I’m reading all the back and forth and as a result am now questioning whether my application is “safe”. I’m using the Blue in dimmer mode to power a dimmable 24v low voltage transformer which is hard wired to the switch. The transformer powers LED under cabinet lighting. Since there is no florescent or magnetic ballast involved, I assume this is safe. However, if the transformer was plugged into a wall recepticle and then switched on by the Blue, my understanding is that could be a fire risk (in the event someone plugs specific other items into said recepticle). Is that accurate? Ty
I’m cutting and pasting from the web site. It should probably be changed if it’s not true…
I don’t know if that interpretation makes sense. Leviton’s switches are rated at: “600W LED/CFL, 1500W Incand/ Halogen 15A, 1500VA Inductive, 3/4 HP Motor”
Their smart OUTLET has the exact same ratings. NEC has the same 15A requirement for receptacles, so if we are using your interpretation, Leviton’s outlet is non-compliant, which I don’t believe is the case.
The NEC only addresses, AFAIK, the capacity of a switch controlling a receptacle. I don’t believe there is parallel language for receptacles. So I don’t think there is anything in the NEC that would prohibit use of the Leviton receptacle. It wouldn’t make any sense for Leviton to market a product that isn’t code-compliant.
So the long and short of what I’m gathering from this thread is that:
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I cannot safely use the load terminal to drive an outlet, meaning I either need to disable the outlet or convert it to always-on wiring
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I need to make sure I’m not driving any lighting fixtures with ballasts in them (ex. kitchen counter lights)
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I will likely need to remove these switches from any location that was being used to control an outlet when I go to sell the house so I can restore the switched outlet functionality
It would have been nice to be able to switch an outlet as an added feature, but also so I could tell a buyer that the switch does something without a controller. The way it currently stands, even if it passes inspection without switched outlets, I’ll have switches that are useless without a Zigbee controller. In this scenario, I’ve actually removed functionality from my house. That’s not a problem for me, but it certainly could be for someone else.
In the event that these switches fail in an inductive load or overload scenario, have they been designed to fail safe? How do they compare in this regard to other products on the market?
They are UL approved so there’s some standards and protection.
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I can imagine having 3 products (in either Z-Wave or Zigbee or both) :
- The 2-in-1s (works on dimmable bulbs and non-dimmable bulbs. Does not work on exhaust fans or ceiling fans.)
- The upcoming (Blue) fan switch (Works on ceiling fans. Works on exhaust fans and I believe non-dimmable bulbs if you have a neutral, but might be overkill for them. Works on dimmable bulbs too, I believe, but may or may not dim them.)
- Bringing back the old LZW30-SN 500-series on-off switch (Works on exhaust fans and non-dimmable bulbs. Works on dimmable bulbs but won’t dim them. Works on ceiling fans but won’t do speed adjustment.)
I know that having too many SKUs has been a problem for Inovelli, but I think there’s a niche for the LZW30-SN (again, in either Z-Wave or Zigbee) in that it would probably be cheaper than the fan switch, and more versatile too if you’re not using it on a ceiling fan, and it wouldn’t have the no-inductive-loads drawback of the 2-in-1.
Speaking for myself, I have a few of them installed on lights and one on a ceiling fan, and if I replace them (either with dimmers, or switching to Zigbee, or whatever), I’m definitely going to keep them around to use or sell for an exhaust fan use case. I can imagine a point in a few years where my extra LZW30-SNs feel more valuable to me than any extra uninstalled LZW31-SN dimmers that I may have at that point.
I don’t think you talk about it on the product page (any more?), but for me the issue is I learned these had a relay, and a smart bulb mode. Together, I figured it just let the full line signal through with the relay, to let my smart bulb do its thing. Now I’m learning that the 2-1 might slightly decrease the brightness of even my smart bulbs, depending on implementation, since the manufacturer did not hook up the relay as originally desired. Given that I like really bright lighting, this concerns me. Now I feel like I need to validate any bulb carefully with 2-1 and a relay based switch to compare lux.
The product I actually want is a stupid relay + nice dimmer interface. I want it to normally pass 100% of the line, and control bulbs via zigbee bindings or other software. But then, when something goes wrong, I still want the ability for this to be just shut off, maybe even with air-gap switch instead of relay. But no one makes a LZW-30 with the nice dimming UX of the 2-1. Once I come to trust the digital signaling in my new house, I might just bypass the 2-1 switches in the box, and only use them in software.
Also, I get quite annoyed at the folks without neutrals making the switches more complicated and expensive than they need to be for newer houses. I’d rather have separate neutral and non-neutral models, since features inherently have to be different between them, and you have complex compatibility matrices of what features are included, and a whole worthless relay, just because of them.
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The relay is to support dumb 3-way switches, nothing to do with non-neutral since using dumb 3-way switches requires a neutral.
That’s an ex-post-facto rationalization. Eric has already said he thought the 2-1 was supposed to be able to control a inductive load.
No, I’m not making any special rationalizations. I knew how it would be built all along if there was only one relay in the package and the dimmer was going to support dumb 3-way switches. It’s how smart dimmers that supports 3-way dumb switches have to be built to be capable of switching between the traveler wires.
Your mini rant about the people requiring non-neutral causing the use of a whole worthless relay is still wrong.
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