I recently had a power failure in the house - it’s happened a few times before and everything has come back normally. This time though one of my Red Series dimmer switches is completely non-responsive. Air-gapping and then restoring does absolutely nothing - it doesn’t light up and it doesn’t respond via z-wave or pressing any buttons.
Has anyone experienced this before / what can be done about it?
Unfortunately, power failures are known to kill smart switches. It’s not the power failure itself, it’s the surge that results when power is restored.
There are a few if any reports of these with Inovelli switches, unlike another major manufacturer whose smart switches seem to die with regularity from power failures.
The best thing to do is to invest in a whole house surge protector. These are devices that mount in or on the breaker box and monitor both phases for surges.
I didn’t even realize this was a thing! I had a storm kill 4 switches on me a while back. I guess I know what I’m buying next!
Guessing the “thing” is the whole house surge, not the switches dieing, lol.
I don’t know the Canadian code, but in the US 2020 NEC, service to dwelling units is now required to be protected by a surge device. So sooner or later, they’ll become commonplace.
2020 NEC 230.67