- Posted on
Wed Sep 28, 2022 3:18 pm
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dduff617
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- Posts: 661
- Joined: Jul 05, 2006
- Location: Massachusetts, USA
some z-wave wall switches now can be connected in an n-way circuit and (if you choose) you only have to replace one of the n-1 original switches with a z-wave switch and you can leave the other switches as their original "dumb" selves. the z-wave switch will serve as a dimming load controller. the other n-2 switches will work similar to how they would work in the original configuration in that toggling the position of the switch will toggle the state of the light - i.e. between off and previous-dim-state. in other words, the the z-wave switch senses when the traveler is toggled by one of the original switches and toggles the load accordingly. i believe one such example switch is Zooz brand Zen77
win: this can save some money
lose: you don't have full control (dimming) from all the original switch locations - only toggle on/off.
win: less work to do on installation
win: you don't have to deal with buying and installing different special sub-types of "slave" switches
win: you don't have to deal with idiosyncrasies of z-wave associations
lose: aesthetic and UI inconsistency of having a mix of old/dumb and some new/smart switches in different locations
for me personally, a lot of my n-way switches are in hallways and stairways. many of those locations are places where i use a motion sensor to control the load 99.6% of the time (so don't generally touch the physical switches). so for me, i might consider this option if i were doing it all over again. (i currently have mostly insteon switches installed).