Light switch and receptacle recommendations

Hardware Home Automation
1

Hey all,

Are there any specific light switches and receptacle known to work specifically good with openhab (raspberry pi as controller)?

I’m planning to install zwave light switches and receptacles in the entire house and plan to get:
Receptacle GE 12721
Switch GE 12722

Any reason not to get these? Are there any that work particularly better?

Thanks,
Tim

2

The only comment I’d make about these is they don’t support associations. Associations are used by zwave to send notifications to the server when you manually turn the light on. These devices might have other means of doing this (they might use the HAIL command), but it’s just worth noting.

Possibly others using these devices might be able to comment further on this…

Chris

3

Chris,
Do you know if both the receptacle and switch do not support associations?
Also, any recommendation for any that support associations?

Thanks,
Tim

4

It looks like none of the GE devices support associations. I guess you’re in the US (since I think GE are only available there?), so I’m not sure about alternatives. Fibaro switches I think are available in the US - I can certainly recommend them (I have a house full)…

Most devices do support associations, but not all. There is a thread here that you might be interested in.

Chris

5

thanks!
looks like cooper devices is the way to go.

-Tim

6

I would also check out Insteon.

7

I have two of the two of the Switch GE 12722 I use for my outside lights as we have 3 levels and 4 different switches. The two I have installed so far have worked great without any problems for 3-4 months so far and I plan on getting another two for the other two switches I haven’t added yet. I’m not too familiar with the associations as I’m pretty new to openHAB, z-wave, and home automation. But I have individual switch items for controling each switch node and a switch item with a light rule that lets me toggle all of them on/off that works well in openHAB.

8

Associations won’t impact the operation of the switch so there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the GE switches in this respect. The issue with associations is if you manually change the switch state it may not update OH so your UI may not correctly reflect the state of the switch.

As above there are ways around this that work more or less well but associations are the most reliable and quickest.

Chris

9

After reading this thread, I started paying attention to which devices support association.
There is a very inexpensive Linear 2gig dimmer that supports association according to the documentation. It is $32.42 on Amazon. I’ve ordered one to test next week.
I’ve also found that Enerwave ZWN-323 plug-in dimmers support association, so I’ll give that a try as well.

Has anybody tried any of those items? How does one configure a switch/dimmer in OpenHAB to take advantage of association?

1 Like
10

How did the Linear 2gig switch work? Does it have associations?

11

The linear 2gig dimmer had some current leak when off and that leaves some particular (but not all) LED lights still glowing at night, so I had to replace it. Just for those who have used a dimmer without a neutral before, on which issues of that sort are common, it was wired with a neutral.