That’s not correct.
Exactly. Turn on Disable Local Control and the switch will not physically cut the power to the light.
You can do that now, but a new firmware 1.52 (beta) was just released that you should consider.
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How is that not correct? When setting Disable Local Control, changing the switch brightness or on/off from home assistant still affects the power because the relay is still enabled (if the relay is disabled then how is the voltage changing?)
I’ll take a look at the beta firmware, from that thread it looks like it’s almost there, other than remote toggling still cutting power. But sounds like they’re open to feedback on that part
Disable Local Control prevents you from cutting power at the switch. Disable REMOTE Control prevents you from cutting the power via the hub. Generally, the thought was if you have a smart bulb you usually wouldn’t want someone to work the switch in the traditional way, turning the bulb off but would still want control from the hub for whatever reason. So you would just Turn on Smart Bulb Mode and Disable Local Control and then you couldn’t physically cut the power via the switch.
There have been varying viewpoints on how this has been implemented, so the new firmware is trying to address this.
The only part of this that I don’t think you can get around is making the switch internally “track” some state (on/off, level, etc.). But otherwise, everything you want is possible — and Z-Wave Central Scenes are indeed part of it. You need to create an automation that responds to the scene events and manipulates the actual bulb devices accordingly. For example, the scene for single tap up can turn on the lights, single tap down turn them off, hold up begin raising the level, release up stop changing the level, two taps up do…whatever you want (or not). This is now mine are set up and they work exactly like a “real” dimmer with a “real” load would; the only difference is that the hub is in the middle (not a problem for me — I did get a smart switch for a reason 
).
But in any case, the goal is that you need to manipulate the bulbs with your automations, not the switch/dimmer (this also applies to things like voice assistants or other ways you might want to manipulate the lights). The switch/dimmer is just a powered button device if you aren’t using it to directly control the load. You’d definitely need local control disabled for this to work. Whether you disable remote control is up to you, though I don’t do that myself since I know not to manipulate the device from the hub, and that’s entirely within my control. There are different ways that this feature could be implemented (one of which could be as you described), but I personally actually prefer it this way because it avoids me needing to put yet another automation between the bulbs and me, one that would “mirror” the switch/dimmer state to the bulbs.
I think it is misleading to say that you can disable the relay to keep constant power to your smart bulbs, because it isn’t explicitly stated that you have to disable the physical use of the switch to do so. I could have put a piece of tape over my dumb switch and got the same result. I just want to use my dimmer like a normal dimmer but power constantly be sent to my bulbs. I don’t want to have to hold a class for everyone that covers over that 1 tap means this and 12 taps means that. I wanted to be able to control the lights from my phone and with motion detectors and my wife just wants to be able to hit the switch like normal and it is implied that this can do both.
What you are looking for is actually being worked on for the next firmware release.
I believe Inovelli is looking to have 3 options:
- Regular Mode: Switch behaves like a normal dimmer
- On/Off Mode: Load is set to 100% whenever the switch is “on” (you can change the brightness all you want, but as long as the switch is on it will output 100%. It will still cut power to the load when turned off though)
- Always On Mode: Load is locked to 100% regardless of the dimmer setting. Even when the dimmer is turned off it will still output 100% (used for smart bulbs that must be always powered)
It isn’t explicitely stated because you technically don’t have to disable local control (what you’re calling disable the relay) to get constant power to your bulbs. That’s what smart bulb mode is for. It doesn’t make a lot of sense not to disable local control in that configuration, but technically speaking you don’t have to.
Not exactly. With the tape on the switch, you wouldn’t be able to use it as a scene controller. Well, you’d have the config button, unless you put tape on that too. Plus, it would look stupid.
Not sure what you’re looking for here. A normal dimmer will vary the voltage and waveform to the bulb, which is diametrically opposed to power constantly sent to the bulb. It sounds like you want the bulb powered full time but still want to operate the smart bulb. If that’s the case, turn on the SBM and DLC. You can then control the bulbs either via direct association (if the bulb supports it) or via a scene.
It’s not only implied, it’s possible. Control the smart bulbs directly from your phone via your hub without any interaction with the dimmer. Associate the dimmer with your Zwave bulbs and your wife will be able to work it as if it was a dumb dimmer, with no class involved.
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FWIW, where I ended up with this is I just don’t have dimmers controlling smart bulbs connected to load at all. The bulbs are hardwired to power. I’m not disabling local control nor using the newer smart bulb mode (as I honestly haven’t kept up with what that mode does and my dimmers work the way I want, so I’m not interested in fixing something not broken). The dimmers work like I want, except the disconnect pull tab doesn’t kill power to the bulbs. Small price to pay.
Edit: with my simple setup, the LED bar tracks dimmer changes as well. This gets mucked up when using scenes, but I can deal with that using automations to set the dimmer to an appropriate level for a particular scene.
From what you have said in another post, that is not what smart bulb mode does: " The smart bulb mode insures that the bulb is powered at full brightness. It doesn’t have anything to do with the switch making or breaking power, so even if you have that setting turned on, the switch will still turn the bulb on and off. In addition to setting the Smart Bulb Mode , you want to Disable Local Control."
And from testing, that is not what what bulb mode does. If I click down once on the dimmer, the smart bulbs go offline.
I wasn’t concerned with scenes, I just wanted a “smart switch” that would keep my bulbs online all the time. Like I said, I don’t want to have to educate everyone on how to use the dimmer
This option is apparently only helpful if you have zwave bulbs
Yep, what I said in that post is correct. You have to understand that there are two separate functions that play into this. SBM insures the bulb is power at full (99%) power. That means the dimmer won’t dim, it doesn’t mean the switch won’t turn it off. If you want that too, then disable local control.
There are reasons they’re separate, but it doesn’t pertain to you. As @jtronicus mentioned, newer firmware will blend these functions.
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Well, uh, yeah . . . A Zwave switch will talk to Zwave bulbs. If you have Zigbee bulbs, then you want a Zigbee dimmer. The blue series is coming out later this year. If you have WiFi bulbs, then you’re barking up the wrong tree.
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As much as I appreciate the firmware having the features I would like, I don’t appreciate having to make a separate purchase that costs more than the switch itself in order to have it.
I could have bought a more expensive dimmer that would do what I want but I guess I got what I paid for. And your responses have ensured that I will never buy another product from this company and won’t recommended them either.
Dude, calm down. I gave you a very simple answer above…hardwire the bulbs to power. In the time you spent posting you could have done this solution.
I’m using Hubitat and Zigbee bulbs. All local control. No Zwave associations. Everything is smooth and responsive (except for some bulbs at the edge of my Zigbee network, but that has nothing to do with the switch).
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Damn.
You have a short term and long term solution, the company has ALSO been known to share USB’s to allow firmware updates for “free”, whereas other companies have you pay for firmware update access or just simply don’t update the firmware.
But with postings like that, rest assured the community and probably not even Inovelli desire your business or recommendation.
Moving on.
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Because it isn’t true. If you have the Black Series, it’s kind of true unless you have Z-Wave bulbs and use Association (or a future firmware update adds scenes for single taps), but otherwise the exact setup you describe is what I’ve had working at my home since the LZW31-SN (and LZW30-SN) was released. I assume you have the Red Series given that it is the subject of this thread.
For me, local control is disabled and, yes, this prevents power from phyiscally turning off the bulbs — but you have smart bulbs, and that’s what you want. I have smart bulb mode enabled, but honestly, that doesn’t really add much for me (just stops the dimmer from accidentally getting changed to anything besides full power, which will freak most smart bulbs out, so it might save you some headaches). Instead, as mentioned above, I use my hub to respond to scene events. So, just like a regular switch, a single tap up turns on my bulbs, a single tap down turns them off, a hold up dims them up, a hold down dims them down, and then — unlike a dumb switch — I use multi-taps for various other things (often different color temperatures and levels, depending on the room). These are Hue bulbs via the Hue Bridge with Hubitat tying everything together from Inovelli’s Z-Wave switch, but something similar should be do-able with most hubs (and if you’re using Z-Wave, you probably have one). But how to do that, or how easy it is, is hub-specific.
The Blue Series, as mentioned above, may make some of this easier; you can eliminate the hub for some things. My concern right now is that it may also eliminate the flexibility to do more things (I have yet to use a Zigbee Touchlink device that works both with my hub and directly with a device — but outside of Hue, I generally avoid Touchlink, so I have no idea what the possibilities are). But we’ll see. Today, you can get something similar with Z-Wave bulbs (like Inovelli’s own) and a Z-Wave dimmer (via Association). But with a hub, your options are pretty much wide open, at least with the Red Series.
Enlightening thread.
I was also confused about the functionality of “disable internal relay”. I interpreted “disable internal relay” to mean local control would still send Z-wave events to my hub. Z-wave events from my hub to the switch would not affect power output (required to keep the switch status in sync with outside automations). Basically what Zooz switches do.
Have the Inovelli switches been updated to be able to function this way?
Yes. It can function normally (dim), be on/off (100% or 0%), or stay on no matter what. With that setting you can choose to allow local control or not, and allow z-wave control or not.