Since June I have asked for information about firmware enhancements for the White Series Fan Switch. There has not been any firmware updates since it was released. Much like the original 1.0 Dimmer firmware, the fan switches go offline on the thread network and do not recover. Ever. They require an air gap pull to get back on the network. When the matter server (HA) is restarted, over a short period (less than 48 hours) all of the fan switches go offline and never recover. It is like as their addresses expire or their subscription fails, they simply will not come back online. They don’t all go offline at once. Most of them will come back up immediately after a restart of the matter server but will start dropping off 1 at a time over 48 hours.
I have 128 matter devices across multiple brands (about 90 of the devices are inovelli) and the vtm35 devices are the only ones that have this problem.
Is there a firmware update in the works to get them up to matter 1.4. It would seem from a commissioning, subscription … perspective, they all should work about the same but something is different with the fan switches. The new On/Off don’t do this and those have received multiple firmware updates.
This has been documented in multiple threads in the forum. Would like to get this resolved as anything that requires a physical intervention (power cycle or air-gap) is a pretty irritating issue especially when you end up being out of town for an extended period of time and can’t access the devices.
@Kaleb_Inovelli@EricM_Inovelli can we get a comment on the firmware for the in wall fan switch? I have brought this up in multiple threads, created this thread specifically to address this and would like to know what is in the works. The VTM35 when it goes offline on the thread network, never comes back and it isn’t resilliant though a matter server / border router reboot. None of the other inovelli or 8 other vendors products I have exhibit this problem so I’m pretty sure it is related to firmware on the switch as all 11 of them that I have do this.
Thank you for continuing to raise this and for taking the time to document what you’re seeing.
To be transparent about where things stand: about a month ago, we were expecting the Silicon Labs Matter 1.5 SDK to be released “within about a month,” so we made the decision to hold off on an update rather than invest in a 1.4 based firmware that would quickly become out of date. Upgrading SDKs is quite an expensive process, so it makes more sense for us to wait for the newest one to release.
Since we were initially told it would be within a month, we are now expecting it any day now. While that doesn’t make the current experience any less frustrating, it is the reason you haven’t seen a firmware release yet.
Once the 1.5 SDK is released and validated, firmware stability for Thread reconnection and recovery is one of our top priorities for the VTM35. We will share updates as soon as we have more information for you.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions.
Yeah, I’d really like to get this addressed with fan firmware still on 1.2. Of the 136 matter devices across multiple vendors, only my fan switches have to be air gapped from time to time. They just don’t come back even if I restart the matter server. It’s like they stop trying.
Thankfully claude directed me to here as I’m also having this issue with having to air gap my switches. Ended up using a HA automation to notify me when they go unavailable so that I can air gap them to get them back online.
I’ve had 2 of 3 VTM35’s go radio-silent over the last week and needing an air-gap reset to recover. I went looking for reports of similar problems and found this thread, so I guess me too?
What’s the status here? I realize that a sdk version bump is a big deal but it would be great to get an idea of how it’s going. I assume that it would come to higher volume devices first (eg: VTM31) but there’s no sign of it there either. Perhaps 1.1.6 is being finalized over there first?
Yeah, this has been going on a while now. Another issue is that if any battery devices are using it as a router, they go offline as well. Really wish this could make it up the priority list.
The VTM31 and VTM30 have already been “bumped” to Matter SDK 1.4 (Matter V 1.4.1). This is same version supported by HA and (AFAIK) Apple.
Matter 1.5 is really just starting to roll out now and actually has relatively little to add for switch type devices (most of the focus appears to be on Video).
Since there are no Beta’s yet for the VTM35 and VTM36 with later versions of the Matter SDK (they are both on Matter 1.2.0 right now) I assume this is still something being worked on by Inovelli’s engineers.
I guess the question is, why does the VTM35 have trouble staying on the thread network. Is it a matter 1.2 issue? Then move it up to parity with the other switches at 1.4. Yeah, it has a cost, but so does it not working reliably. If it isn’t 1.2, then it is a bug in the firmware. Then fix it would be the solution. I’m really hoping the solution isn’t 9 more months of we are waiting for matter 1.5 that nothing really supports yet before we do anything to fix a problem that most people see with the VTM35.
@Kaleb_Inovelli can we get a timeframe or a reason why this can’t be addressed now either with the current firmware or an upgrade to 1.4 firmware until all devices are ready to move to 1.5 instead of a buggy VTM35 waiting to be the first in line for 1.5 over some unknown time horizon?