Thanks for asking!
#1, I would like the light switch to be a full height rocker paddle, so that it matches the rest of the light switches in my house. This would also eliminate the need for the side up/down rocker by following these conventions:
- Tap-top: on to previous setting
- Hold-top: increase brightness
- Tap-bottom: off
- Hold-bottom:decrease brightness
The fan could be controlled with a horizontally mounted thin rocker along the bottom edge (rotate the fan’s up/down rocker by 90 degrees.) With four steps, off/low/medium/high, I wouldn’t need a separate paddle for the fan.
#2. The light dimming ramp needs to be modifiable, as it looks to vary between LED bulb manufacturers. The bulbs I use appear to be about the same brightness from 100% down to 50%/40% or so. From 40% to 20% they dim quickly, and below 20% the bulbs begin to flicker, then strobe wildly. So I have maybe a 20 step useful dimming range. If I could set that profile via parameters, the dimmer would be much more usable.
#2.5 Possibly related to #2, the switch seems very sluggish to respond when I tap the dimmer panel to shut it off. That might be because it’s ramping down slowly from 99% to 40% with no visible effect.
#3 The number of illuminated indicator LEDs along the right side may be trying to convey information to me, but it doesn’t. Currently, it’s a single translucent strip that’s lit from behind. When I touch the switch, it’s down near my belt-buckle; looking down I see a glow but have no idea if it’s nearly empty or full. To check, I would have to bend down and stare straight at it. If it was a set of discrete isolated lights along the right edge of the switch, I could at least see “3 of 5”, “2 of 4”, etc. As is, it’s difficult to use.
#4 An easier-to-remember way to put it in Z-wave pairing mode. Holding down the light paddle while closing the air-gap switch would be easy to remember, and much more in line with other manufacturers. The current scheme absolutely requires me referring to an instruction manual, which is not at all friendly in the field.
#5 Make the switch body a lot thinner! The main reason anyone would pay a premium for a combo switch (and not just add a second dedicated fan-only switch) is to fit an existing single gang box in a tight wall cavity. Any existing box already has three Romex cables coming in (14/2 line in, 14/2 line out, and 14/3 to fan) and is already crammed full of wires and wirenuts. There’s no room for this huge, empty, plastic body! It should be as thin as a mechanical toggle switch.
