I’ve never seen this on a Zigbee product before (though I suspect I’d feel the same), but I don’t find this particularly useful on Z-Wave. I’m guessing some people may find it useful, since you could theoretically use Z-Wave mostly via association and a controller that isn’t technically a hub and might not let you see information like this as easily as many (not all) hubs do, and the same might apply to Zigbee, but … if space is at all a concern, I know I wouldn’t miss it. 
(But I’m probably not the target audience for this feature.)
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This may MATTER to you guys…
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Yes, we’re definitely exploring this for the 700 Series switches.
Yeah, I agree guys and if space is an issue, this is certainly one of the first features to be cut. We put this in there bc people would often write in to support and say their switch was losing connection to their hub, or wouldn’t connect at all. Oftentimes, it was bc it was their first switch and they were installing it at the far end of the house, away from the hub. Prior to the signal checker, it was hard to know if it was a signal problem, or if there was a problem with the switch itself. The fix would be to ask them to move the switch to a closer location and see if it would work, but adding in the signal strength identifier would usually help.
The problem with the current implementation is exactly what @mamber wrote in that it only shows Green or Red. We asked for Yellow to be added initially, but they claimed, “not enough space” so we just kept it Red/Green. In addition, it was supposed to detect the signal before the switch was included. But it’s my understanding that this is not always accurate and it will fully work once the switch is included in the network (which defeats the purpose). I’m not sure if this ever got worked out tbh.
The net of it is, I agree with you guys – with the chipsets getting better and better with range, there will likely not be a need for this either.
It will depend on your hub – similar to Z-Wave, they can run locally, but it will depend on if the hub processes them in the cloud or at the hub. I would assume Hubitat, Home Assistant, HomeSeer, etc will have local control. Possibly SmartThings too as we were just invited to their alpha program for local control.
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smartthings user here. just hope it does run locally. it’s a day and night difference in responsiveness.
my two black series are using a generic z-wave DH from ST and they just FLY! response is instantaneous when the motion sensor detects any movement.
I installed the inovelli DH to set all the parameters to my taste and then switched to one of the DH in the list so they run locally. still they retained all my preferences but using the generic DH.
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I find this feature reassuring during install. It’s a validation I did it right and it has no reason not to work before I even open the app. Like turning right and the light changing when you go to move. Sure you checked everything before you went for it, but still nice for the light to change.
Responding to this from the On/Off thread as we merged both switches to this one.
Great questions and this is a tough one to answer in black/white terms as there’s a lot of moving pieces, but I’ll try my best.
Generally speaking, ZigBee is cheaper to manufacturer simply due to the chipset being a lot less expensive. This is due to the fact that Silicon Labs owned ZigBee and Sigma Designs owned Z-Wave. Silicon allowed multiple manufacturers to produce the ZigBee chips, whereas Sigma only allowed one causing the prices to be much higher. Now that Silicon owns Z-Wave, they’ve opened it up to multiple manufacturers. However, for some reason it seems like the pricing is still way higher. Couple that with the poor forecasting, there is a severe Z-Wave chip shortage now, causing a, “spot market” (or as we call it over here, the, “black market”) where you can purchase chips and raw materials for 2-3x the cost to get things faster.
Right now ZigBee is much cheaper, but hopefully as things stabilize, Z-Wave won’t be as expensive.
So, that’s one aspect to consider when setting the price-point.
The other is through the marketing lens and what consumers want. This is where it gets to be complex. What features do people want and what price are they willing to pay for it.
The ZigBee switches will essentially be our Gen 3 switches in which we’re adding features as these are going to be directed at mass market, in which there is a lot more competition. We’ll never win the pricing war against Chinese companies, so what we have to do is set our branding to be a premium offer. To do this, we can’t be all smoke and mirrors, but rather prove we offer more as we charge more. To do this, we’re trying to solve a ton of problems in the market:
- Smart Home is confusing = we’ll (hopefully) provide a great user experience
- Installation is confusing = we’ll make it easier to install your switches and that includes allowing it to work in many different scenarios (neutral, non-neutral, etc) with many different load types. We want to make it so that people don’t even need to think about it and the process will be so seamless, it will make installation of a lesser expensive switch seem like a hassle
- Sexy aesthetics = I’m a marketing guy, what can I say lol
In order to do these things, it takes more expensive parts and so our price point will likely be around the same as Z-Wave, possibly a little less.
This brings up the question – why do you sell Z-Wave then?
This is one we’re wrestling with internally – and we’ve landed on the strategy of selling Z-Wave to security companies who require the security that Z-Wave offers and then if the home automation enthusiasts want Z-Wave, they can certainly have them.
However, our focus from a consumer standpoint is going to be ZigBee/CHIP/Matter as that’s where the big dogs are playing and where we can fill more of the gaps in the industry.
Long winded way of saying - price point will likely remain the same as we’re adding more features that will likely offset any cost savings by switching to ZigBee.
Good news, and I can’t spill the beans yet, but these should run locally.
That’s a great point that I hadn’t thought of, thanks for sharing!
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Would there be any interest/space for these switches having motion, temperature, luminance, etc. sensors built in? I know the motion aspect might not work great if the switch isn’t in the best location for that, but in many small rooms in my house it would work, and in bigger rooms I would have multiple switch locations that could be combined to provide an accurate read in the room. In most rooms the common location for a switch would provide a good read on luminance and temperature data. This would save me needing to spend on additional sensors and also would make it less obvious that there are ugly sensors in the room.
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I would 2nd this. In fact, when I first set out on my new Hubitat adventure I was kinda shocked that these types of products weren’t widely available. In the majority of rooms the light switch is located in a very ideal location for a motion sensor. I seriously almost considered filling my house with the GE motion lights but found them a bit ugly, and read a few posts about them buzzing so I talked myself out of it. To me, this is the direction all smart switches should be going. But what I do know, I’m just a consumer.
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I’m kind of new to all this, but I mainly want one thing besides the “smart bulb aware smart switch” - for the switch to fall back to “dumb” mode if the hub is down. Maybe it already does that? And the “Control internal relay locally” sounds like it’s basically that.
I’m just worried that if I step on my hub or something I won’t be able to turn on my lights.
Likely not these one specifically, but I do want to for sure come out with a motion one. I’m sure we could add in luminance. The tricky one will be temperature as it will need an external probe of some sort. We looked at adding temperature to our current switches, but the internal heat on the switch threw things off dramatically. But, yeah, totally would love to add a motion/luminance switch to the mix!
Are you talking about when the switch is put in smart bulb mode (ie: if the switch is in SBM, if the hub goes down, it reverts back to a normal switch)?
Currently, the switch acts as a normal switch (ie: you can walk up to it and turn it on/off like a dumb switch) and it will still work even if the hub is down.
Lol, I hear ya! The switch will do that currently. However, if you do have Smart Bulb Mode enabled, you will have to manually turn it off at the switch.
Are you talking about when the switch is put in smart bulb mode (ie: if the switch is in SBM, if the hub goes down, it reverts back to a normal switch)?
Yep! Precisely. Ideally with a way to detect whether lights are on or off at that moment - so the lights don’t change state if the hub goes down (maybe by providing a way to remember the last state of a light sensor? I don’t really know what’s technically possible/feasible).
Being able to turn off SBM locally is already 90% there - hub going down is an “emergency” situation, I don’t mind the transition not being perfect. It would be a bit of a pain if all the switches in the house are smart though.
I also don’t have any devices yet, actually, I’m just looking into possibilities and trying hard not to create more trouble than it’s worth for myself.
Mmmmm… very interesting. I like it!
@EricM_Inovelli – do you think we could add this feature? I’m not sure how we’d implement it. Maybe the switch polls the hub every x minutes or something? If it’s down, revert back to non-SBM.
TBH I’m very confused what @dikartashev is talking about. The hub only makes changes and reports the status of the switch, it isn’t like if the hub goes down then all of the lights go off/on. I’d encourage you to get a device to see what this is all about.
The only thing that will happen if the hub goes down is scenes/automations will not fire anymore, and if Smart Bulb Mode is in setting 2 (on always) then the bulb will not turn on/off unless z-wave (zigbee in this case, but does zigbee have direct associations?) and associated. Essentially if hub down, then you would rely on z-wave (zigbee) network associations solely to operate, you would lose control of zigbee (zwave), wifi, etc. bulbs.
Now that said, you also can’t change SBM via the switch, so you would have to air-gap to turn off power. It would be a nice feature addition to have local control of SBM mode between 0, 1, and 2. That and disable local control are the 2 features I would like to have local to the switch, most everything else I think would be fine hub-only.
Communication from the switch to the hub is handled by the SDK and is supposed to be transparent to the user application so I don’t think that is a possible approach. Best would be the air gap or a button combo to switch back to normal mode.
Note: Z-wave associations do not rely on the hub so you wouldn’t see this issue there (like @kreene1987 mentioned). Zigbee has “touchlink” and other capabilities that allow device-to-device communication as well.
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Hrmm… Can’t say I’m not a little concerned. Couple follow up questions if you don’t mind…
What do you mean by “security companies”? Like literally for home security? Just confused since your lineup looks nothing like those products (door/window sensors, etc…).
I guess depending on the answer to that one… Do you expect to make similar products in both? Or are switched and dimmers with notification bars, etc… Going to eventually end up purely in the zigbee swimlane while door sensors, and other “security products” will eventually take over the zwave swimlane?
While I’m not actually paranoid someone is going to bother to hack my light switches… Kinda like being on zwave. 2.4 is a crowded frequency… And if I’m not mistaken, takes more hops indoors? Zwave gets through walls and things a little easier I thought I read early on? (Seems odd since WiFi seems to do fine… But certainly at Bluetooth power levels the range limits of 2.4 are obvious… Not sure if that’s power, frequency or both).
Zwave operates in the 900Mhz band while WiFi and Zigbee operate in the 2.4Ghz band. Lower frequencies penetrate walls and other structures better then higher frequencies. Higher frequencies are desirable for WIFI because they carry higher data rates. Home automation doesn’t generally need megabit speed like WiFi data.
Any updates on progress? I’m really interested in this product!
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I’m hoping they can pull off a Zigbee switch that integrates with the Hue Bridge. If so, I can see many many people using this.
+1 for motion and luminance specifically. I’d understand if that would require a separate sku (common). Fwiw the existing motion-sensing smart switches are pretty ugly imo - I have a few GE ones but they are relegated to the laundry room and garage (because ugly - but work very well). If you can find a magic sweet spot between function and form you’ll have a nice expanded market. Wonder if you could create a cool looking add-on wall plate - siphon from the wall line/neutral, auto-pair with the switch and auto-expand config options to include ‘motion on/off’ etc.
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I think ‘routing and reach’ are underrated but critical components in the Zigbee product discussion. There is a small niche of nerds in this market (self included) who work religiously to optimize their Zigbee networks - validating new products act as routers when they should, shunning those who don’t, keeping 2.4 networks appropriately segmented, strategically installing devices to extend coverage where its weak, etc.
I didn’t see ‘Router’ vs ‘End Device’ mentioned anywhere, so maybe it’s just a given based on Zigbee 3.x compliance, but I’ve made that assumption and been burned in the past (cough Lumi cough). And anything that extends and enhances the existing network, e.g. solid antenna hardware and optimized transmit power, would be welcomed (bad place to cut costs imo).
While I don’t expect avg consumer to spend time validating each device’s LQI and RSSI stats, I DO expect them to apply broad generalizations about home automation tech - we’ve all read/heard the civilian comment “smart home tech just isn’t ready yet - it’s too hard/unstable/unreliable/etc.”. If Blue helps more Zigbee devices work reliably in more rooms, you’ll be on the right track - and have some marketing fodder to boot. Tweet-worthy if nothing else.
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