In my Home Assistant setup, I primarily have z-wave devices, but was wanting to expand matter support, so when I needed to replace one of my switches, I opted to get the White Series. I was able to set it up without any difficulty, but I have two points of confusion:
It shows up in Home Assistant as two lights, labeled (1) and (6). Which one is the correct one to use, and what is the other one?
Under “Device Info”, it shows Device Type: End Device. I was under the impression that this switch would act as a thread router, not just a plain “End Device”. Was my impression wrong? I was hoping this switch could help beef up some weak areas of my thread network, which currently consists just of my Apple TV border router, and a battery-powered lock (which clearly is NOT a router)
LIght 1 is the switch itself Light 6 is the RGB indicator. Moving forward later version of Inovelli software and HA software have a more obvious device labeling in Home Assistant.
All Inovelli white switches are router capable and will act as a router if the “thread leader” (in your case probably the Apple TV) tells it to do so. In my case I have 20+ Inovelli devices, 2 thread capable Apple TVs and 2 thread capable Homepods. About 10 of my Inovelli switches act as routers and the rest are end devices at any one time. Which device is a router and which is a end device changes from time to time based on network conditions. This behavior is not something you have control of however as you add more router capable devices the Inovelli switches will behave as routers ICW with the Thread specs. With only 3 thread devices and with one of them being a battery device (that can only be an end device and hence only connect to one router at a time), there is no point in the Inovelli switch becoming a router since it would have nothing to route unless the battery powered device is closer to it than to the Apple TV. As I said as you add more devices the Thread mesh will create itself.
Ah, that makes sense, thanks. Also probably means I set up the LED to indicate my security system status “wrong” (I just set the on/off levels to both be high, when in fact it sounds like I should just turn on light 6).
Unfortunately, that also probably means that the connection issues I’m having with the thread lock (a new one, not the one I mentioned in my original message - that one works fine) next to the switch are the fault of the lock, not a weak thread network. Oh well, back to the drawing board I guess.
That is correct, I would also set a color so that you can tell the difference between the light being on and the alarm being active. I set the RGB on one of my dimmers to red when the alarm is on and vary the brightness depending on whether the light portion of the switch is on on not. I do something similar with my garage door and also to indicate whether a door or window is open.
I shared a video of the lock issues with the manufacturer, and they’re sending me a replacement, so apparently they, at least, think it’s an issue with the lock itself. So hopefully that replacement will resolve things.