Did I fry my switch?

Got my first Innovelli switch a few days back with the intentions to make my dream smart lighting setup. A smart bulb and an integrated smart switch so that muscle memory and guests can still use my house, it can look normal but I can do cool smart home automations.

Admittedly, I yoloed and order the VTM31-SN without taking off a switch plate. I was greeted with a non-neutral setup. I replaced my existing switch with the new unit and connected it to Apple Home. I now realize that I skipped potentially a crucial step by just bad scrolling through the manual and didn’t put it in smart bulb mode right away but proceeded onwards.

As some may have guessed I had a flickering bulb. Wanting to solve the problem with out having to order and then wait for a bypass, I found this post in this community suggesting to wire things up so that my fixture is constantly live. I thought no problem, I want that anyway so I did it.

Everything was working. The fixture was on, the switch was on. I setup the automation to turn on and off the bulb in Apple Home and then hit the down/off on the switch and…the breaker went. Since then the switch has not powered on.

My theory is that not being in smart bulb mode opened the switch up to unexpected power with the unordinary wiring I set up to try and get rid of the flickering. The flickering that might have been solved with smart bulb mode in the first place.

I have an open ticket with Innovelli to see if there is any definitive test they can give me to see if the switch is dead. I have yet to open it up to see if anything is obviously damaged before I talk to them in the chance they would warranty it or have other suggestions to try. Obviously I don’t blame anyone but myself in a late day eagerness to achieve smart home greatness.

AMA - Any insight is helpful in gaining as much knowledge in this new journey I am on. Thanks!

Can’t say for sure, but it’s unlikely that you killed the switch due to not turning on the SBM.

After you rewired at the light to send a hot and neutral to the switch, did you make the requisite wiring changes at the switch? If you didn’t, then putting a hot and neutral on the line and load terminals, which would have been the non-neutral configuration wiring, would probably smoke it.

Only reason I say SBM is because it powered on no problem and things went sideways when I clicked a button that would have had the no effect if SBM was on.

I didn’t realize switch side changes were needed with what I was doing.

These hot and neutral coming off the fixture would go to load and neutral on the switch then?

No, they go to the LINE and neutral in the switch.

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