GE Cync Keypad Dimmer Sensible Change evaluate: For Cync-heads solely
At a look
Professional’s Score
Execs
- Delivers a number of flexibility that different switches can’t
- Broad ecosystem assist, beginning with Matter (and GE Lighting’s Cync line)
Cons
- Its most fascinating options solely work with Cync bulbs and fixtures
- Cumbersome dimensions make for a troublesome slot in {an electrical} field
- Pretty costly
Our Verdict
The busy assortment of buttons on this in any other case high-quality sensible dimmer can management lighting scenes and colours with out relying on the app in your smartphone, however these superior options solely work with different GE Lighting Cync merchandise.
Value When Reviewed
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Finest Costs At this time: GE Cync Keypad Dimmer Sensible Change
Give me an in-wall sensible swap however make it actually sophisticated, mentioned nobody ever.
Effectively by no means thoughts that, as a result of the GE Cync Keypad Dimmer Sensible Change is each bit as sophisticated as its mouthful of a reputation. That mentioned, when you’re closely invested in GE Lighting’s Cync ecosystem, this multi-button dimmer is price a glance.
Specs
The swap helps a most load of 450 watts of incandescent bulbs or 150 watts of LEDs, with a most draw of three.75 amps. The swap is sort of versatile and might assist single-pole, 3-way, and 4-way installations. You’ll want a impartial wire within the field the place you put in it.
The dimmer is proscribed to connecting to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks, nevertheless it doesn’t require a hub and it’s Matter-certified, with specific assist for Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, and Samsung SmartThings sensible dwelling ecosystems. The swap additionally helps GE Lighting’s high-end Savant sensible dwelling system and app, though that’s designed for skilled installations.
Set up and setup
The GE Cync Keypad Dimmer can be utilized in both single-pole or 3-way/4-way conditions.
Christopher Null/Foundry
The GE Cync Keypad Dimmer Sensible Change is an all-pigtail design, with 5 wires jutting out the again. You’ll solely want to attach 4 of those in a single-pole setup; the fifth wire is a traveler wire for multi-way connections. A big broadsheet set up information offers wiring schematics for quite a lot of situations. When you’re organising something past a single-pole connection, you’ll need to examine it fastidiously. Quite a few wire nuts of various sizes are included within the field; I nonetheless had to make use of some bigger ones that I supplied myself to finish all of the connections, nonetheless, as a result of the included nuts had been too small.
You possibly can simply faucet one among these buttons to set the suitable temper with out fishing your telephone out of your pocket or counting on a voice assistant.
With 5 wire nuts (you will have one to cowl the naked traveler wire when you’re not utilizing it), issues get very tight within the electrical field. It took some doing to get the swap in place and fairly flush towards the wall, and even after a number of tries I nonetheless wasn’t 100% glad with its placement. Plan to spend fairly a little bit of time and a considerable amount of elbow grease to get the swap positioned good. As soon as put in, a body attaches to the swap with two tiny screws. A canopy plate with a small GE brand then snaps on prime of that.
Whereas this swap helps Matter, you’ll want to make use of the Cync app to configure the majority of this swap’s options. Onboarding is an easy course of, however I discovered it to be relatively sluggish and plodding, usually requiring a refresh to finish a step, resembling finding accessible Wi-Fi networks. Ultimately, after almost 5 minutes of matches and begins, I made it by way of the preliminary setup course of, together with a firmware replace. I had no points connecting it to a Matter community, both.
Utilizing the GE Cync Keypad Dimmer Sensible Change
Let’s begin with the {hardware}. The big button within the middle of the machine is an easy energy toggle. A pair of up and down buttons under that management brightness on demand, stepping by way of 10 ranges every time you faucet. A row of white LEDs throughout the highest of the swap offers a visible indicator of the place you stand within the brightness vary. You may as well maintain down these two buttons to steadily dim or brighten the lights; however as with most dimmers, this technique is sluggish going.
With all these wires and wire nuts, it may be difficult to stuff the GE Cync Keypad Dimmer again into {the electrical} field.
Christopher Null/Foundry
The Cync Keypad Dimmer options two extra buttons, which you’ll be able to’t miss when you’ve checked out any of the photographs on this evaluate. These are smaller buttons stacked on prime of the first energy button. These two buttons are configurable by the consumer—though simply how configurable they’re will depend on what different gear you will have put in in your house.
Essentially the most fundamental choices for these two buttons will work for something related to the swap: Utilizing the Cync app, you possibly can set them to show the related load on (solely) or off (solely) or toggle the on/off state. However the true worth comes from configuring these buttons to manage both the colour of the sunshine or cycle by way of scenes configured within the Cync app.
In different phrases, you possibly can simply faucet one among these buttons to set the suitable temper with no need to fish your telephone out of your pocket or depend on a voice assistant. It’s a useful function when you generally swap themes inside a room, however there’s an enormous catch for utilizing it: Colour and scene controls solely work with GE Cync sensible lights—they don’t even must be wired to this swap for these buttons to work.
The GE Cync app helps you to program the dimmer’s plethora of buttons for altering lighting colours and scenes, however this function works finest with GE Lighting’s personal Cync lighting merchandise.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Sadly, GE Lighting didn’t ship me any Cync bulbs, so I had restricted alternatives to check these options. The extra generic capabilities of those buttons (and the swap as an entire) labored high-quality, though half the time the Cync app appears to be deliberately convoluted and complicated, making configuration lower than intuitive.
TrueImage is one other curious function of the Cync app that’s price mentioning. This isn’t effectively documented, so I didn’t know precisely what to anticipate from it earlier than I attempted it. Setting it up invitations you to snap a photograph of your related gentle fixture when it’s off, and a separate shot when it’s on at full brightness. TrueImage then melds these two pictures collectively to create a type of dynamic icon within the Cync app.
Touching that icon dims and brightens in time with the dimmer’s brightness setting, providing you with a extra nuanced sense of how the room’s lighting will look. It’s sort of a superfluous operate, however it’s no less than a neat trick, and it really works much better than I anticipated.
Must you purchase the GE Cync Keypad Dimmer Sensible Change?
No matter how effectively it really works, the most important motive to purchase this dimmer over one thing from the competitors—whether or not that be a less expensive machine just like the Tapo or much more costly different—is when you additionally have GE Lighting’s Cync bulbs within the room the place you propose to put in it. Even then, you’ll must be ready to stay with a busy industrial design that’s higher suited to an workplace constructing than the standard dwelling.
All that apart, for households incessantly leaping between lighting scenes and colours, this type of answer could be handy. The $38 avenue worth could be steep, nevertheless it’s loads inexpensive than a Lutron Diva sensible dimmer (which does require a hub). And when you’re not putting in a swap in each room, it won’t be as massive a deal.
This evaluate is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the very best sensible lighting controls.
