If I remember correctly, the difference between these is in the waveform given to the load: the line voltage arrives as an (approximate) sine wave at 60Hz, and the dimmer does its job by cutting off the rising edge or the falling edge of the waveform. For those of you who are curious, I found an article with lots of figures showing the waveforms generated, talking about the pros and cons of various methods of dimming, and generally bemoaning the state of affairs… in 2008, which the author claims hadn’t improved much by 2017 when he revised it. So yeah, such universal dimmers exist, but the hardware would need to support it.
This came up in another thread. I label all my faceplates with a label maker–I’m kinda OCD like that–but it would be so much nicer if the paddles could be labelled. I have a 5-gang box in the living room with a three-way to the kitchen lights, and controls for three lights sources and a fan; it would be nice if the paddles themselves could be labeled “kitchen lights” (with a light bulb icon), “corner lamp” (with a table lamp icon), “center light” (bulb icon again), “ceiling fan” (fan icon), and “perimeter lights” (bulb icon). (This assumes that Project Windy City comes out soon, and with paddles that are compatible with current dimmers…)
Afterall, once I’ve replaced all my switches with Red Series, how am I going to spend more money on Inovelli???
I think so too, which is why I never went that route. My “dumb” dimmers are all Maesto, so when I wanted something smarter, the obvious choice would have been to stick with Leviton and go for Caseta. But they are just too darned ugly for my taste. The same design on the Pico as a detached remote is OK, but for something mounted on the wall with a faceplate, it just looks wrong to me because it doesn’t look like a light switch.