Supports at least Homekit + Google Home, HomeAssistant and SmartThings preferred (shouldn’t be an issue for zigbee/zwave/thread devices as I have hubs compatible with all)
Relatively inexpensive (preferably no more than $20 a switch but I understand that’s not always attainable)
Truthfully, what I want and what I’m describing here is something that’s effectively one of those TP Link Kasa / Tapo switches, but not WiFi-based and that supports 3/4-way switching. I mean they’re dirt cheap, but I really don’t want to throw another 15 devices on an already congested wifi network…
Is this a pipe dream? Or is there a solution for me? Please let me know, thanks.
You used dollars. So I’m assuming US or Northamerica (we must know to provide recommendations power and RF requirements are different by geo. - - all Northamerica uses the same stuff)
Any ‘Jasco style’ (Jasco was the original OEM for GE, also markets under about 5 other brands now) ZWave does what you ask. (the traveller is a lot volt interconnect between all switches in an N-way setup. There are wiring diagrams with up to 5-way but I do t think there’s a top end.) Because ZWave. It’s standards based and all those systems will be fine
Zooz and Inovelli also make devices that fit that spec. Inovelli are fab but expensive and increasingly hard to find in ZWave. I believe that they are also doing Zigbee devices now that would work.
For what you ask 20/swich will be TIGHT (retail $35-40) but you should be able to find deals that will get you close and if you’re buying in bulk I know at least thesmartesthouse did contractor packs that saved a few dollars.
Yes, sorry, should’ve specified US-based.
I’ll take a look at Jasco and Zooz. I found some on sale for around $28 apiece, still a bit higher than what I want but I understand the market for these things doesn’t really result in cheap options like the wifi units do. Maybe I’ll stagger it, and get some z-wave and some wifi…
Thank you for the recommendations.
Zooz switches are good and have wiring diagrams for 3- and 4-way configurations; note you likely have to rewire every switchbox though. They go on sale 4-5 times a year at thesmartesthouse.com for under $25, but you just missed the BF sale. I have three ZEN71s, but use them with no-load to control my zwave shades since they have up and down rockers.
For my lighting I opted for the Treatlife 3-way WiFi switch because it cleverly allows the other switchboxes to keep their original wiring. I flashed them with Tasmota so they are fully local, use hardly any traffic, and sit on a private non-routed 2.4ghz-only subnet. I have almost 80 WiFi devices and zero congestion issues (in an apartment building), so if you are seeing WiFi congestion you might have a problem elsewhere on your network worth investigating.
Interesting. I only have 25-30 devices on my network at a time, but I have a single eero 6 as my router and I’ve never really trusted that thing to hold up to load haha. But if you have 80 devices with 0 issues, I might just be overestimating the impact wifi switches would have on my network. I’ll keep that in mind too while doing my research, thanks!
Bandwidth is rarely the issue on wifi with IoT devices. It’s saturation and device count (number of simultaneous connections your AP can handle and how many dhcp addresses you can hand out)
If you have a fairly modern access point / router you’ll handle around 100 devices just fine. If. You’re wifi6/7 and have a really good router or prosumer gear you can go in the hundreds easily. I’m grossly over simplifying but basically at 80 I wouldn’t worry.
That said high IoT device counts on Wifi is a good case for wifi6/7 gear.
