@Eric_Inovelli Any updates here? A crowd-funded approach? Seriously…I really don’t want have to buy an inferior competitor product 
… these switches would be so valuable to my smart home.
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Hear hear! I really don’t want to buy a competitors product, but I’m getting close to being forced to settle.
No update at this time. The situation is that we need to pay back all debt to the manufacturer before starting any new innovation. We reached an agreement to allow current products to be continuously produced, as well as special products that are co-created (ie: 5-Button Switch) or were already in progress last year (lightstrip).
Their stance is: even if we could pay for a new project up front (ie: kickstarter), that money could’ve been used to pay off past debts.
So, unfortunately we either have to stay in a holding pattern with them until everything is paid off, or go elsewhere, which we don’t want to do right now (in Z-Wave) as they’ve been a great partner.
Wish I had better news, but I promise once we kick this off, I will update everyone as I’d love this product too for my own home.
No hard feelings if you have to go to a competitor, I completely understand (and have a competitor in my house right now for my fans).
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Thanks for that detail. So you know the follow-up question is…does the debt get paid off in 2021? Or is this a long road ahead?
Also, if my memory serves…didn’t the 5-button switch idea show up after project windy city???
This is the relevant quote that answers your question.
Thanks for always being open and honest about the company. May not be the answer we want but at least we know the situation.
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Sorry, meant to send this yesterday, but forgot!
Great question – we’re on track to yes. Especially with some big news coming at the end of Q1 (official certification with a very large company). However, potential investors can also speed this process up. We’re talking to about 4 different ones right now, just trying to get the right deal.
Yes, your memory serves you correctly. The reason why we were able to do the 5-Button switch is because we’re actually creating it with a multi-billion dollar company who carries a lot more clout than us with the manufacturer. This company came to us to help them with switches as they heard about our Red Series switches and loved them as well as our community. So, we presented the opportunity to our manufacturer and they agreed to start on this project as it can lead to more business for them (by making something for a large company).
Hope that helps?
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That helps a ton. I appreciate the transparency you provide to the community. You basically confirmed that I should hold off a little longer before buying competitive fan switches. Excited to see the announcement at end of Q1!
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Hi. I looked at Inovelli a long time ago and had dismissed it. I just rediscovered this a day ago, and how you’ve grown. The design and features of your products are awesome. I started planning to replace my mishmash of switches and dimmers made by 3-4 different manufacturers with Inovelli. Unfortunately, missing a wired fan control is a dealbreaker for me. This is simply because the one room that needs such a switch is the whole impetus of moving over. I don’t really have a reason to change wholesale until I know I have all the pieces.
Thanks for being so transparent and catering to the DIYers. I’m tired of devices that either don’t behave right, are inflexible, feel like crap, require custom firmware, or have stupid restrictions (I’m looking at you Lutron). Your line checks all of the boxes except for having a fan controller. I hope this is released at some point so I can join the party. Until then, I’m holding off, but will buy a few devices to toy with in the meantime.
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Been rockin’ 37 dimmers & on/off throughout the house for over a year now and have held off on fan switches while waiting for these to hit the market. Wife even recommended just using dumb paddles while we wait (thankfully).
Hopefully, we’re getting closer to getting the debt paid off and getting this product back on the map as I know based on the posts many others are in similar situations.
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@Eric_Inovelli posting to just trying to keep this project alive. Still holding on to a small shred of hope…
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Well, I have some good news, and I have some par for the course news…
Par for the course news is this project is unfortunately still on hold until we work things out with our current manufacturer (who produces Z-Wave), but those problems should go away within a month or so – wish I could disclose more, but just know they will be going away so we should be able to start talking about a Z-Wave fan switch.
The good news is that we’ve officially kicked off Project Zephyr which will be a ZigBee/Matter switch with our other manufacturer as they’re more apt to play ball with us right now. Hopefully, once the R&D is done on the ZigBee/Matter switch, we can simply add Z-Wave to it and speed along the process.
So, indirectly this project is getting revived, it will just be a ZigBee/Matter switch first, followed by Z-Wave.
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Will this Fan swatch work with DC fans?
This is a great question and honestly we overlooked it. Let me see if we can get this into the design. Luckily we haven’t started on the Z-Wave version yet, but for the ZigBee/Matter version, I will talk to the engineers.
@anon88759745 – can you add this to the PRD and also project pages?
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Another DC fan question, alot of them have 4 to 6 speeds. How will this work fan that has 6 speeds?
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it will just be a ZigBee/Matter switch first
Will the ZigBee fan switch 100% match the current Z-Wave dimmers?
Yes. The thread for the Zigbee version is here:
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Totally can’t wait for this switch, I need 5 of them! I haven’t had the cash to do the GE yet, so hopefully when I’m ready these will be done. I already had 25+ red dimmers and the LED strip lights.
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Just going to throw this out there @Eric_Inovelli
A lot of my bulbs in my bedroom and master bathroom are warm white/white light adjustable to align with the brightness of the sun (and to remove blue light near bedtime).
Amazon sells a host of LED retrofit boards for fan lights. Like this
No one currently has a smart version. So why not have warm / white LEDs in the ring and allow an additional control from the switch for the color, or just have the control via the canope via Zwave?
Definitely a cool idea! I’ve never seen those before.
As of right now, we are focusing just on switches, but if that changes, I can throw this into consideration as it would compliment our fan switches like you mentioned.
Thanks for sharing the idea!