Just got my LZW36...3-way isn't supported...options?

Setup:
I have a 3-way switch setup that provides power to fan and lights together.
Currently everything stays powered, fan speed controlled by pull string and lights are Philips Hue bulbs we control with voice commands through Alexa.

Visitors (as well as my wife) get tired of asking Alexa for everything and would like to be able to use physical switches which is what led me here. I have a hubitat and a couple other inovelli switches in other rooms and was stoked to see project Hurricane.

Just got my LZW36 and immediately read through the instruction manual, planning to install this weekend. At the top of page 7 it says, " This switch will not work in a 3-way (or multi-switch) setting. I had preordered pretty early on and guess I missed along the way that 3-way wasn’t supported.

On to my question:

I know I could just confirm which switch currently has the hot coming into it and make that my switch I’m replacing, and then tie the hot traveler and black wire to the load over at the second switch, eliminating my 3-way setup.

Is there not some other option where I could effectively keep the 3-way setup by either using an addon or another smart switch as opposed to removing the 3-way configuration all together? I wouldn’t need dimming or fan control at the second switch, I’m thinking it would just trigger a light scene when pressed for simple on/off light control since that is the most common need. The switch I think I would be removing is in a pretty convenient location so i hate to lose it.

Any thoughts?

You could just put a LZW30-SN or LZW31-SN into the second location and only connect line, neutral, and ground to that one. Then disable the local control (that turns off the relay or dimmer) on that and use the button options with RM or WebCore to make tap up turn the light on tap down turn the light off or tap up toggle the light and tap down toggle the fan, double tap up turn the fan on … The tough part would be getting a neutral in each box if there isn’t already the switches don’t need to be on the same circuit if that helps.

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Terk,

This is definietly along the lines I was thinking, thank you! I am pretty sure I do have a neutral in both but will confirm this weekend when I can pull it and check(on the same breaker as the TV so need everyone out of the house to work on it).

I also heard mention at one point of some type of remote switch the inovelli team was developing to address this very situation with project hurricane but for the life of me I cannot find the post where they mentioned it.

Even if you don’t have a neutral, you should be able to repurpose on of the “legs” to connect to the neutral and use association rules to control. Not the quickest method, but I think a fan turning on doesn’t need to be expedite like a light.

The remote button controller I remember them talking about I think was battery powered but would work, but I imagine it got put on hold due to Covid and the manufacturing bottleneck it’s caused. There are other options if you just want a battery powered button controller like the minimote if you can find them although it would probably cost just as much and i think the Inovelli would be more reliable if you can get the wiring to work out.

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You could put a Pico remote in the other switch box but if you’re not using them already you’ll need the Lutron hub so kind of an expensive solution.

Keep in mind, if you try to use association to control the light/fan, you might want to make sure the switch you install supports multi-channel association (so you can choose whether you want the association to control the fan, the light, or both). If your switch does not support multi-channel association, it will always control both the fan and light at the same time, which may not be what you want.

I dont think the Inovelli switches/dimmers support multi-channel, so if you want to control the light and fan separately, the red series with scenes is probably the way to go.

Guess I meant to say using Rule Machine (cuz #HE4life) for scene control. Tap 2x up to turn on fan; tap 2x down for light etc…

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I understood what you meant. going to work on this tomorrow and will report back with pictures for everyone either way.

Thanks!