Adding Z-Wave to a switched receptacle smart brings more convenience and energy efficiency to your home. It allows for remote control and automation of any devices you have plugged into the receptacle.
Consider a living room lamp plugged into the outlet. If you make the installation smart, you can turn the lamp on or off using your smartphone or through voice commands with a smart home assistant, eliminating the need to manually operate the wall switch. Additionally, integrating smart functionality allows for automated schedules and routines, like programming the lamp to turn on at sunset and off at bedtime, enhancing home security and saving energy.
However, when looking to replace the standard switch controlling the receptacle, you need to keep in mind that most smart switches are designed for 120V lighting fixtures and are not rated to control receptacles. This creates a bit of a problem, as the National Electrical Code (NEC) mandates a 15A rated switch for a 15A receptacle. Most Zooz wall switches are not rated for 15 A. Fortuntely, we still have great product options to help you make a switched receptacle smart.
Direct Replacement
While our standard paddle and toggle wall switches are not rated for use with receptacles or outlets, the multitasking ZEN30 Double Switch is equipped with a dry contact 15A relay that can do the job. This means you can swap the standard dumb switch and wire the ZEN30 relay to directly control the switched receptacle. If you don't have another load to directly wire to the ZEN30 dimmer paddles, you can use these for scene control to trigger other devices, or you can even program the paddles for more intuitive control of the receptacle, all via Z-Wave. Read more about how to accomplish no load programming here: How to Use Zooz Switches Without a Load.
Wiring: You would treat the receptacle like any other relay load and follow any of the first two diagrams in the manual to wire it. Just cap the red Dimmer Load pigtail since we're not connecting anything to the dimmer. Always turn the power off at the breaker and make sure all connections are identified correctly on the first try before you attempt the installation. If you're not able to follow the diagrams, we recommend hiring a licensed electrician to help you complete the installation safely. You can also reach out to our team with detailed wiring images and we would be happy to assist! Please review our wiring images guidelines prior to sending any images: How Can I Identify the Wiring For My Zooz Switches?
Make It Hot
Another option is to rewire the receptacle so it's always hot and use a smart plug at the outlet. With this method, you would be changing your switched receptacle into a standard, always powered receptacle. This scenario leaves you with an available switch box, and you can put it to good use! We would recommend installing a Zooz wall switch or Scene Controller in the empty switch box and adding a smart plug like the ZEN04, to the receptacle for Z-Wave control.
While all Zooz switches can technically be installed in a single pole installation without a load, the recommended models are the ZEN71 On/Off Switch, ZEN72 Dimmer, ZEN32 Scene Controller, and the ZEN30 Double Switch. These units do not rely on current readings to change and maintain status, and can be used as scene controllers effortlessly.
- You will need a Z-Wave hub that supports central scene functionality to program your switch to control the smart plug using the scene control method or to program Direct Association. Please check if your system has button control built into its interface for our devices first. Here are a few examples of programming using the scene control method on the most popular hubs available:
- Below is a link to our article which details how to program Direct Association, with links to instructions for programming associations on the most popular Z-Wave hubs. Please note that for SmartThings specifically, while a separate child device is created for the relay, it will not receive a separate node ID to be used in associations, so you cannot program control via Direct Association with the relay. This is a driver limitation; direct association can be programmed on the dimmer only. At this time, the programming can be accomplished through routines instead.
Can I Dim a Switched Receptacle?
As described above, most of our switches cannot be wired to control a switched receptacle, regardless of what you are plugging into the receptacle (even a single lamp). The NEC requires a 15A rated switch for a 15A circuit, and our dimmers are not rated for that.
Instead, we would recommend using the second option to make the receptacle always hot (not switched) and put the lamp plugged in to the outlet on a dimmer plug or equip it with a smart bulb. Once you have the dimmer plug or smart bulb, we would recommend installing any of the switches we recommended before for full remote control.
If you decide to go the smart bulb route, then we recommend installing the ZEN32 Scene Controller in the switch box. With that, you could create presets with your favorite smart bulb settings and trigger them with single or multi-tap button presses on the Scene Controller.
Since you'd be controlling the smart bulb remotely from the switch, we wouldn't recommend putting a dimmer in the wall. Smart bulbs cannot be controlled by another dimmer electrically (this will damage the equipment) and remote dimming wouldn't be as smooth as standard physical dimming.
Real-time remote dimming that we’re used to when using dimmers with regular bulbs is very hard to accomplish with smart bulbs. Since we’re not able to dim smart bulbs electrically (this is true for both smart and regular dimmers since smart bulbs are equipped with their own dimming mechanism), we need to depend on radio commands which are often translated between two different wireless protocols. This causes delays and prevents a good user experience. That's why we recommend finding and saving your favorite smart bulb brightness and color settings to then trigger them with a click from one of the buttons on a ZEN32 Scene Controller.
Questions? Don't hesitate to reach out to our team!
