Thougths comparing Leviton Decora switches versus Inovelli

Hey folks…

I’m fairly new to the home automation scene, not to mention to Inovelli as well. I have a few Leviton Decora Wifi Smart Dimmers installed in my first foray into smart lighting.

Now, I have a SmartThings hub and am curious about the Inovelli products. Has anyone come to Inovelli from comparable Leviton (Wifi or ZWave) Smart Switches/Dimmers? If so, how do you think the two lines compare? I am wondering if Inovelli switches are better in reliability/capability etc., would it make sense to keep the existing Leviton WiFi Smart Dimmers and just add in the Inovelli switches/dimmers, and tie them all together through SmartThings?

The Leviton dimmers have been fairly reliable so far, except for a few incidents of one of the dimmers temporarily falling off the WiFi network, requiring manual intervention. Or are the Inovelli stuff so much better that I should think about going all-in on Inovelli/Zwave/SmartThings combo??

Thanks for any input.

Considering zwave is a mesh type network… The more you have, better it should be…

Will it work? Why not…
Should you? That depends of your budget.

I don’t know much about wifi switch but I’m sure they are limited in their options and their response speed VS zwave. But could be wrong. Correct me if that’s not the case.

Hello,

If you haven’t already seen their article discussing different radio technologies, it’s worth taking the time to read.

That being said there are a few more cons worth discussing with WiFi.

Channels

There are two main frequencies used for wireless networks 2.4GHz (2G) and 5GHZ (5G). Powerful devices such as computers and tablets tend to prefer 5G networks, as they offer greater bandwidth and typically have less interference.

Smart Home devices on the other hand tend to prefer 2G networks, as they offer greater range and consume less power than 5G radios. Typically, a 2G network will extend well beyond your house (depending on the size), or you will have multiple access points to ensure full coverage.

This presents a problem if you don’t have much space between your neighbors, as your networks will cause interference. The solution is typically to change the channel, after all you have 11 (US) to chose from right?

Wrong - There are only three non-overlapping channels (1, 6, and 11). This means your neighbor would need to use say channel 1 and you use channel 6 to avoid interference. Oh, and if you have multiple access points - those should also be on their own channels as well.

In most cases three channels aren’t enough to avoid interference as you might have guessed. The more interference you have the worse your network will perform, with symptoms being slower speeds and frequent disconnects.

There are more non-overlapping channels for 5G networks, granted those can run out quickly as well.

Clients

There is a limit to how many devices most networks can support. The limit will vary depending on your equipment, and the devices connecting to the network. Think of your wireless router/access point as one person talking, and one device as another person. In order to function both people must talk with each other at all time. Now change the volume based on the amount of data used - a TV streaming video requires a lot of data so they would be yelling. A light switch isn’t using much so it’s whispering. At a certain point your router isn’t going to be able to process everyone talking at once, and so your wifi performance will suffer.

You can do some fancy networking magic (think enterprise equipment) to get away with higher device counts, but that gets expensive quickly. Not to mention complicated to setup and manage.

My recommendation is using zwave switches/outlets to automate things. In addition to building a strong mesh, things should just work as it’s all compatible. Oh, and they aren’t proprietary or reliant on a cloud service - so you can replace the hub if you need something different or Inovelli was to vanish.

Hope that helps :slight_smile:

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Thanks @amdbuilder, @simriv123. If you’d indulge me further, I’ll share some of stream of consciousness below… :slight_smile:

The article comparing the Wifi/Zwave/Zwave Plus/Zigbee was a good read. In my home, I have a WiFi mesh with three routers, and about ~20 wireless devices on at any time. This might get into the 40s over the next few years. So far, I have run into any sort of delayed response a handful of times in the past year - and this is for the commands having to go from client->wifi->internet->Google/Amazon/Leviton Cloud(s)->internet->wifi->switch. I suppose the more wifi devices I add to the network, the more noticeable delays might become.

I am convinced about the rationale to keep the Smart Home or IoT stuff on its own networks… it’s just that I am looking to see if people with experience with both Leviton and Inovelli brands, and if they see a clear benefit going with Inovelli.

My primary use cases are app/voice-based control of the lights (and fans, eventually) using Alexa AND Google, automate home/away routines for lighting, etc., and integration with Nest Cams and Ring Security system. Obviously, not all of these devices are Z-wave, so I will end up with a mixed system using Wifi anyway. How much bandwidth do WiFi switches consume anyway on a 802.1ac mesh network, even if they are a little chatty with their heartbeats/call-home messages?

I have leviton, ge, and now the inovelli switches. I have had a bad leviton, and a bad GE switch over the years. When controlling them via smartthings and now hubitat there are sometimes delays 1-2 seconds. I now have 7 Inovelli switches and they seem to be almost instant.

The red series from inovelli are feature rich. Lots of thing can be don with them. The black versions are closer to being compared to the other smart switches out there. But the inovelli ones still come out ahead with features.

Now reliability? Hard to compare as the red switches recently got released. So only time will tell but in my opinion they will outlast other brands or be equal.

Iinovelli is expanding their line slowly as they are trying to make thing perfect before releasing them. The dimmers are comming soon already have them on preorder. And as they bring out other items I will be getting them. I am very pleased with them. Quality seems better. I am slowly replacing my other switches with inovelli switches.

I say best way to find if it’s a good fit is to just buy one for now. Replace it with the switch you use most and see how it is for your needs. I dont think you will be unhappy with your purchase.

Also I try and avoid wifi devices. I perfer zwave.

I really don’t know if wifi switch can handle something similar like scene command from zwave switch?

For me, having the possibility to double tap a switch and control another device and a triple tap shutdown every light at once is a game changer. This is a very small exemple of it’s utility, it’s limited to your imagination and if it’s not possible, those people at inovelli will ask their own magician to make it happen (kind of :stuck_out_tongue: )

@simriv123 There might very well be things possible on the Inovelli that can’t be as elegantly automated on other smart switches (Z-wave or otherwise), and also the other way around. Google Assistant and Alexa offer interesting ways to tie together various smart endpoints into custom routines.

For me, it’s very powerful/easy to use voice commands (turbocharged by NLP and AI megaminds at Google and Amazon) than to expect all of my home users to learn the multi-tap commands. I can already turn on/off groups of lights and/or thermostat by room/floor/whole-house with just one voice command, so I don’t know how much more I gain from switches with custom multi-tap commands.

I guess I just have to experiment for myself, and learn how I can weave Z-wave switches into the mix with Google Home and Alexa. At the minimum, I guess I’ll gain the benefit of one less cloud in the mix (Google Home/Nest + Amazon Alexa/Ring + Samsung SmartThings +/- My Leviton) by using Z-Wave.

If your current switches are working just fine, I wouldn’t get rid of them. I would suggest you lookup digiblur on youtube. He shows how to use Tuya convert on certain switches to enable a lot of functionality. I’ve never used SmartThings, so I don’t know if the extra functionality is as useful there, but there is a lot you can do in Home Assistant.

Personally, I’ve decided against the wifi/tuya route. I’ll have far to many switches to spend my time converting each one. Even if I could do each one in 5-10 minutes, it would still take hours upon hours to do all of them. With Z-wave I just install the switch, do the include and off I go. The include/exclude procedure is kind of annoying, but not a deal breaker for me.

I do think people make too big of a deal about having a lot of wifi devices and interference. Go with ubiquiti unifi access points and router and it will handle anything you throw at it. They aren’t expensive either. What I do think is more of an issue/irritation is having to remember/lookup the ip of every switch. If you have 75 switches (not that hard to get there really) then there are 75 different ip addresses. It’s amazing what you can do with tuya convert, but you need to access the switch with a web browser and use the console for a lot of it. I would rather just work in the UI of my automation platform (home assistant).

Having said that, if the Leviton switches are working for you and provide all of the functionality you want, well, don’t fix what’s not broken. I would just keep going that route. If you want to experiment with all of the crazy functions of the Inovelli, then I would go for it!

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