LZW-36 Fan/Light switch unresponsive

Agree. Hopefully it was a one time deal and just needed a “break.”

First and foremost, read through this thread. From your description it doesn’t sound like the common issue seen here since the light is still working, but you’d have a better idea if this may be it or not. The switch connects to the hub via zwave, but it uses RF to communicate from the switch to the canopy module.

My hunch here is that you may have accidentally enabled local protection on the fan button. You can check this by going into zwave-js, find the node for your lzw36, go under configuration and look for [70-112-0-31] Local Protection. It should say None.

As a last resort, I’d do a full reset on the switch itself instead of an exclude.

EDIT: I guess I should have kept reading! LOL Still read through that thread. I had this issue almost daily until I changed my WiFi channels and Zigbee network channel. Now I only run into it about once a month and it only lasts a few seconds.

Yeah I’ve done a full reset. Local protection is not enabled unless it’s somewhere different from this screen shot.

As far as my WiFi channels and Zigbee goes, my LAN controller manages my WiFi channels for the least congested so it changes whenever the controller decides. My Zigbee devices are all Aqara with the Aqara gateway so I couldn’t change it if I wanted to. Still, I’ve had the Inovelli product for a little less than one year and it is my only Z-Wave device so I’d have thought if this were an environmental issue it would have cropped up sooner.

Zwave isn’t affected by WiFi channels unless you’re broadcasting low 900 mhz, which isn’t an option.

Edit: I understand the canopy is 2.4 ghz. Was just reiterating WiFi and zwave is not an issue with interference.

If you’re using UI hardware, I’d turn off channel optimization. Do a scan on a android device with WiFiman and see what the channels around are. Also, set your 2.4 ghz channel to 20 mhz bw.

I’m using Cisco hardware.

Well it happened again this morning. The ceiling fan is randomly powered on. I left my house at 5:30 to go to the gym and the fan and light were off. Came home just a few minutes ago and the fan was powered on. Would not respond to the wall switch.

Edit…flipped the breaker multiple times this morning. Still cannot get control of the fan, have completely lost control of the light. I’ve had to resort to removing the blades from the fan and removing the bulbs from the light.

I think I found the problem. It looks like the board in the canopy module yeeted itself. Yes that’s a technical term.I wonder if I can get this replaced. Going to reply with this to the email chain I have with support to see what they say.

https://imgur.com/a/VfnX1My

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New feature…well at least you may have a cause. Definitely send a ticket into the system and see what they can do. I’d attach the photo or link this post to it.

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I’ve attached the image. I haven’t heard anything back from support yet.

Just curious what the normal response time is for support? I don’t want to bombard them but I do want to shoot them a follow up at an appropriate interval.

Depends. There’s only one @anon640257 and the others try to pitch in when they can.

Ah thanks for letting me know. I’m sure he has his hands full and I’ll try not to sweat it then.

I just heard back from support. Unfortunately there are no replacement modules which was not entirely unexpected I guess given the product and I’ve been refunded for the switch. I appreciate the refund, truly and I also appreciate the support. Now I have to explore other ways to solve my fan/light situation.

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While I really do appreciate them standing by their product and offering a refund for the failed module it also feels like a kick in the ass to the customers. Specially if they preordered like many of us did. I’m sure they had their reasons, specially since they had so much trouble with this product. Perhaps they ran out of units to RMA. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that the switch is a critical piece of infrastructure in people’s homes of which there really is no other compatible product.

Also, having second thoughts now about my fan canopy modules. Yours clearly got hot enough to melt the plastic canopy, I wonder how close it got to actually starting a fire.

I was one of the last people to even get one. I got mine in May of last year and I knew there was limited supply. It’s definitely a bummer since this was the only solution I’ve found that doesn’t involve doing additional electrical work. To your point, yes it’s a critical piece. I don’t have a light in my dining room until this weekend when I can pull more wire, cut open the wall and install new switches.

It would probably be much easier to just use a smart relay in the fan canopy. Wire the fan and the switch box with full time power and use the relay to control the fan and the lights. You control the relay via a single smart switch replacement for the LZW36 using the switch as a scene controller.

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The issues with their previous zwave manufacturer has been well document and I feel they’ve been very open about it on these forums.

There have been talks of a newer model coming out with a zwave 800 chip and a standalone zwave canopy module. This product should solve all of the issues of the LZW36 since those were mainly caused by RF communication issues.
Mentioned Here

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Yeah, I’m well aware of all the updates and issues with the manufacturer. It’s a shame. Moving to have the canopy module be a different protocol is the best move. Even the wireless canopy fan modules that come with fans or sold as an add on at home stores have the same issues. My LZ36 works better than the canopy module which came with a fan I purchased last year. It’s a flawed technology these days because that wireless wavelength is overly saturated.

Aeotec has this cool nano dimmer that is rated for fan loads: Nano Dimmer – Aeotec

If you stick a pair of those in the fan’s canopy (one for the fan, one for the light), you could control them with a scene controller like the Zooz Zen32 5 button switch. You can even get a custom faceplate to make it look nice.

With the aeotec dimmer module, does the speed ramp up and down like a dimmer on a light does? Like if you turn the fan from off to high, does it slowly increase speed up to high or jump right to that power? Or when you turn the fan off, does the speed slowly slow down or is power cut instantly?