Vizia RF+ Zone vs Scene controller question

[2MuchTech]

I have read numerous posts in various forums about the differences between Leviton's Scene vs Zone controllers, and the general consensus seemed to be they had mostly the same features with the exception of one using Push On / Push Off and the other having separate switches for the On and Off function.  Leviton themselves seem to suggest that the Scene controller is designed to control switches/dimmers in one room, while the Zone controller is meant for applications where the switches/dimmers might be in different parts of the house.  This seems a bit arbitrary to me since it appears a Scene controller can have each of its 4 buttons assigned to different groups of switches/dimmers (vs just one group with different illumination values assigned per button), but then again I've never fully understood Leviton's differentiation in the *application* of these two different types of controllers.
 
So my question to the forum is, does the Zone controller actually store scenes (or more specifically, the individual illumination level  of each dimmer assigned to a button)?  The PC based Vizia RF+ Installer tool allows me to set a specific illumination level for each device in an Association for my Zone controller buttons, and it appears to remember the setting between runs of the installer program.  But if I manually set the illumination level on the dimmer itself and then go press the Zone controller button, it doesn't appear to override the illumination level that I just set on the dimmer switch using the up/down buttons.
 
I also seem to remember seeing something about Zone (and Scene) controllers behaving differently depending on whether the switch/dimmer they're controlling was in direct radio range vs being accessed by hopping through other nodes in the mesh, but I can't find that information any more.
 
Thanks.

 

[NeverDie]

The scene controllers can set dim levels.  Also, you can even manually adjust the dimming level using the arrow keys at the bottom.  I'm not sure about the Zone switches, as I don't have those.
 
Vera can directly read/set the indicator lights on the Leviton's, independent of your pushing the buttons.  That's very useful in terms of syncing the indicator lights on different static controllers.  HomeSeer doesn't seem to have that capability, and I sure wish it did.

 

[ddennerline]

I use both scenes and zones; there not mutally exclusive.
 
A scene controller has same functionality as a zone controller. Each light switch can only support 4 scene identifiers. Each identifier is associated with dimmer level. With Zones, you can can create an unlimited number of zone combinations. In practical terms for scenes, this means that you will only program a few different functional scenes such as WatchTV, GotoBed, Dinner, etc… In addition, scene controller can have ramp down rates.
 
A good scene to have is GotoBed which slowly ramps downstairs lights when in kitchen scene controller. This leaves the lights on so you can safely walk up the stairs.
 
Lastly, the VRCS scene controller is painful to program using RF Installer Toolkit. Zones are easy to program and vast majority of cases on/off achieves goal.