Hey @GilbertDrive – great question and yes, the final tweaks are mainly around people with no-neutral or people who do not have an advanced HUB such as ST/Hubitat/HomeSeer, etc (which is about 40% of our customer base).
I wish it was as simple as releasing this into the wild and then providing a day-1 patch for the first batch. The problem with that is hardly any HUB’s support OTA (Over-the-Air) capabilities so people would have to purchase a separate Z-Stick to upgrade (which is also a pain if you’ve already had your switch setup with automations as you have to factory reset the switch).
I completely understand you wife’s (and your) frustration. We’re just as upset here and obviously want these out as soon as possible.
We’ve knocked out about 75% of the bugs last night and are down to the final three which I’ve been promised will be fixed this weekend.
I’m confident production will start either late next week or early the following (just depends on when they give us the files this weekend.
EDIT: Firmware is approved 09/30! Production time!!
So, this may be a stupid question… when I first pre-ordered this I was under the impression that you’d be able to use the switch with a second, standard 3-way switch (basically as a slave switch to the master smart switch) without a neutral. Is this still possible, or must you use an aux switch (like the GE slave switch) as the second switch (without a neutral)?
Hey @compulov – great question – it’s definitely not a stupid one.
The original spec did call for a dumb switch to be compatible in a non-neutral setting, however, on June 13, we found out this was not possible and updated the page (and hopefully sent out an email about it). There was a communication issue where the engineer thought that no-neutral meant no-neutral in the smart switch gang-box only! Whoops… not good.
In fact, the manufacturer also said that day that even aux switches wouldn’t work. I don’t think I’ve ever been so upset in my life outside that day.
However, we kept pushing and had a hunch it could work with GE or HomeSeer’s aux switches if we wrote some logic in the firmware. After a ton of trial and error, we did manage to get it to work a couple weeks ago.
So, while we couldn’t figure out the dumb switch situation for non-neutral settings, we are still happy to report that you can use an aux switch.
We looked at a few other solutions that other companies use, but found that they haven’t figured out this issue either and they use a remote for their secondary switch and pair the two together.
It does, thanks for the clarification. I did see the update and was a little disheartened; however, since then I discovered that the place I wanted to install one of these did, in fact, have a neutral after all. But having the ability to swap in an aux switch is a nice bonus regardless.
Also, this is off-topic, but I wanted to mention how refreshing it is to have a company who is so open regarding their development process. I’m only knee-deep in the home automation waters (though I’m a long time tinkerer and IT person), but I sometimes feel like a lot of these products get released and then the developers never look back. It’s nice to see that isn’t the case everywhere.
Hopefully these will get there quickly but with almost all things home automation, there will be a delay in production. So many things are announced to get attention before they are even available and companies need that in order to get the support they need. The few months behind that these switches are is not only normal but actually a bit quicker than normal in my experience. I have seen some devices take a year plus after the original release date. I have learnt this the hardway especially with the WAP involved!
So just to piggy back on this reply. I too was someone that specifically purchased these dimmers due to the non-neutral requirement in a 3 way situation.
Since I haven’t really looked at the aux switches yet, can you just expand a bit further as it would relate to this scenario?
I’ve got a 2- 3 way switches to control my hallway lights that do not have a neutral wire. My original intent was to install an Innovelli dimmer on one end of the hall and retain the original 3 way switch on the other side. Does this mean that I would just need to swap out the standard 3 way switch for an aux switch now? Would this require any additional wiring?
So question, I came onto these after the pre-order was done…(dang it) But no worries! I see production is starting, how long before these bad boys creep onto Amazon? I know that may sound silly but I get Amazon credit from work and have been stockpiling it specifically to unload it on some of the new switches. Want to make sure I’m ready as I am sure they will inevitably go quickly.
On a side-note - I have been playing in the HA space for quite awhile now. I have to echo others comments…you guys have been awesome about providing updates and insight into what you are doing. In addition, you are pushing the boundaries of what these devices can do beyond just offering “a switch” which most competitors are doing. You listen to your customers and you are willing to look at corner case requirements. It’s just beyond refreshing. I am now a customer for life and ALL my devices that CAN be Inovelli will be. I’m also sure to tell everyone about them when they ask
Now if you could just start up an exchange program so I could swap my other smart switches to all Inovelli, I’d be in heaven!
Would love it! Hopefully these will be fairly similar to the On/Off’s
Thanks for all your help!
Well that’s good news! Yeah, the aux switch is also nice bc you can dim from both ends of the 3-Way. I’m still holding out hope that we can figure out having a dumb switch in the non-neutral setting, but for now hopefully the aux is a good start!
Hey thanks @compulov, we sincerely appreciate it! I can promise that we’ll always look for ways to improve. We put these products in our houses as well and there’s times when we think, “man, this would be a cool feature – let’s see how we can tweak the firmware to make it happen” or better yet someone from the forum, on Reddit, FB, email, etc will ask for something and it gets our brains thinking of a solution.
Our goal is to put out the best hardware we can so that when you invest in something, you don’t feel like you have to upgrade it every time the fancy new model comes out, but rather you can just update the firmware. Moving forward, really the only changes from a hardware standpoint would just be upgrading the Z-Wave chip.
In other words, once you invest in something, you should be able to just upgrade the firmware. This one may be difficult (the dimmer) bc we maxed out the space on the 500 Series chip, but moving forward just about everything will be 700 Series with lots more room for improvement. However, from my understanding, even though we maxed out the space, there may be room for optimization to free up some room.
Yeah, we definitely learned a lot from this dimmer and launching the pre-orders. In our heart of hearts we firmly believed that these would be out in May as we were promised delivery in April. I think it was also one of those things where we were working with a new manufacturer who was also trying to attain our business and over promised a few things from a timeline standpoint. They’ve admitted they were a little optimistic and also they didn’t fully anticipate the complexity of the switch. They were putting out basic products before for larger corporations and once they realized how complex this thing really was, they kind of back-peddled a bit on timelines. Couple that with issues out of our control (unforseen patents, lost in translation deliverables, etc) this turned into a mess fast.
Good to hear though that we still beat the year development time that you’ve seen! I’m not sure my hairline or my weight gain could’ve taken it if it went any longer
Me neither!
Yes, great question. You would essentially keep the Inovelli switch on one end (where the line comes in) and then on the opposite side put an aux switch in as you mentioned. You likely won’t have to rewire the aux switch side, but let me get the diagrams shortly to show you!
Wow, that’s awesome, I’m in the wrong field – @Micah_Inovelli can you get us an Amazon credit account set up so we can get some switches too!?
Kidding aside, the goal at this point is to ship these out in waves. The first shipment will be to cover the pre-orders, which (and I haven’t confirmed this bc the sales and logistics person is out until the 7th) hopefully ship at the end of next week.
From there, we’ll try our best to have a second wave come in to get up on Amazon, followed by the final batch. We’re told that all switches should be delivered by the end of the month and we ship directly to Amazon’s warehouses. Last time with the On/Off’s they surprised me in that they usually take 3-4 days once they arrive at the warehouse to check in and move from Distribution Center to Distribution Center. However the listing was live the same day last time.
So, my best guess, if we get the 2nd wave in is that they could be live on Amazon USA around the 18th-25th. If not, I would estimate they all arrive by the 31st or first week in November.
As for Canada, the tricky thing with Amazon is that they require your product to be in stock in the US before opening up the Canadian listing if you want to use the same UPC. This is why I’m pushing for a 2nd wave to come in so that they can be live on Amazon US, which will allow us to open up Canada for the third wave. More to come on this.
Thanks @ffingers, I really appreciate that and every little bit of word of mouth referrals helps. It’s something that worked well for us last year and has crushed us this year given the fact that we were out of stock for 9mo or so (due to the switch of manufacturer) so we’re trying to regain that momentum.
Yeah, who wants boring on/off/dim switches?! It’s almost 2020 and the home automation industry is on fire – let’s make some products that get people excited!
Ha, could be something! Can’t promise anything, but it’s an interesting idea
Well…if you can pull that off, I have a weekend of work removing light switches! If you need help coordinating or coming up with ideas, happy to lend a hand.
Can you also post an updated timeline for pre-order delivery and when additional switches will most likely be available when you receive that update? I only ordered seven switches when it was a pre-order because I didn’t want to gamble, but I think I’m ready to pull the trigger and get more right off the bat once they come out.
Also, I was told in a previous update that I will need to use a capacitor (I believe) on my switches and that they would be provided for people that did the pre-order. Is that still the case? And if so when will these be shipping?
