Red vs Black? What's the difference?

I’ve read several posts around and I still can’t figure out what the difference is conclusively between the Red and Black versions of the switches and dimmers. Can someone enlighten me? I need to purchase about 30 Dimmers and regular switches and I’d like to make the best decision on them.

Thanks

@JoshFink - The biggest difference is being able to perform multi-taps to trigger scenes on Red series devices. E.g., Double tap kitchen light dimmer up twice turns on the kitchen lights and dining room lights together. Another example would be if an exterior door is opened during the night, the light switches will turn red or yellow to let me know a door was opened. (Using sensors on the door obviously) The Black Series devices won’t let you do that. I would recommend buying the open box Red Series Dimmers that are on sale. Wouldn’t look back at going Red over Black. I kind of regret buying some Black Series On/Off because I could use the scene controls in certain applications. For one example, I placed a Black On/Off to control my bedside lamp…not that big of deal. didn’t think I’d use a Red one here. Well, 5 months later, I wish I did because I could trigger all the lights to go off without getting out of bed. #firstworldproblems

1 Like

Thanks @harjms, that helps out a lot and it makes my decision to get the reds much easier as the double taps is a feature I was looking for.

@JoshFink - Worth the savings - https://inovelli.com/unboxed-red-series-dimmer-switch-z-wave/

Most of my black switches are next to a Red Series device, so I do have the option to double, triple, etc… tap the Red device if needed. E.g. bathroom fan next to bathroom light is black series on/off switch. I’m okay with it being black as I can perform taps on the Red device.

Everything harjms said is true, but notifications on the led is another big difference. You can’t set the led on the black series to display notifications but you can with the red, this was the selling point for me on Inovelli. Every switch in my house displays the current state of my home. Green led means all clear, orange pulsing means something (door, window, garage) is open, red chase means alarm is armed, red fast blinking means intrusion. Everybody uses these differently which is why they are so great.

1 Like

Here’s a helpful article (I’m biased bc I wrote it lol) that explains this as we get asked this all the time:

But, as always @harjms and @flipontheradio nailed it – thanks guys!

3 Likes

Thanks. I must have totally missed that.

No worries – it’s on a separate site (support.inovelli.com) – we’re working on tying the two together so things are easier to find!

Can someone explain to me what the notification benefit is for the red series instead of using the child devices for the black series?

Notifications are great. They can be used to let you know the door is unlocked or garage door was left open at a certain time for example. It requires sensors to be connected to them or locks need to be supported/connected to the hub to indicate status. Once it triggers you can have your switch flash red or any color to let you know.

But can’t I do that with the child devices as well from the Black Series? I guess I would need to see a video demonstrating this as I don’t see the difference.

You can do this with the Black Series, yes, but you can only have solid color notifications, whereas the Red Series offer animations (ie: chase, blink, etc).

If you’re ok with the LED bar change to a different solid color to notify you, then yes, the Black Series will work :slight_smile:

Thanks Eric! I’m not sure if you have this, but I was looking for a video demonstrating your higher end features and didn’t really see it. Maybe because there are so many hubs and therefore so many videos. I know it would have helped for me. I wonder if I can use webcore to flash the led to mimic these animations…

Yeah it’s definitely on our to-do list :frowning:

Possibly, I’ve never tried that!