I want to be able to controll lights around my house with a wireless remote. I think Z wave is my best option.

Anyone not happy with Z wave.

Why don't they make a simple on off switch for like the porch lights?

Thanks

If you mean a relay switch they do make one.

Check out micah's thread on cocoontech.com, including his latest irritation post in it today.

I would put him in the "not happy" camp by a long long shot.

If you mean a relay switch they do make one.

They do? In-wall? Who?

I've been waiting on Intermatic to release theirs, I have a light/ceiling fan that doesn't have a 40W load on start that I need to control. The regular zWave won't work as they don't draw that much power initially.

Do you guys think I would be better with Insteon?

Michael

Not really. If you search in cocoon for insteon in titles, you'll find many threads with issues.

I use zWave, and i'm fine with it. I have roughly 14 switches currently, and will be putting in another 10 or so. It's a bit slow, but I mean it takes 2s for the controller to realize someone has manually changed a switch. Outbound control is generally within 1s or so, so that's fine for the relatively low cost.

I have heard of folks liking UPB, but I cannot implement a power-line-controlled product as I have a very old house with no 3rd wire to many switches, and dirty appliances to boot.

Here's a link to the relay switches (Homepro and Vizia). I just bought a Homepro but haven't received it yet.

http://store.homeseer.com/store/Z-Wave-C8.aspx

Hi, my name is Micah and I am unhappy with Z-Wave.

Like IVB said, most of my bitching, moaning and complaining is done over at Cocoontech.com but it can be summed up pretty nicely.

While the Z-Wave technology is awesome and I'm really happy with the number of manufacturers and the direction it's going (in terms of the wide range of devices) the interplay between different manufacturers is atrocious.

My biggest road block/complaint/pet peeve/etc. is that you have to ensure you either buy hardware from a single source or you have to try to muddle through all the manuals to find out if the remote from one manufacturer will support all the hardware you want to use.

For example, while the Intermatic controller can add a Z-Wave thermostat to the network, it can not control the thermostat. Additionally, the HomePro controller can control a single thermostat but you can't use the timer feature on the controller to change the thermostat set point.

If all you're doing is lighting, you shouldn't have any trouble. If you want to expand what you're controlling (thermostat, sirius satellite receiver, garage door opener, window shades, etc.) there's no guarantee and no easy way to find what devices will work with which controllers and even if they do "work" with those controllers, if they'll work they way you want (or expect) them to.

In summation: Lighting only, go wild. Expanding beyond lighting? Hope, pray and be prepared to return hardware when it doesn't do what you expect.

I pulled the switch and am going to try Insteon first.

Michael

The issue, I assume, is that the Z-Wave protocol defines various 'profiles' I think that they are called. Each one defines the type of information that a given type of device can support. Each new version of the SDK defines more of them. So if you have a remote that uses a version of the firmware that didn't define the profile for a given type of device, it won't understand it. The early ACT remotes supported only the most basic stuff, and others will support different stuff according to how recent it's Z-Wave firmware is, and in some cases it might require a little extra code in their own firmware to deal with some kinds of devices.

I think that, move forward from now, where they have a pretty full set of profiles defined, it should get better on this front.

My problem with it is that, at least until I get the CQC driver updated to use a newer PC controller than the old ACT, that the reliability fluctuates. It'll be dead solid for weeks, and then go through an unhappy phase. I had such a phase this week. I replaced one old ACT dimmer and it got happy again. Then last night it got unhappy for a while again.

It's hard to say if this is interference, or that I'm still using old ACT modules that are not completely solid or what. I'm going to try to swap them all out for newer ones.

Dean, I think you're partially right.

From my understanding, every Z-Wave device follows the same basic protocol which is why you can add devices to your network that your remote may not support (Intermatic's Master Controller and a thermostat, for example). However, it is up to the controller manufacturers to implement support of devices beyond that basic add/remove function. In Intermatic's case, I believe Z-Wave thermostats had been out and available for some time but Intermatic didn't bother to support it for who knows what reason.

Additionally, I don't believe the built in timer functions of the master controllers I've been using are part of the Z-Wave protocol but features added on top of Z-Wave. In ACT's case, they opted to include support for thermostat control but they implemented it poorly by not allowing the thermostat to be controlled by the HomePro Controller's timer function.

I believe that the problems I'm having having are due to how the Z-Wave manufacturers are producing their hardware and not some underlying flaw in the Z-Wave protocol itself. I think the Master Remotes at this point are terribly lacking in regard to controlling anything beyond lights. If the word from CES is any indication lighting control is only going to be part of Z-Wave's much larger automation ability and the Master Controller manufacturers need to realize this and start catching up to where the rest of Z-Wave is headed.