LZW36 Issues - Can not Communicate to Canopy Module

Switches General Discussion
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#42

Are your bulbs RGB smart bulbs, nevermind I’m guessing you mean the LED indicator on the switch?

#43

For me, I’ve never had a problem with the switch being connected to Hubitat. The LEDs indicate that it is taking changes either from the switch, Hubitat changes, Pico remote requests or requests from Alexa. It’s just the fan that isn’t doing anything at times.

#44

Are these switches in plastic boxes or metal boxes? Anything between the switch and the canopy that could be acting as a shield?

#45

For my setup:

  • plastic boxes, maybe 9ft between fan and box.

  • my led bars light up and even turn green. It’s also synced up to my Zwave/HA Network. It’s the canopy itself that isn’t doing anything.

I’m thinking the same as @FanOfFans , bad canopy maybe…

#46

My wall box is plastic. My canopy is actually ceramic except for a metal ring on the bottom where it mounts. But at least one other person reported this happening with the canopy not installed. There is no mention in the instructions about having the antenna outside the canopy. The old remote module I removed had a similar antenna and it was not outside the canopy. My home Depot wink fan controller requires the antenna to be out but that is a zigbee antenna and not RF like this one.

#47

I’m assuming there must be a lot of people not having problems and it would be nice to know what their install situations are.

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#48

The airgap wouldn’t cut power to the canopy module because there is no true load terminal. The line is always hot over that terminal unless power is cut via the breaker.

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#49

I have the same wink fan controller, but I’ve never had issues with the RF portion not working, used to have the zigbee dropout every once in a while, but haven’t had that since adding two repeaters in the room.

#50

Sorry for the confusion. I had regular LED bulbs in the fan which slightly Illuminated when I turned on the power even though the Inovelli switch was set to off. Turning on/off the Inovelli switch had no impact on the light level.

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#51

My switch is installed in a plastic wall box. The housing of the fan where the canopy is enclosed is metal. I was able to route the antenna outside of the fan housing, but that didn’t help. The switch is around 12ft from the fan.

#52

Alright, we’re going to meet internally on this at 4pm EST and we have a call tonight with the manufacturer to figure this out.

They are also actively looking at these threads. I’m going to start a separate thread shortly with some questions so we can have a centralized spot to collect data. I’ll update this post shortly with the link.

EDIT: Here’s the data collection thread: LZW36 Fan/Light Switch Canopy Module Disconnection Issues

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#53

Thanks

#54

BTW, I did not see that there was an update to the thread because you edited your post instead of adding a new post. Hopefully this will help others find the link.

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#55

Add me to the list. I have 4 working modules and 1 troublesome one (same one I mentioned a few days ago in the pre-order thread).

All of my fans are the same model, so I don’t think that has anything to do with it. I have pullchains. My issues are with the fan and the light state not staying in sync with the switch. I found that most of the time if I physically push the switch on the wall, it works. If I’m away, it’s a 10/90 shot of it working. I tested a theory I had just being near the switch and it seems to work much more consistently when I’m near the switch (body reflecting the RF?).

The switch is 9.5’ away from the canopy, so well within the range. I have a plastic wall plate and I did stick my antenna through the metal canopy outside of the canopy.

Mine is defiinitely intermittent. It seemed to work all day today, but not this evening (once I tried to add automation to it!).

The other ones seem to be just fine though… my 2yo was driving me nuts yesterday turning his fan and light on and off over and over again and it worked through a few dozen cycles and didn’t miss a beat.

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#56

What steps do I need to take to get a replacement unit?

I emailed the contact email address and also filed a ticket.

#57

That should be good enough. We will respond shortly. We have a ton of tickets so we’ll get to you, I promise!

#58

Should I submit a ticket for a replacement or wait? Fortunately this fan stays on most of the time during the summer so as long as the light isn’t stuck on I’m ok with it while this gets figured out. I do have a rule in HE to turn it off at 1:00am and it did that last night even though it was disconnected from the switch earlier in the day.

#59

I’ve had success in fixing the issue of intermittent communication between the switch and the canopy module by disabling the 2.4 GHz network on a network access point that was in the same room (about 9 feet away). Since making that change I’ve had 100% success rate with commands being sent to the fan, so I’m cautiously convinced that it is/was an RF interference issue.

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#60

I have not encountered any problems yet with my four switches, but only because I am not installing the switches until Saturday.

Four questions:

  1. Is anyone having issues using metal switch plate faces over plastic boxes?

  2. FCC/UL issues aside, is there an antenna test point or pad that can be extended outside of the switch if one has a soldering iron and wants to sacrifice their warranty in the name of science?

  3. When the manufacturer twisted Inovelli’s arms to go with 2.4 GHz for the fan module link to the switch, was this driven by them having a canopy module design for 2.4 GHz Zigbee on the shelf for re-use? Is their switch-to-canopy protocol close enough to Zigbee where the canopy module is getting confused by Zigbee repeaters/hubs in the air space?

  4. Are they using FHSS RF signals? If not, will the switch and canopy module move around the band automatically looking for the clearest frequency to use in a congested 2.4 GHz wifi/Bluetooth/BLE airspace? If not, can anyone tell us what exact frequency it is using so that we can move other stuff away from that channel?

Sorry for the long list of questions, but my electrical panel is in a REALLY inconvenient location and pulling the breaker every day would get old quickly if I also have this problem with any of my four new switches…

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#61

I haven’t had time to install my devices yet either between work and a landscaping project. :sleepy:

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