Review on 🏡 Leviton D215P 2RW Anywhere Companions - Perfect Addition for Your Home Electrical Needs by Dustin Miller

My whole house is a smart home - all lights are connected to Alexa, garage doors are connected to Alexa, etc. I want to install voice control everywhere I bought a voice dimmer Leviton to try, hoping to buy more if I like it. I like it? Well, "It's complicated." I have to say right away that the installation was pretty complicated. The voice dimmer is deeper than many Wi-Fi switches, so aisle space becomes an issue. Also, the Leviton's wires are twisted copper, but without the pre-soldering that many Wi-Fi switches have, so the wire nuts don't want to grab the wire. After messing around with this for a while without success, I grabbed my soldering iron and threw some solder on the spade terminals - THIS MAKES A MAJOR INSTALLATION DIFFERENCE IF YOU ARE USING WIRE NUTS! Problems started after installation. Leviton didn't want to stay connected to my WiFi and half the time responded to my Alexa commands with "I'm having trouble connecting to the internet." A firmware update from my phone (which took a few tries) seems to have mostly fixed it, but it still happens from time to time. Another big problem: It interferes with other Alexa voice devices. My Echoes are out of earshot of the Leviton, but my ecobee5 thermostat (with built-in Alexa voice control) is in earshot and it's a nightmare. They don't coordinate with each other, so when I say an Alexa command, they both try to listen and respond. So far, she hasn't been able to play around with the Alexa app, Leviton app, or Ecobee app and stop them from bothering each other - they both hear the command and try to respond. I muted the mic on my thermostat so only Leviton is listening but that's a shame as the thermostat is a better unit with a better speaker. A few more minor annoyances: The speaker in the Leviton is ok, but not amazing. Playing music over it sounds boring, but I won't berate the dimmer too much for that, as playing music on a dimmer isn't its primary purpose. Another annoyance is that Leviton answers himself from time to time - if the answer he's giving contains the word "Alexa," he'll sometimes stumble and interrupt his own answer, thinking someone said the word "Alexa." Has. If Leviton continues to work on it and fix bugs by releasing new firmware, I imagine this will be a great device. But for now, the work on the Leviton voice dimmer looks like a work in progress. That's not quite the case yet, and that's disappointing. I really hope things get better as I would love to have something like this throughout the house but it's not available yet.