Yes, I believe you can do this – @EricM_Inovelli, can you confirm? I know we have some people testing on Home Assistant, so I’m guessing it’s possible.
Dangit, this is another question I’m not 100% on lol. I know the double-tap and hold is the most Apple Home supports, but I’m uncertain if you can add more into Home Assistant. We asked to put the 3x, 4x, 5x tap into this switch, but haven’t been able to test it yet.
@EricM_Inovelli – do you know the answer to this too? I’m thinking we should make sure this is in there because I’m sure other hubs like SmartThings, Hubitat, etc can handle all those taps.
Yes, this is possible.
So bindings are still up in the air. Right now my understanding is that while it’s built into the switch, you have to have a hub (or an app) that supports binding the switches together and none of the major hubs have this capability yet.
Yeah that would be cool! I have a buddy out in Seattle that I’m sure I could make a trip out of. I’m a big fan of the PNW too.
So the question is if I turn on Switch A, will Switch B & C turn on at the same time (as opposed to Switch B turning on and then Switch C turning on)?
I think what I meant to say was if you have 3 White switches assigned to the same room in Apple Home, such as a kitchen, would I be able to use a voice command to Siri to turn on all of the kitchen lights? And if that works, would all 3 switches turn on simultaneously? That currently works with the dimmers I have now, but wanted to know if the new White dimmers will operate the same way.
Will it be possible to have the smart dimmer control smart bulbs? To my knowledge, this doesn’t exactly exist on the market yet. The ability for the dimmer to control smart colored bulbs would be amazing. The issue has always been that smart bulbs require power from the dimmer at all times, which is obviously not possible when a typical switch is in the off state.
Inovelli switches have a Smart Bulb Mode, which ensures that the load is always constantly powered, and ensures the switch cannot cut power to the load. In essence, this turns the switch into a scene controller, where you can take advantage of multi-taps to send commands.
This capability exists on this switch, as well as the Red and Blue series, including the Gen 2 switches.
As it relates to HomeKit… how is this mode displayed? Will it display as regular dimmer (on/off/dim)? Or will scene colors be changeable inside the app? If not, where would that be done?
Will the smart bulb mode only be customizable inside HomeKit as a “scene”?
For instance, after I pair my Nanoleaf color bulbs to the on/off switch on the white series dimmer. How (inside HomeKit) would they look? And if I wanted to change the color of the bulbs when in the ON position, how do I go about changing it?
Could we have a timeline update? From reading this thread I get the sense that “early March” is no longer likely, but also there are milestones listed as NOT STARTED in the fist post that it sounds like are actually complete. I have a preorder in and am looking forward to installing them!
Sort of. It’s not as smooth as our Z-Wave and Zigbee options, but there are some workarounds until Thread/Matter catches up from a functionality standpoint.
What I mean by this is that Z-Wave has something called, “Z-Wave Associations” and Zigbee has something called, “Zigbee Bindings” where you can directly connect your switch to your smart bulb and dim up/down just like you would with a normal light switch. Here’s an example of Zigbee Bindings:
Matter does have Matter Bindings, but it appears that most hubs do not support this at this time, so we haven’t been able to test it. However, rest assured, once this capability arrives, we will implement it on the switch as I am obsessed with Zigbee Bindings. It’s a real game-changer.
The workaround for Matter right now is to use multi-taps (ie: tap 1x = On, tap 2x = 50%, tap 3x = 75%, etc).
But if you’re just looking for, “Smart Bulb Mode” where the switch provides constant power to the bulb so that the bulb doesn’t lose power, then yes, @Bry summed it up perfectly, this switch will have that.
We’re still working on the UX of this as the issue is that we’re way ahead of the hubs capabilities right now. But, I should have more screenshots available once we finalize firmware (which should be within the next couple weeks). The good news is that even if you can’t access Smart Bulb Mode in Apple Home, you will be able to program it from the switch via a button combination.
Scene colors will be able to be changed in the app – we created a separate endpoint for colors. Again, still working out the UX behind it, but this is what it looks like right now:
Sorry for the drawing, this was the other Eric illustrating that the bars were switched. But in this picture, the green bar indicates the color of the LED Bar and the yellow bar represents the dimming level of the actual switch.
You’ll be able to set automations so that if your garage is left open, you can change the color of the LED Bar to Red or something.
I think I understand what you’re asking, but apologies if not. If you just want your Nanoleaf bulbs to change colors when the Inovelli switch is on, you would be able to set an automation inside Apple Home to do so. I can whip up some instructions when we get closer to launching (but it’s super easy).
Thanks for staying on top of this – let me update the listing real quick!
From a high level, we opted to delay production for a month or so to add in additional features (ie: LED Bar endpoint so that you can change the color of the LED Bar and also use this endpoint for automations – ie: garage door is left open, turn the LED Bar red, and also make it easier for you to change parameters inside Apple Home’s app).
Let me get with the manufacturer to get a dialed in timeline.
Wanted to share a couple videos I just took showcasing the LED Bar changing color as well as a basic example of a notification.
Changing the LED Bar Color
NOTE: The color is a little distorted on the camera (camera shows blue in the app, but it’s really purple), but it works great!
Setting a Notification (and clearing it)
In this example, I just set a basic automation to give you an idea of what it can do. I set it so that the LED Bar lights up red when a light is turned on. You can manually clear the notification by double-tapping the favorites button (or you can set it in the app to turn off after x seconds/minutes)
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We sincerely appreciate everyone’s patience here in pushing back the production date a few weeks so we could get these perfected. I’m really proud of @EricM_Inovelli and his team for bringing this to life!
Yeah it was insane to see. I’ve only ever seen that with Zigbee (Philips Hue) where you run your finger on the color wheel and the LED color instantly changes. It’s pretty cool!
Cannot wait to switch all my dimmers out for this!! Switching out entire household! Final thing someone needs to make is a battery-operated thread water/leak sensor … in case you need any other thread/matter ideas
I have a question similar to the one posted above regarding Apple and Home Assistant, but around the Thread network.
Currently, I only have Thread devices connected to Apple. Among them, I have several 10+ TVs and HomePod’s running Thread, and the only Thread devices today are Eve Energy and Onvis plugs. I added them to Apple first, then obtained the pairing code for Home Assistant. Most of the automations I run today are in Home Assistant.
So my question is: Would I still need a SkyConnect USB for Home Assistant for these dimmers? Could I obtain native Thread via Apple and then simply pair them with Home Assistant? Also, for smart bulb functionality, are there parameters similar to Zwave to disable paddle control (reporting, etc.) that I could set in Home Assistant bridged from the Apple Thread network?
