switch on the lights with max dimming. If the switch was on, then leave it on full bright. Then in the morning, revert to the switch state - either off or full on.

Can the in wall dimmer override, then not override, the wall switch in the way I describe? I'm pretty sure the controller (Vera edge) can have a schedule triggered event, just not sure about how the dimmer can be controlled and the physical wall switch by-passed.

Thanks

John

mclean

581 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#1797102 9-Jun-2017 10:13

Are you thinking of a conventional dimmer in the switch-plate or a z-wave dimmer?

If it's a conventional dimmer then you can probably do it fairly easily. Wire the dimmer in series with a z-wave relay, both in parallel with the light switch. The light switch will work as usual and supply full power to the lights. When it's off the light can be powered through the dimmer under z-wave control.

To control the night-light it's probably better to use a day/night trigger rather than a time schedule. There's a simple day/night plug-in for the Vera, or if you're using the PLEG plug-in for serious logic it's built into that. The day/night trigger is set by celestial calculation. Or use a motion sensor (although my grand-kids are a bit frightened of the "magic eyes" that turn the lights on).

kryptonjohn

2523 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1797109 9-Jun-2017 10:21

Yep - the switch in the wall has no dimmer - just a switch, so idea would be to add a z-wave dimmer behind the switch in the wall.

kryptonjohn

2523 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1797111 9-Jun-2017 10:24

mclean:

(although my grand-kids are a bit frightened of the "magic eyes" that turn the lights on).

How about that Fibaro motion sensor that looks like the Eye of Sauron? Evil!

mclean

581 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#1797118 9-Jun-2017 10:36

kryptonjohn: Yep - the switch in the wall has no dimmer - just a switch, so idea would be to add a z-wave dimmer behind the switch in the wall.

You can probably simply wire the z-wave dimmer across the manual switch, so the manual switch works as a full power bypass. But you should check the dimmer specs to make sure it's happy with mains power on both the input and output (it imagine it should be).

Decal

222 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#1797126 9-Jun-2017 10:42

So I ended up returning the Aeotec Dimmer as it didnt play nicely with my switches. It would dim but it would not turn the light on or off and it was also not reporting the power usage in Homeseer.

Where as the Fibaro units worked perfectly as soon as they were connected.

Now to sort out all the configuration!

1 | 2