Vangelis pointed me to the Vitrum Dimmers on this thread so I decided to get a loan unit from Z-Wave-home to review it. I also did a video which you can watch here.
- Vitrum BS I Dimmer.jpg (84.53 KiB) Viewed 1233 times
I have to say that overall I am a bit disappointed with the product. Let's start with the good areas. The unit feels sturdy and well made. The glass front looks very nice. The unit was easy to add to my Z-Wave network (I use Indigo Domotics with a MacMini and a Z-Wave USB stick). I think that's about it on the positive side. On the negative side there were many things. The chrome-like plastic frame holding the glass looked dirty cheap. For a unit of this cost (£ 220 in the UK) a proper chrome metal frame should be used. If premium light switch plates or switch sockets can use proper chrome and cost less than £ 10 it really seems that a unit of this cost should have a proper chrome frame. They could also have different styles like polished chrome, bright chrome, stainless steel, brushed steel, etc. Although they do have a different selection of fronts in glass and stone and others. Having said that this plastic frame is barely visible so it's not a major problem. I carefully reviewed the documentation and I was unable to see how to detach the glass decor panel from the wall-mounting box. While the documentation covers how to refit it back it doesn't show how to remove it. Maybe new units came with the glass decor panel detached but my loan unit was attached to it so I had to carefully look around and find the right place to lift with a screw driver. Again a unit of this cost should have a more carefully written manual. I did not like the fact that the Vitrum logo is shown in the glass decor panel. This is a top premium product and the logo is too distracting and too big. It breaks the simplicity of the device. You don't see an Apple iPhone with an Apple logo in the front screen for a reason. Logos should not get in the way of the product and I think this one clearly does.
All of the above issues were relatively small but kept adding up. The main issues I had was down to the non-existent customisation. I was unable to find any documentation about any parameters that can be configured on this unit. The dimmer was recognised properly by Indigo Domotics and worked perfectly when I operated it remotely. The unit did not show any configurable parameters in the Indigo interface either. Again for a unit of this cost I would expect a lot of options that the end user can customise. The only two things that can be configured are the ECO mode (1 touch 65% output, 2 touches 100% output) or whether the unit should manage leading edge or trailing edge loads, that's about it. You can also associate it with up 10 other Z-Wave devices to have scenes switching more than one light on/off. The number one issue I have is not being able to disable the beep sounds when operating the dimmer. I was planning to install these dimmers in our upstairs bedrooms . As we have little children we usually leave the lights dimmed very low when they go to sleep. There is no way I am going to have these dimmers making all these beeping noises when I go around their bedrooms switching the lights off or I want to dim the lights. Of course I can remotely operate them with my Z-Wave network but that's not the point, a device of this cost and for this premium market should have the option to disable the beeping. And I am not going to be holding my iPhone around the house just to avoid the annoying dimming beeps. In terms of disabling the beeping I would love to see two extra options: disable the beeping completely or only disable the constant beeping when dimming up/down the lights (and the current option where it beeps all the time, when dimming and when touching). The other thing I would like to customise and I couldn't is the brightness of the circle light in standby mode. The current standby circle brightness is OK for bedrooms but I would like a higher brightness for other rooms like kitchen or living room so I can easily find the light switch. The touch sensitiveness of the device was OK (6.5 out of 10) but I think more work can be done to make it more responsive. Having been an iPhone user for many years I have probably been spoiled in terms of expectation on touch controls and responsiveness but that's something touch device manufacturers can't ignore when making premium products.
While not directly comparable to the Vitrum BS I Dimmer since it's a unit that's meant to be behind the switch plate, the Fibaro Dimmer 2 (FGD-212) is an extremely versatile Z-Wave dimmer. Among others you can control and set parameters for the following:
- Double click for full brightness (doesn't seem to work in your unit when ECO mode is off)
- Enable/disable power to last known state (I would like to be able to customise of the Vitrum unit should go back to the last known state or always to 100%)
- Minimum brightness
- Maximum brightness
- Step Delta: amount of dim change while being controlled: This is a must for this Vitrum unit, I found the step delta changes too small for my liking, basically I want to be able to dim the lights up and down much faster. In my tests it took three 360 degree loops to dim down from 100% to the very smallest possible value. I would like to have for instance the option to change from 100% till ~0% in just 1 loop of 360 degrees.
- Step Delta On/Off: amount of dim change while receiving On/Off
- Delay between dim step changes (in * 10 milliseconds)
- Delay between dim step changes while receiving On/Off (in * 10 milliseconds)
On top of this the Fibaro unit also provides live motoring and reports power usage both instantaneous (W) and accumulated (KWh) and it can detect the bulb type and adapt the dimming behaviour (trailing-edge vs leading-edge). It's also a Z-Wave Plus Certified product which means it has longer range and less power consumption. Above all the Fibaro dimmer is 5 times cheaper than the Vitrium which even allowing for the fact that it's an internal unit it still comes much better value than the Vitrum Dimmer.
I think the unit Vitrum has a great design and is not far for being a perfect product in terms of design. But the lack of customisation (considering the segment it's addressed to) leaves it well behind other internal Z-Wave dimmers and makes the purchase of such a pricey unit a very hard bargain.
If anyone has any specific questions I will have the loan unit a couple of more days so if you are quick I will be able to est anything specific.
Thanks!