Dimmer HomeKit: Leviton 2nd Gen vs Kasa vs Meross

Cupertino, March 13, 2024

Just for context, we automate our home using all native HomeKit compatible products. It's mostly a mix of Meross and Aqara. Meross is mainly used for light switches and sockets. Aqara is used for motion and presence detection. I stuck with Meross primarily because they've proven to be incredibly reliable (once I got a quality router) and they respond instantly when you control them from the home app (I'm very sensitive to delays between when I give a command and the moment and the action takes place). I've been using Meross for my switches for over a year now. However, they have two flaws. The first is that they don't respond instantly like the rest of the Meross range (that's not to say they're slow... There's just a very slight delay in response). The second is that when you use them in automations that involve changing the brightness of lights at different times of the day when motion or presence is detected, they often freeze on the next cycle when the dimming setting is changed. The only way to get them working again is to reset them. These two issues set me on a journey to find better HomeKit dimmers. And during this journey, I discovered a lot about the complexity of drive automation. You'll want a whole host of features to get it right. These include: ​ 1. Ability to set minimum brightness to ensure compatibility with your lights 2. Ability to set maximum intensity to ensure compatibility with your lights 3. Ensure reaction time between when you click in the home app and the moment you see the lights on/off/down is instantaneous. If it isn't and you use motion or presence sensors to trigger the lights, you'll always have an annoying delay when you enter a room. 4. Ability to return to previous brightness every time you manually switch the dimmer. 5. The ability to set a dimming rate (when you turn on the light, it always starts at black and then increases to your desired dimming setting at a speed you choose). This is important to ensure that when you automate the lights to come on at certain dimming levels at different times of the day, when the light is triggered it doesn't suddenly blind you at first if it was previously set to 100% brightness and is now set to 15% brightness (which is something I do at night). Long story short, I ended up using Levitons. Not only was it the only model that included all of the features listed above, but it was also the only one that had an instant response time when triggered via the home app or triggered via my motion/presence sensors (not that the others were slow) . It has also proven to be perfectly stable even when I reboot my router or power it off and on again. Highly recommended!

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