Consider making the debounce on all models configurable

[zeel]

I did not realize until a friend of mine mentioned it that there is minimum press duration required for any Inovelli switch to respond to being tapped. This explains why sometimes I press one, and nothing happens, or why I sometimes click multi-taps too quickly and they don’t register. What appears to be happening is that the firmware debounce is filtering out short presses to avoid false-positive clicks. However, this can lead to rather a lot of frustration - especially for housemates that aren’t used to smart switches and expect switches to just… work.

Between myself and my friend we have tested a number of different Inovelli products and found that they all have this same issue:

• White Series Dimmer
  • Also when controlled by Aux switch
• Blue Series Dimmer
• Blue Series mmWave dimmer
  • Also when controlled by Aux switch
• Blue series On/Off (w/Humidity)

Furthermore, a search of this forum reveals a few other users with what appears to me to be the same issue. In all cases, these issues haven’t been resolved, and in most it seems like the response has been some level of confusion about what the problem really is.

First, this is not a “bug” or a hardware problem. I have over a dozen switches, and my friend is working his way through installing more than fifty. The issue is consistent across all of them.

Second, this is not the button delay. That’s the opposite, that’s how soon after pressing the button a response happens. This we have both set to 0ms for most of our switches anyway, but it’s not the actual problem I’m talking about. I’m also not talking about the delay between pressing a button and the press registering in Home Assistant or other devices (that’s also problematically slow but unrelated).

Additionally this isn’t an issue of not pressing hard enough, we have both thoroughly tested that we can apply significant force and get a firm click from the physical switch without getting the light to change states if we’re fast enough. I’ll also point out that if the switch clicks then if the button actually hasn’t made electrical contact that would be a problem too. If I can hear it, then it should be working.

Everything I have observed, including what other users have mentioned in other threads, is consistent with debouncing improperly or too slowly. That is, the required time before the press registers is too long.

There are a few possible reasons for this:

• The most likely is that the delay is intentionally set relatively high to avoid mistakes, so that the switches don’t accidentally register randomly being brushed against or don’t register electrical noise as a press. If this is the case, there is a relatively simple fix: Make that delay configurable, allowing users to make it more responsive (or less!).
• Relatedly, this is only an issue if you debounce by waiting for the signal to stabilize. An alternative is to immediately respond to the button state change, and only filter out quick fluctuations (bounces) after the initial press.
• The other possibility that I really hope isn’t going on is a polling rate problem. I don’t know why the firmware would use polling instead of interrupts or what the processor could possibly be doing to make it so slow, but hypothetically this could be the unintentional result of slow polling simply missing the press entirely.

My hope is that this can be resolved fairly easily, it’s probably just an overly conservative debounce that could be made configurable.

[agordon117]

I’m the friend of @zeel who noticed this issue. The first time I walked up to my newly installed switches and hit them, nothing happened. I find that these rocker button switches require a much more deliberate and intentional action than flipping a lever style switch. So the response to that is to look at them and press them, and I guess I just press buttons kind of quickly.

I have stopped installing more of these in the house (we have replaced something like 12 out of 67 switches so far) because of this issue. Having to think about how long to hold the switch to get the lights to come on is very annoying. I’m going to make up numbers here, but it’s something like:

Press<300ms, press is discarded

300ms<Press<800ms, light turns on

Press>800ms, light begins to dim on from zero

With these made up numbers, me pressing the switch without thinking about it ranges from 200-350ms. Me thinking about pressing the switch long enough for the lights to come on while pressing it results in a press from 650-900ms. But I also don’t want to have to think about flipping the lights on in some special way that I have never had to before.

I was able to replicate this on all 12 of the switches that I have currently installed.

@EricM_Inovelli any way we can fix this issue? I would love to finish up the installation of the switches around my house, but a switch ever not responding to a press is pretty much a dealbreaker for me. Smart switches are already slower than mechanical switches. I would be halfway into a room before realizing the lights didn’t turn on, and have to turn around to go hit the switch again. I just can’t have that, and it isn’t very “muggle proof”. If I can walk up to a switch and hit it in a way that it doesn’t respond, so can someone who doesn’t know they have to hold the switch for some amount of time before releasing it (but not for too long)

[EricM_Inovelli]

Yes, this is something we can look at improving. Honestly it has only been brought to my attention recently so I don’t know if something has changed or what could explain the sudden increased interest.