Hello, I am planning on diving into HA and making my new house I’m building smart. I ran into a problem already. I have two groups of LED lights that are about 450W… I see that the max for most smart switches are 300W… Any good options for a big group of lights? I saw leviton makes a switch, but it’s “discontinued” so seems like a bad option moving forward? Enerwave has a smart switch add on relay that says 10A but it seems like it has issues with HA… curious if anyone’s found a good solution for big groups of lights?.. Thanks
What’s your geography. You mentioned Leviton so I’m assuming Northamerica /110/20a.but we really need to know what requirements we have before we can suggest anything.
Are you zigbee, ZWave, all Matter all the time? Hate zigbee and want everything wired? All of these play.
Do you have any options dividing the load? That’s a lot of lights especially if it’s led. How many fixtures are you driving?
Generally I try to have the number of cans no more than can be driven by a standard control and if I need more switches then so be it. The ZWave and Zigbee gear I use for switching generally allows for direct association or binding so I could tie all of the. Together into one big cluster virtually and without internet.
But I don’t know what your install looks like
Besides the total power you should also consider the inrush current of all the lamps that you want to switch with one switch. Inrush currents are the currents that happens when you switch on and will charge the capacitors in the electronics of the lamps. These currents during switching on are much higher than when the lamp is on for some time. Adding all the inrush currents from all lamps on the same circuit can case the breaker to switch off or can damage your switch. Maybe you have seen that in large rooms, all lamps are never switched on at the same time, but in groups. Therefore it might be a good idea to use multiple switches and not switch all lamps at the same time.
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I am in the US. This is a new home that I already have drywalled and ready to start thinking switches. I have two groups of about 37 12W led’s. I set my house up with minimal switches, and now realize that makes things tricker for this reason… I also seen legrand switches are 450w LED rated, but my main goal is to figure out what’s best to HA everything well. Only purchase so far is Zwave deadbolts so I suppose zwave would be best but not my main concern… Just curious if someone has found a good way to run something like 37, 12W lights on a smart dimmer via HA…
In a normal scenario even with inrush… it’s only 450W of lights on a 15A or 1800W circuit. Normal switches can be easily rated for 15A, but I’m finding this is harder to find in a smart switch…
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The inrush currents depends very much on the LED lamp you are using, in bad cases it can be 100x the nominal current. But easily 10x the nominal current. So if you have many lamps with 450W nominal current (or 3.75A) the inrush current can be 37.5A and in really bad cases go up to 375A and this will trip your 15A breaker and potentially kill your switch.
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Yep that’s what I’m thinking I simply dont like 450w of led on 1 single switch in my head I see 4500w of inrush. To heck with smart, I’d be splitting this circuit. Probably in three legs.
So no way to do 450W of LED’s on a single smart switch eh? At our shop, I currently have some circuits that are about 1600W (200 8A drivers) worth of LED’s all running off of a normal, single switch… So I’m really hoping I can find a way to do 450W on a smart switch…
I see people blowing smart switches on single vent fans.
Ive also seen those 72" ‘big ass fans’ fry a typical Jasco.
Inrush current from Led and inductive loads are a real thing. Most normal humans don’t load switching like that. Rules were built when leds didn’t exist and you simply couldn’t put that many incandescents on a line like that. Again if it were mine I’d split it into three or more legs of approx 100 ea and never need to deal with it again. Cost. Larger wall box and some Romex.
I guess if there is no real option, I might just have to run those two on dumb switches… really don’t want to tear all my walls back apart to split a big room into a bunch of circuits… I figured surely someone, somewhere has had the need to go slightly above the 300w LED limit =)… Or maybe the room will be bright enough I can just disconnect half the lighting… bummer
It’s not about ‘slightly above’
You’re in specialty territory on that light segment before you ever get to smart switches. Your electrician should have had a discussion with you about it. If they didn’t…
The load is technically in spec for the amperage for the line. I’ll give you that but there’s nothing about that that’s normal. If you smart switch it - expect blue smoke.
If you want smart switching you’re either splitting the load or looking for a specialized device. Again you’re in specialized territory handling the LEDs wattage and inrush BEFORE you even address smart. Let’s start there. So you’re looking for niche on niche.
How many pot lights do you have on each circuit and what kind of bulbs are you using? I haven’t really seen very my recessed lighting bulbs that were more than 15W or so. I’m struggling to understand how you’re getting 450W of LED lighting on a residential circuit
If you have more than 12 portlights on each circuit, I’m surprised that your electrical has passed inspection. I know here in Ontario you can’t have any more than 12 receptacles (outlets, lights) on a single circuit and sometimes they even require less depending on the circumstances.
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Just out of curiosity, How big is the room you are about to light-up ?
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It’s 37, 12w lights. 1200sqft garage. Maybe it’s the dimmer part that makes this tricky… I know for sure just a regular switch can run 200 LED’s just fine since I’ve had that working in a commercial area for years now… Figured surely someone, somewhere has built a switch to handle this, but maybe not =)
Kinda - but no, you are in contactor v. switch territory because
when this was incandescent you would assume EACH fixture needed 60w/on a 15a/110 circuit. That effectively limited planners to something between 12-15 fixtures on a given circuit breaker. Now that low wattage LEDs are a thing you can QUICKLY overrun a circuit and still be in spec - so
This is a real thing. Im wondering the same. 37? That’s BONKERS.
We have a code for 12 outlets on a circuit but for lights, it’s always been off of whatever the breaker can safely handle… I do have our big commercial circuits working great… but anyhoo… the “car” parts of the garage are less important on light, so I could probably unhook 12 lights on that end and still be okay I suppose…
I am definitely agreeing with the comments here. You definitely should split this circuit up. The thing is once it is split finding a smart switch / dimmer should be much easier and once the additional switches are smart they could be remotely controlled by HA even if you are using one as a primary one.
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My Garage is only a third , about 450squarefeet, 3meter to ceiling , i planned for 3 circuits (lead light, when passing through, Working light, Parking-light, total of about 250 LED watts, so i didn’t “bumped into” your situation, as i planned it this way
But depending upon how you will use your wall-switch, you could maybe have the “wall-switch” turning-on the switch/driver for the single-circuit switch. Thou i would never have 1 single-circuit-light-switch in a Garage, specially not of your size. A short-circuit can/will leave you in a dangerous situation
However have a look here
Edit: Sorry it’s only total about 150 LED watt 
I think I’m going to split this in half and tear up some drywall to add a switch in an odd spot for the car area… I think I can get down to about 200w a circuit so the Inovelli’s should work for my whole house then…Would have been quite easy if I had only thought through this earlier =)
How big is that room? How about a wiring diagram of what you have?