Anyone notice their VZW32 mmwave dimmer switches run very hot?
Seeing 112f/44C
noticeably warm to the touch - and in a hot climate this feels like a lot of extra heat to dump into the room with multiple switches
I thought my other switches ran warm at 5-10 over ambient…but this seems crazy to me being ~30-35f over ambient
wiring is the line/load in separate boxes if relevant
There’s 4 switches in this picture, guess which one is the vzw32
Coming from the Insteon world myself, running warm is just something you accepted as part of the deal. I had Insteon switches in my home for close to 30 years and while they ran noticeably hot, they were bulletproof reliable the whole time.
I’m fairly new to Inovelli myself, but I did some digging and it looks like heat is a known topic in this community as well. A few things worth knowing:
It depends on the model. The newer mmWave dimmer switches (VZW32-SN) seem to be the most discussed when it comes to heat. Users have reported temperatures around 112°F/44°C — noticeably warm to the touch, running 30–35°F above ambient. The community response has generally been that the mmWave hardware does run hot, but that this is considered within normal operating range for those switches.
Non-neutral wiring tends to make things worse. Several users have reported the Red Series Dimmer (LZW31-SN) getting very warm — too hot to touch in some cases — particularly in non-neutral, 3-way configurations. The community response in those threads pointed to checking load wattage, verifying heat sink tabs, and making sure all connections are tight.
Dimming adds heat. At least one user noted that their dimmer ran cool at full brightness but got significantly hotter — up to around 120°F — when actively dimming. That’s consistent with how TRIAC-based dimmers work in general.
There are published operating limits. Inovelli’s spec sheets list an operating temperature range of 32–95°F (0–35°C), which has caused some concern among users whose switches are running well above that threshold even while reporting no overheat fault.
Bottom line — some warmth appears to be normal and expected, much like Insteon. But if a switch is too hot to touch or exceeding the rated operating temp, it’s worth investigating load, wiring configuration, and heat sink tab count. Looking forward to learning more from this community as I get deeper into the Inovelli ecosystem.
Those are for ambient air temperature only. Your AI summarization missed the fact that the switches themselves can and will run hotter than that and it’s perfectly normal to do so. That’s why the switch has an internal temperature sensor and an overheat fault detection.
Thanks for pointing that out — though it’s worth noting the AI summarization was never meant to be a secret; it was based on my own input and experience. I’ve been working with smart switches long enough to know that the ambient temperature specs and the switch’s internal operating temps are two different things, and I don’t believe that distinction was lost in the summary. The point about switches running hot was actually part of what I was conveying — it’s the nature of the beast, as anyone who dealt with Insteon hardware knows well. The internal temp sensor and overheat fault detection exist precisely because this is expected behavior. Appreciate the clarification either way.
I never thought it was a secret. I was just pointing out a nuance that I felt it had missed in it’s analysis.
I’ve found over the years, that many people conflate the two, so when I see it mentioned without being explicitly called out, I generally mention it.
Agreed!
