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I wanted Z-wave control with speed adjustment for a bedroom ceiling fan. For some reason consumer home automation technologies have overlooked the need for ceiling fan control for years.
Leviton finally has it. The Z-wave control itself works great! The problem is the cheap design of the switch itself. For over $100, I was expecting something much more elegant. It looks a bit like a regular Decora switch stuck in the "on" position. When you press on the lower part of the paddle, it will click to toggle on or off. This brings up the first problem there's an LED indicator BELOW the paddle that tells you whether it's on or off. You can't see it without ducking down. And since it's a toggle button, you really want confirmation a ceiling fan takes a while to spin down.
There are tiny controls on the upper part of the paddle to adjust the fan speed. This is fairly intuitive thanks to the LED indicator. Unfortunately, if you miss the little buttons and press on the upper part of the paddle, the paddle will completely pop out of the switch. I thought I broke it the first time this happened, but it snaps back into place.
It's reminiscent of the old cheap X10 switches. Very disappointing. GE's Z-wave switches are much better, and far less expensive. Unfortunately this is the only game in town for variable speed Z-wave fan control.
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It works perfect with ADT pulse home automation. I installed it as the Leviton 1000W dimmer from the drop down list on the control site. Used the HI and Low (left and right) buttons to ADD it to the system...took a minute to include in the system...Apparently what I thought was a flimsy switch, is a breaker switch to the light bulbs or the fan in that case. when you push the top part of the switch, the bottom comes off breaking the circuit...useless feature if you ask me. I ducked a star for the very high price. I will experiment with other options and cheaper light switches to see if they work and if they do I will let you know..I hope this helps in making a good choice
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Needless to say I was super excited to install this Fan Speed Control as soon as it arrived. But disappointment followed soon.Packaging is simple and it comes with 3 different colors for the switch. Face plate not included.
Wiring is built in. I have installed the GE/Jasco Z wave switches and those don't come wired. But my current manual fan control is already wired so maybe fan controls are always wired.
Installation is fairly easy if you installed Z wave switches before. There is your White Neutral wire and your Power and Load wires and each needs to go with the corresponding wire in your respectable, gets covered by a wire note and viola.
I've done Z wave control on and off with a neutral wire before and this wasn't much different. I do have a manual fan control in place I just wanted a remotely controlled option.
I got excited when I clicked the fan on and it worked. However alas I noticed that the fan only worked on the highest power setting. Switching the control to medium or low resulted in the fan turing off within 1-2 seconds. Now before you go and blame the fan let me remind you that I already have a rotary dial manual fan control installed. And it does a superb job controlling the fan from a very fast rotation to a very slow rotation and everything in between.
I added this control to my ADT pulse using one of the Leviton dimmer settings and it was added successfully. Same problem though. Using a setting between 70%-100% would keep the fan spinning at the maximum rate. Dropping the setting below 70% would have the fan turning off.
I also hooked up this switch to the GE advanced Z wave remote and it synced successfully. But same result. It was an on and off switch. Not a dimmer status.
I deleted the switch from my Z wave network and reseted it to the factory website a couple of times just to be sure that this is not a Z wave network issue still no luck. I reinstalled my original fan control and it was able to control the fan at all different speeds so I know it's not the fan!
I will be returning it and getting a replacement as I feel I have a defective unit. I hope I do have a defective unit as I really would like this setup to work.
The unit itself is well made and sturdy. It looks nice and well featured. Has 2 different LED lights one at the button which is on when the switch is off to enable locating in the dark. The other is below the up-down button to indicate the speed setting. It has the circuit disconnect feature that is available on all Z wave controls and is accomplished by pushing at the top of the switch making the bottom come off slightly. It is nicer than the GE switches. However you press on the bottom of the device for the on/off function as compared to the GE switch which functions closer to a traditional switch.
The higher/lower up/down buttons are small and don't give a good feedback and needless to say again they didn't work for me.
This control is better controlled by a remote than manually given the poor feedback of those buttons and I wouldn't have minded that if it worked.
To be honest I would have given it 5 stars if it worked. and I will change the rating to 5 stars if the replacement works.
I found it hard to give it one star even that it didn't work for me given that it looked really nice and was fairly easy to install. I am hoping for a better luck with the next one and i'll update this post if that happens.
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