Another day, another support post from me. To recap for anyone new, I have 69 inovelli blue switches. Many 3 ways, one 4 way, many single switches. All are smart switches (no aux). I have another thread also related to power outage issues with these switches. Today, I have a much different issue.
I have a tesla home backup system installed at the house. In my case, it is a powershare system, but functionally it would be no different than a powerwall/solar installation. There is a neutral transformer providing a neutral line to the house while the home is on backup power.
Last night, there was a severe storm in the area. My power went out, and kicked over to backup power. This happened a few times, before finally staying on backup power for a few hours. Each time it happened, a random amount of my switches would not work. The switches were all powered, and interacting with them changed the light bar status. They could also be interacted with from home assistant. But the lights they were connected to would not come on. I don’t think there was a specific switch type that didn’t work where others did. But I didn’t test thoroughly enough to be sure I found an on/off switch that couldn’t control its load. For sure both dimmer and presence dimmer had the issue
For a couple of hours I just sat there confused. I thought maybe the powershare neutral transformer wasn’t working, and was very close to ordering a new powershare gateway to install. Something made me go over to one of the switches that wasn’t providing power to its load, and air gap it for 5 seconds. When I closed the air gap, the light came on. I went around and did this for every switch, and every single one worked after being air gapped.
When the powershare system comes on, there is a 2-3 second delay between the power shutting off and the powershare kicking in. At which point the neutral transformer kicks on and the transfer switch flips. My guess is that the switches need longer of a delay between power turning off and back on in order to not have some weird behavior like I am experiencing.
What can be done with the firmware to make the switches compatible with these quick changeover power backup systems? Again, every switch came online every time, but a random percentage of them (between 40 and 70%) were unable to control their loads until they were air gapped. Obviously going around and air gapping 69 switches (because I don’t know which ones are working already) each time the power goes out isn’t really a solution. Can we get some kind of optional delay in the boot-up process? It seems like if the switch just took an extra 5 seconds to come online, there wouldn’t have been an issue.
I’m more than happy to beta test firmware to help get this ironed out.
NOTE: Nothing about how powershare or powerwall work can be changed. Everyone with any of these systems will encounter the same issues, so this needs to be resolved without suggestions of increasing the dwell time on the powershare coming back on or anything like that.
EDIT: Sorry again about the wrong model number tag, I still can’t make a post without picking from that tag dropdown, and it’s for some reason the only tag in that required category available to me.