I’m testing an Inovelli White Series room setup in Home Assistant and wanted to compare notes with anyone else using Matter bindings.
The room has:
1x VTM31-SN White Series Dimmer
1x VTM35-SN White Series Fan Switch
2x VTM36 White Series Fan/Light Canopy Modules
The VTM31 is bound to the light side of both canopy modules and works well.
The issue is with the VTM35 bound to the fan side of both canopy modules.
My goal is:
direct Matter binding for the physical wall controls
no HA automation required for the physical control path
dimmer controls both canopy lights
fan switch controls both canopy fans
Ceiling (3 Speed) behavior
Current setup:
Home Assistant Matter Server
VTM35-SN firmware: 1.0.0
both VTM36 canopy modules firmware: 1.0.0
all involved devices are now on Home Assistant Matter fabric only
Fan switch settings:
Smart Fan Mode: Smart Fan Enable
Switch Mode: Ceiling (3 Speed) + Single
Canopy module settings:
Fan Mode: Ceiling (3 Speed)
fan pull chains are confirmed to already be set to high
Binding details:
VTM31 endpoint 2 → VTM36 endpoint 1
clusters 6 and 8
VTM35 endpoint 2 → VTM36 endpoint 2
clusters 6 and 8
Current behavior:
light binding works correctly
fan binding partially works
What happens on the fan side:
tap up turns the fans on (to low, but doesn’t go higher if I tap more even though the LED on the switch suggests it should)
tap down turns the fans off
hold up/down appears to ramp speed up and down
but single taps are inconsistent for speed changes
tapping up again does not reliably move low → medium → high
tapping down from a higher speed does not reliably step down, it often just turns the fans off or doesn’t do anything
the fan switch LED bar also does not seem to stay in sync with the actual fan state/speed
I also tried putting the VTM35 into documented Step Mode:
hold down
tap config 12x
LED flashed orange
So the switch definitely appeared to accept the mode change.
However, after that, behavior still seemed basically the same:
holds still ramp speed
taps still do not behave like consistent speed stepping
LED indication still seems out of sync with actual fan behavior
Questions:
Has anyone confirmed that Step Mode actually changes tap behavior when VTM35 is controlling VTM36 fan endpoints over Matter binding?
Is this a known limitation on VTM35 1.0.0?
Is the current expected behavior for the bound fan case basically:
tap = on/off
hold = speed control
This isn’t really what I’m after, I was hoping this would match the behavior of my fan switch connected to a “dumb” fan without a canopy module in another room, where both taps and holds maintain speed state sync with the LEDs on the switch.
Has anyone gotten the fan switch LED bar/state indication to stay aligned with the actual bound canopy fan speed/state?
Any confirmation from someone running VTM35 → VTM36 Matter fan binding in Home Assistant would be appreciated! Very happy with Inovelli dimmers and fan switches elsewhere in my home! Including a weird case where I needed a single dimmer to control the canopy module (cycling the fan speed using the config button, but this required an automation). It’s weird that the fan switch to canopy module binding doesn’t work like how I expected.
If it’s not too much trouble, could you test out the single tap and see how it works?
The push to hold works fine for me most of the time but it’s not the preferred method since my household members are used to the tap to increase/decrease and that works fine on the other “dumb” fans connected to the white fan switch.
I tried all three settings (I put the setting names from the current online white fan switch manual in parentheses below since they differ from what is reported by Matter to HA):
Default Behavior (Precision Mode)
Single Tap Cycle (Step Mode)
Tap Down Always Off (Loop Mode)
All work exactly as described in the manual via the VTM35 to VTM36 binding.
The VTM36 canopy reports the same speed as the VTM35 fan switch is indicating (LED and reported speed) and the actual fan speed matches the reported speed. (I turned all automations on those switches off for the test).
Note that the “mode select” settings in HA (above) are only available in software versions > 1.0.0. Also VTM35 and VTM36 firmware versions > 1.0.0 are based on the Matter 1.5 SDK rather than the original 1.2 SDK which appears to have significantly improved connection reliability.
That helps a lot. It sounds to me like the best immediate solution is to update to a bleeding edge firmware version. Alternatively, wait it out until the next stable release.
Both betas have been out for several weeks (one for a couple of months awating CSA approval). I have not seen any issues at all at my end. Your call (obviously) but my experience with Inovelli betas is that if anything is really broken in a beta it gets fixed rather quickly. I would not term either of the beta releases I mentioned as “bleeding edge” based on my experience with them (YMMV).
Could you confirm if two-way binding is supported? Specifically, if a command is sent to the canopy module to adjust the fan or light, should the switch status update automatically?
I want to ensure my expectations are correct before troubleshooting my setup or testing the latest beta firmware.
No, that is not a feature (and I don’t believe it will become one). Bindings are tied to switch (paddle) actions only not to actions coming from automations (that is how all the White switches work not just the VTM36).
I have a HA automation that looks at speed changes on the VTM36 canopy and sets the VTM35 speed to match. It works just fine, everything stays in sync.
My family uses Apple Home to interact with the network. I have the devices they need to see pushed to Home via the HA HomeKit Bridge. The devices pushed via the HA HomeKit Bridge then appear to be native HomeKit devices to Home. In this case only the canopy is pushed to Home. The VTM35 is “invisible” to Home and the family. The switch on the wall uses binding so when it is toggled it updates the canopy which in turn updates Home. In the other direction, changing the Fan settings in Home (On/Off/Speed/Direction) updates the canopy and then the HA automation syncs the VTM35 with the VTM36 Canopy.
When a device is bound to a switch, I have found it the best practice to then only control that device through the switch itself where possible, meaning if I use home assistant to turn something on, I use it to turn on the switch not the device.
If you had a smart bulb bound to a switch, and you wanted to turn the light on or off through home assistant, you don’t tell the bulb to turn on, you tell the switch to turn on. Now, if your smart bulb also changes colors, then that would have to be controlled directly, but for on/off and dimming, you’d want to control the switch.
The same applies to your fan switch and dimmer bound to your canopy modules. If you want to control the fan through home assistant, control the switch. The switch will then control the fan and also maintain the proper status. And if you want to turn the lights on or control the dimming level through home assistant, you turn on the dimmer, not the canopy module directly.
I agree with you philosophically, but I wasn’t able to get this to work. I’ve got the switch controlling the two canopy modules, as I mentioned above, but it didn’t seem to impact the state of the canopy modules when I changed the state of the switch. Is there a different way to do this that I’ve overlooked?
It won’t. As I said above, if you are changing the state of the switch using HA (or any other Hub) you will need an automation to control the other devices. As I said, (regardless of direction), bindings are ONLY triggered by a physical push (up/down) on the paddle.
If what you are trying to accomplish is for the VTM35 load control LED to track the actual fan speed when the speed is changed from HA, Homey, Google Home, etc…an automation would still be needed to sync the switch when the canopy module is controlled independently from Home Assistant for example.
A workaround is to have Home Assistant control the VTM35’s fan/level entity instead of the VTM36 directly. That lets the VTM35 update its internal level/LED and then send that level to the VTM36 through the binding.
My VTM35 is bound to the canopy module and that works great using the latest beta firmware. But I had to create a separate automation (I use Homey) to adjust the VTM35 load control LED anytime the fan speed changed.
For the sake of clarity, I use the Blue Zigbee switches, and don’t have a Fan switch bound to a canopy module (only Dimmers)
When I turn the Dimmer on, it turns on the lights on the canopy module… I set the dimming level on the Dimmer to 50%, the LED bar updates and my lights on my fan dim to 50%. The same happens if I control the Dimmer physically at the switch.
Unless there is something different with the Fan switch, or specifically with the White Fan switch, I don’t see why there would be any reason it should act differently.
I will try and temporarily bind the Fan switch I do have with one of my canopy modules to verify…
EDIT: Just verified. I bound EP2 on the Fan switch (the paddle) to EP2 on the canopy module (the fan control). Inside Home Assistant, when turning the switch on/off or setting the fan speed, it correrctly controls the fan connected to the canopy module. The only difference is that my VZM35-SN is also directly connected to another fan and is not is Smart Fan/Bulb mode.
Extra note: I chose all 3 available clusters when binding… genIdentify, genLevelCtrl, and genOnOff
I do have White switches and binding is limited to button (paddle) pushes only (I believe a Matter limitation). I just tried it with a VTM35 fan switch bound to a VTM36 canopy and toggling the paddle controls on the VTM35 results in the fan on the VTM36 changing speed etc (with automations disabled). However (again with automations disabled) controlling the same switch via HA has no effect at all on the VTM36. I really don’t see this as an issue. You just have to know how it works.
Does controlling the VTM35 through Home Assistant do anything to the VTM35? Does the switch think it is on? If HA turns the switch on, then logically, it should also turn on the VTM36. A physical press of the switch should be no different than a virtual press of the switch.
@biggest.noob.in.town I am curious, does the VTM31-SN work the same way? Does controlling it through Home Assistant turn on the canopy module controlled lights?
I understand I have no skin in this at all, as I don’t use White switches, but I am always trying to absorb new information so I can help when possible. I am just trying to understand where the whole thing breaks down is all. Is this limited to the Fan switch? Does the same apply to the Dimmer? Maybe it is a deficiency in the Fan switch firmware?
@EricM_Inovelli Does this sound correct? Is the VTM35-SN not supposed to/not able to pass through commands from Home Assistant to the devices it is bound to?
Yes the VTM35 is fully controllable via HA. It’s just that bindings only function as a result of paddle toggles. I can add automations to it and the LED bar (and A/C output) matches the state set by HA.
The VTM31 works exactly the same way.
As I already said (multiple times)… All White switches work the same way., I have multiple VTM31s in that configuration as well as VTM30s.
@EricM_Inovelli Does this sound correct? Is the VTM35-SN not supposed to pass through commands from Home Assistant to the devices it is bound to?
