Electrical - wattage tolerances on switches, how close is too close?

[ray1970]

Yep. I'm sure there's a safety factor built in to the switch rating. My guess is that switch would probably handle 50% more than it's rating before you killed yourself in a fire so that 8% over wouldn't bother me.

[Brian]

WiFi sounds like the more universal solution but it's actually a lot worse for many reasons. I chose Z-Wave about 15 years ago and I've never regretted that situation. It's the most universal smart home communication protocol and has withstood the test of time when other larger names have fallen by the wayside. It doesn't occupy my already-clogged up 2.4Ghz WiFi band (hell, even the microwaves like to get in on this area) and has better battery life. You can talk about networked management but I've got triple digit smart home automatic devices. That's a lot of management when I can simply have a controller do it all for me and get better battery life and performance. My VeraPlus controller works great and the VeraLite I had before that was also great for the decade I used it. If you're considering going smart home I'd highly recommend staying away from the WiFi space and getting something that was designed specifically for that use.

This is pretty much my experience, and I'm a bit frustrated to see so many new devices this year be focused on wifi / custom apps. Great that they work with Google/Alexa, etc. but I really just want something that works quickly, locally, with my hub instead of relying on wifi and the cloud. zwave/zwave+ has been pretty good to me in general. I was thinking about putting in my first zigbee device though last week (looking to automate a pullchain ceiling fan with no wall switch with that hampton bay wink remote that everyone seems to like)...

[brutal]

This is pretty much my experience, and I'm a bit frustrated to see so many new devices this year be focused on wifi / custom apps. Great that they work with Google/Alexa, etc. but I really just want something that works quickly, locally, with my hub instead of relying on wifi and the cloud. zwave/zwave+ has been pretty good to me in general. I was thinking about putting in my first zigbee device though last week (looking to automate a pullchain ceiling fan with no wall switch with that hampton bay wink remote that everyone seems to like)...

Z-wave and zigbee are great but can be problematic without a good solid mesh. That means reliable repeating devices as well. Repeater bulbs are crap. I had to ditch the few Cree and GE Link bulbs I had. Sengled makes a great bulb that doesn't repeat.

I ditched Wink over a year ago, they've been going down the shitter for a while and went to a subscription model a few months back.

Everything I have works with Hubitat and it's local and FAST (remote and cloud stuff is supported). Best of both worlds. I did have to add a specific sensor (SmartThings multisensor) to get the MyQ garage door integration running reliably, but other than that, no stranded devices. Tons of community support, drivers, apps, etc.