@Eric_Inovelli
Any updates on this project?
Pretty sure this would not work if you are including inductive charging and could theoretically be problematic from an interference/communication issue but I wonder if there would be advantages to making the bottom magnetic.
There are a few metal surfaces I could discretely tuck one of these into so it’s not always out in the open and/or I could just add a small magnetic strip under the coffee table for a hidden switch that is easily removable.
Although this is not the primary use case described: I’d love if there was a wired single pole remote holder so I could use this like a normal switch 99% of the time (and have it charge), but either via magnetic base or simple snapping mechanism, it would be cool to be able to pop the remote out on the fly if/when I want to go wireless.
I’d be interested to hear the reasoning. The antenna now is mounted underneath the paddle and away from the metal box. I’d imagine it be similar to any phone with inductive charging capabilities. Frequency pretty close to LTE.
Fair point, thank you for providing me with such much needed assistance!
Admittedly, I have almost no experience with either subject but whenever I’ve seen magnetic phone cases for sale in the past they always came with a warning that you could/should not use them with wireless charging.
So yea… this line of deep thought and well researched reasoning should help give everyone an idea of just how useful and air-tight all of my comments on this forum may be in the future. 
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It’s useful because it’s ensures that someone is reading it and hopefully that includes the company.
Most inductive charging phones/products have glass on the back to support charging. Once you place a metal case between the receiver coil and transmitter coil it basically blocks the energy.
Yep, that makes perfect sense actually. Thank you.
You know, I don’t know if you’re familiar with this but as I thought about it more earlier I believe the experience I had in mind was based on the previous gen MacBooks and the satisfying click that came when connecting the the tip of the MagSafe charger to the laptop’s charge port.
I don’t know if it was the sound it made or the tactile experience of the cord quickly making the short jump from my hand into its intended location but it was this seemingly minor detail that ended up being an unexpected delighter whenever I needed to charge and I think I had a similar mental image of a small plastic remote where the flat, bottom half is magnetized and just bringing it near the wall switch cover plate is enough for the remote to pop into its own little recessed nook where we use it day-to-day as a normal wall switch but also have the option to just pop it out and use it as a remote as needed.
Anyway totally took this on a super unnecessary tangent. Should probably call it a night!
Any updates on timeline here? I’m ready to order 
@Courtney_Inovelli and @Eric_Inovelli is this something you’re still aspiring to do? I am so supportive I’d put money down now (seriously). I think there’s a large market for this (as evidenced by the Caseta line), however that line is not so flexible / open. Plus it has a lot of difficulty with various bulb types. And worst of all, the formfactor of those Caseta switches is horrid. They require a higher level of precision and concentration to hit the small button you need to hit, as opposed to the rocker switch you have in your line- which is easy to slap without any thought or effort.
TL;DR - are you still working on it? If so I’d hold out on buying any other solution!
is there going to be a wired version of this? perhaps one with the 7 LED’s. I guess I’m just looking for a switch that has no relay, this would work, but i hate batteries
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That’s pretty much an LZW31-SN (or LZW30-SN if you want something that matches this remote) with local and remote protection enabled, no? 
yea, just a bit lower cost? IDK. i think I will end up getting some and turning off local control like you said. I was just hopeing to save a few $$$ since I need about 15 of them in the long run.
Well, the wallmount/charging base could be sold separately. That way the price would only go up for use cases where mains power / recharging is required.
True. However the more I think about this, the more I realize that Project BFF’s biggest application isn’t on a wall fixture. There’s a handful of Z-Wave remotes out there, but quite frankly they all suck- the buttons are abstract shapes, or it’s just a big button with more buttons around it, etc etc. A simple, on/off remote has a lot of utility and a lot of WAF.
For example… take our bedroom. My girlfriend is NOT a technical person. I gave her one of these and she knows + and - turn the bedroom light on and off, and the circles are for the sleep sound. Now I want to put a LED strip behind our head board for low level ambient light. I can program her remote for double-taps, but that will confuse her. Or I can take a Project BFF, screw it to the wall or the headboard, and tell her this is the on/off for the headboard light it works just like the other switches.
Or in another room there’s a lamp that shines in your eyes if you’re sitting at the TV. I offered another handheld remote and she had no interest. I could take a Project BFF, bolt it to the wall next to the couch, and say ‘look the annoying dining room light is now a 3-way switch!’. She’d love that.
Or under the kitchen cabinets I’m planning to put LED strip. That’ll have a Z-Wave control module; perhaps a plug-in module connected to a dimmable transformer, perhaps a Z-Wave LED controller, not sure. Either way, if I can just bolt a BFF to the side of the cabinet near where food is prepared, it becomes 10x easier to use.
Would I love BFF to have a rechargeable battery and Qi receiver? Sure. But with a good lithium cell I think it should work just fine as a standalone product. And I think affordability of BFF will be key- it’ll be a way to put a switch where there was no switch before.
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Good point. And by the time BFF comes out, I will have put load-less Red Series switches/dimmers as remotes anywhere I can (i.e., I can make room in a junction box nearby, and get power from some circuit). BFF isn’t going to be saving me from buying (and doing the electrical work for) more switches (or pseudo-switches in wall boxes). BFF is going to be saving me from buying picos (and the Caseta Pro Bridge and all that jazz), and from the issues of the tiny little five buttons on the pico.
What I am currently using that does the job is a simple two-button Zigbee remote from IKEA. But BFF will have the advantage of being Z-Wave (so direct association is possible), and of having a form factor that looks more like a regular light switch (or at least like an Inovelli light switch, since at some point no regular “dumb” switches will remain in my house… 
).
What about the option to power from USB, similar to the multi sensor? People could then provide their own USB power source.
I have been troubleshooting an issue with a red dimmer, and have it setup in a test gang box sitting on my desk. Right now it is temporarily in use as a meeting notification switch. When i press the config button, it turns on a color bulb to red right outside my home office door. it also sets the notification LED to red, so i remember I have it on. Press again and they both turn off. This way the family knows not to disturb when I am in a meeting. A red dimmer seems like overkill for this, but if there were a powered button, so the LED notification could stay on without draining the battery supper fast, that might work.
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So, the idea of a battery operated remote offers some innovative use cases.
However, a slightly spiffed up “even dumber” switch would be preferable to me.
Namely, I have way too many battery operated devices already. Plus, I’ve got “wired” boxes all over the place–having converted my house over to Z-Wave in 2010, I went through the pain of getting hot/neutral/load/ground/traveler wires all in one box–and traveler/neutral (usually neutral) in the 3-way aux box.
I would LOVE the ability to add a “dumb” Inovelli aux-switch that had a full-functioning LED that parrotted the LED function from the primary switch. AND that wasn’t battery powered at all.
Possibly some sort of low-frequency signal passed along the traveler wire to tell the LED what to do? Then, an extremely low power circuit that only drove the LED–so it could actually draw all the power it needed from the “traveler” wire, supplied by the primary switch.
This could be swapped in in place of a GE aux switch and, when paired with an Inovelli Dimmer/Switch, you’d have that super sweet LED at ALL locations.
Also, note: the primary switch should detect and handle all “aux switch” presses identically to those on it’s own paddle/toggle. Thus, double up-tapping the aux switch should result in the same events/behavior as a “double up-tap” on the primary switch itself (e.g., events sent to the hub, z-wave association behavior, etc.).
I just replaced all my old GE/Jasco Z-wave (non-plus) switches with GE/Jasco S2 Enbrighten ones. THEN I found out about your cool stuff.
I’m not planning (currently) to replace all my new switches before the credit card bills from that have even arrived – but I am wanting to do a bit of shuffling to add 5-6 of these in key locations. I got a Red Series “switch” yesterday and put it in place. Pretty sweet–I’m stoked about being able to use the colors to distinguish between the various situations I want to know about (e.g., armed away, armed at home, doors open, all doors locked, etc.). Two more dimmers are supposed to arrive tomorrow.
I’ve been looking into doing this with two Red switches for another thread. It works out of box with the HomeSeer 200 series switches, but Inovelli’s currently get into an update loop and flood the network with useless traffic. @EricM_Inovelli suggested a fix using Parameter 12 but I have yet to try it.
While having two Red switches isn’t the cheapest option, it would give you everything you want…
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I do some work in rentals that are turned into smarthomes for a period of a couple years. If I could avoid running wires, I would be a very happy man. Its way easier to patch a couple screw holes, than a bunch of outlet sized holes.
Will this compete directly with GE/Jasco’s Enbrighten z wave remote? It’s very similar to the Caseta Pico remote that it fits in a decora wall plate but is also removable. No wiring required. Just set up associations through your hub.
I hope it doesn’t compete — the GE/Jasco is only usable through Association. It doesn’t send reports for button presses to the hub, which I hope Inovelli’s will, which would make it far more usable for people who do have hubs and what the extra power this opens up.
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