z-wave wall-powered dimmers and sockets in Ireland?

brio09

Hi! I'm moving to a new house and have read through boards, reddit, youtube, ... I find the advice here to be most relevant because it is Ireland specific, so thank you for being such an involved community!
Wanted to get your inputs on dimmers and sockets.

Looking for -
z-wave dimmers and z-wave sockets that are wall-mounted and wall-powered. that are available to deliver to Ireland.

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lot of details beyond this
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Rationale -

1 - I want to install a low more power sockets than there exist now, because at my apartment every socket has a extender sitting on it and I wanna move to fewer power extension boxes/cables. for all new sockets I install, i want to go for smart sockets.
2 - for existing sockets, i have >15 wifi switches, so i will reuse them
3 - I live in a small apartment now and have 26 devices connected to my wifi router. i also have very ****ty wifi connection. the baby camera disconnects often, my work laptop disconnects in zoom calls, etc. the new place will also have virgin media, same as old place so i expect bad wifi/internet and don't want to burden it further. the house doesn't have CAT cabling either. even if it did, that doesn't solve the issue much I suppose. I'm planning to install 2-3 Nest points with nest router. because of these reasons I want to discard wifi as the connectivity choice. since I've had so many issues with wifi even in a small apt, i feel like multiplying the wifi devices using wifi based devices won't be a good experience, will be painful.
4 - i read online that zigbee devices often cannot talk to each other because the standard is loosely maintained. so i discarded zigbee.
5 - lutron and lightwave and a few other products use proprietary RF, which my SigO is against from her experiences so rejected those
6 - z-wave I've heard is interoperable very well. it also has the mesh network (like zigbee although). i also already have samsung smart things hub.
7 - my this and previous apartment were smart-ified using wifi switches and/or philips hue (i sold off the hue now). i noticed that sometimes guests and sometimes my wife would use physical switches instead of voice commands for the wifi switches. so i want to combine the physical switches with the virtual switches (voice commands, etc.)
8 - since i don't wanna keep worrying about battery especially for 30+ devices i didn't get buy-in from wife to use battery powered switches
9 - i don't know about neutral connectivity in the house but I'll find out and upgrade if required (how feasible though?)
10 - after hue experience, i feel like smart bulbs are usually not very bright at max power. we want color lights in only 3 of our rooms and in the rest we want to go with dimmable white/warm-white bulbs with a higher max-intensity.

What does that suggest I go with?
- z-wave dimmers
- wall-powered
- wall-mounted
- z-wave sockets
- deliverable to Ireland (reduces options significantly, even more so after brexit, factoring in VAT $$!)

Options I reviewed:
a - lightwaverf - proprietary RF.
b - Lutron - proprietary RF.
c - inovelli - doesn't deliver to Ireland
d - GE z-wave switches - doesn't deliver to Ireland
e - Fibaro - build quality of the switches is not good apparently. gets stuck.
f - sonoff - wifi + seems like it needs the physical switch to remain in on position
g - aurora - zigbee
h - xiaomi - proprietary RF and only works for xiaomi lights

Are there other options I'm missing?
are some of my rationale wrong (I'm guessing the wifi one will draw the most flak)?
are some of these options better than I thought (e.g. do deliver to Ireland)?

Thank you!

donspeekinglesh

What Fibaro switch do you mean? Do you mean The Button?
I use Varilight Powergrid switches on the wall and I've had no issues with them.

I'm not sure who your internet is currently with, but with eir the router can't cope with more than about 20 wireless devices. I switched to using Google Wi-Fi and have had no problems since. (Also made changing ISP easier, as I didn't have to reconnect everything.

brio09

donspeekinglesh wrote: »

What Fibaro switch do you mean? Do you mean The Button?
I use Varilight Powergrid switches on the wall and I've had no issues with them.

I'm not sure who your internet is currently with, but with eir the router can't cope with more than about 20 wireless devices. I switched to using Google Wi-Fi and have had no problems since. (Also made changing ISP easier, as I didn't have to reconnect everything.

Thanks!
I have virgin at my rental apartment and same seems to be the best option at the upcoming new house. we currently have all the wifi devices on the router directly but i plan to follow in your footsteps of getting google Nest wifi router and points that connect to the virgin media's modem.


When I check bonkers for network availability in that area, I get:
Network availability
Virgin Media Available
SIRO Unavailable
openeir fibre Unavailable
openeir legacy Available

most of the deals says "part fibre".

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Fibaro - I meant Fibaro Walli - https://www.fibaro.com/en/products/smart-switches-and-outlets/
I saw youtube videos, youtube comments (on another video), and some other posts on reddit/boards about the plastic being flimsy on the fibaro dimmer switches and the switch getting stuck on up or down.
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Varilight doesn't seem to have wireless connectivity via z-wave (or wifi / zigbee). Am I searching this correctly? https://www.varilight.co.uk/ranges/powergrid-range.php

brio09

i realized that mini/nano dimmer modules could be used in conjunction with momentary switches or so.
e.g. https://help.aeotec.com/support/solutions/articles/6000162176-nano-dimmer-user-guide- can be used with https://aeotec.com/z-wave-wall-switch/ or a momentary switch. I wonder if that is an approach anyone has tried?

donspeekinglesh

Whoops, I left out an important bit. I use the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module in the wall with the Varlight momentary switches.

The are other options than the Google WiFi that might be better. I went with it because I wanted a mesh and had a discount code. There are other mesh options that might suit better, or a single high quality router.

I have never seen those Fibaro switches before. Don't like the look of them. I'll stick to what I have, if I can find a local stockist of the switches.

brio09

donspeekinglesh wrote: »

Whoops, I left out an important bit. I use the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module in the wall with the Varlight momentary switches.

The are other options than the Google WiFi that might be better. I went with it because I wanted a mesh and had a discount code. There are other mesh options that might suit better, or a single high quality router.

I have never seen those Fibaro switches before. Don't like the look of them. I'll stick to what I have, if I can find a local stockist of the switches.

Ah that's a nice combination. Thanks for sharing! I've placed an order for nest router and nest point to test it out at apartment itself. Fingers crossed

brio09

donspeekinglesh wrote: »

Whoops, I left out an important bit. I use the Fibaro Dimmer 2 module in the wall with the Varlight momentary switches.

The are other options than the Google WiFi that might be better. I went with it because I wanted a mesh and had a discount code. There are other mesh options that might suit better, or a single high quality router.

I have never seen those Fibaro switches before. Don't like the look of them. I'll stick to what I have, if I can find a local stockist of the switches.

also forgot to mention that your idea of using the dimmer module with a normal switch is very helpful. now i understand how those modules are expected to be used.
i also came across a "WallSwipe" product that is often used with dimmer modules - aeotec.