I installed 2 white series 2-1 switches and connect them to smartthings with inovelli white series edge driver. I see they have less parameter settings in smartthings app than the black series dimmers that I have. I’m specifically looking for minimum dimming percentage. Is there a way to change minimum dimming in the smartthings app or do I have to do it locally?
Just wanted to call out I’m seeing the same issue.
Set up my first White series dimmer in SmartThings today. I have the proper edge drivers loaded, and there are just a ton of parameters that are still missing. There are a handful of parameters available in the settings, but nothing close to what’s available in the local setup.
I emailed support and the answer was it’s a smartthings limitation with Matter. So, I guess we have to get good at local settings.
If that’s the case it’s really disappointing and needs addressed in the wording/marketing on the products listed on their store.
While I realize this item isn’t made by Inovelli, they sell it from their own store and they specifically call out the specific marketing claims of:
- Supports 100’s of your favorite smart home devices that are powered by WiFi, Matter, Thread, Zigbee and Z-Wave
- Fully compatible with your favorite Inovelli devices including all the advanced features
If some of the features aren’t supported that really needs to be called out on their own product pages. Especially if that support is never coming.
@Eric_Inovelli any official word on this support status?
Does anyone know if this is only a limitation with Smartthings or would the limitation exist with other smart home hubs? I’m looking into switching from Smartthings to Home Assistant (for multiple reasons). although it’s nice to be able to fall back on doing local configurations on the switch itself, it’s so much easier setting the value via the device settings in your smart home hub app of choice.
The Matter stuff in the White Series is still missing a lot of settings in HA compared to my old Red Series switches, that I assume will be coming in a future firmware (or HA Thread/Matter) updates.
FWIW, this is the entire configuration option list in HA:
Yep, that’s what I have as well in SmartThings, but what I’d like to know is if ALL the parameters are or will be exposed in Home Assistant, because the idea of having to do local configuration on a ton of these switches is going to be a pain.
2 posts above yours is the HA configuration. Looks pretty pedestrian as well.
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TL;DR: it’s a matter spec limitation currently affecting all hubs. Matter doesn’t allow for custom parameters yet so only a small subset of Inovelli’s are within the standard set.
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Thanks for the reply Rohan, it’s interesting that they’d have such a limitation in the matter software stack.
That said, I wonder if there is anything Inovelli might be able to do to work around this. For example, I wonder if they made what parameter slots are available generic, and allow them to map to different parameters in the switch based an easily stable configuration mode on the switch.
I don’t think I’m explaining things very well, but let’s assume the exposed parameter limitation in matter is 5 parameters and your app lets you set those 5 parameters, but the device has 20 configurable parameters. If you have the device in configuration mode 1, the parameters you can set are 1-5. If the device is in configuration mode 2, the parameters you can set are 6-10. If the device is in configuration mode 3, the parameters you can set are 11-15. If the device is in configuration mode 4, the parameters you can set are 16-20. Basically, allow the generic fields to be remapped internally based on configuration mode.
Another perhaps simpler/more flexible and automatible approach would be to expose one parameter that can accept a simple/easy to parse/validate script string so that you wouldn’t need to deal with configuration modes on the device. For example: similar to the example above let’s say for simplicity sake that your device has 20 parameters 1-20, that are all integer values of 1-100.
The string “1:55” could be used to set parameter 1 to the value 55. Likewise the string “10:20” could be used to set parameter 10 to the value 20. You wouldn’t have to limit this micro scripting concept to numerical input either, say there was a name parameter and it accepted any alphanumeric + spaces string up to 20 characters… The script string could be “name:Hallway Light”. Hopefully that’s clear.
Just some ideas I figured I’d throw out, because setting 40+ parameters on the switch it self is not a great experience.
Cheers,
You need to remember that Thread/Matter is relatively new, and Inovelli’s products are always pushing the boundaries in terms of features.
Also remember that there is an approval process to use the Thread and Matter branding on products, and I’m pretty sure that setting up some Rube Goldberg kludge to work around the current shortcomings in the Matter framework would not be beneficial to future products being approved…
Honestly, I expect current products would lose certification if they came up with a scheme like that.
Many of the thread / matter devices I’ve seen (I don’t own any) have their own manufacturer’s app for setting up a lot of the advanced functionality since Matter doesn’t support it (yet).
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Yep, this. And don’t hold your breath for manus to free many/all of those features even when it is possible… Maintaining a walled garden of exclusive goodies = income stream.
It’s a fair critique regarding matter certification, though I don’t think either of the “schemes” I mentioned are any more kludgy than exposing a limited limited set of parameters (and it looks like a different number between Smartthings and HA based on the uploaded photos). It would be interesting to study the matter spec to see what limitations there are. Thread would not be the limiting factor as it simply specifies how to transport data, not what is transported, you can have thread devices that are not matter.
Maybe, but one would hope this wouldn’t be the case with Inovelli…the walled garden that is.
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That’s because both Smart things and HA have a different amount of matter support currently.
Honestly, this is one space where I don’t recommend being an early adopter. If you want advanced functionality now, a red or blue series is the best way to get it. Matter is new, thread is new, the standard is evolving. Inovelli is doing its best to get feature parity, but their options are limited.
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Matter, like Zigbee, does allow custom clusters so you can do custom parameters. In fact, the Inovelli switch has a custom cluster with parameters for many functions. Problem is, it isn’t documented and currently support hasn’t been added to HA. So, not a Matter issue - its a function documentation and controller support issue.
Matter also allows custom parameter through a Mode Select cluster. Current devices implement only 6 of those (Dimming Edge, Dimming Speed, LED Color, Relay Click Smart Bulb Mode, Switch Mode) , but more are possible. There are issues with Google Home that create problems when Mode Select is used so, until Google fixes their issues, Inovelli has to choose between just implementing the “key” parameters as Mode Select choices, or going “all-out”, but creating issues in Google Home.
Update: To be a bit more specific, using Home Assistant’s Matter implementation, you can see the custom cluster is cluster 0x00122ffc31. IT looks like the attributes follow the same numbering scheme as the Blue series - i.e., the attributes set out in this list Blue Series 2-1 Switch • Parameters | Inovelli Help Center. To add support to HA, a custom cluster would need to be defined in the Python Matter Server (in the custom_cluster file: python-matter-server/matter_server/common/custom_clusters.py at main · home-assistant-libs/python-matter-server · GitHub) and then add further UI support into the Matter integration. So, the necessary pieces are already there in the Inovelli White 2-in-1; but it will be a bit of time until it all gets incorporated into the HA Matter Integration.
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Really great insights, it’s nice to know that things will improve as the ecosystems mature. Thanks for the details.
I don’t want anyone to think I’m not happy with my new white switch, as a matter of fact, I’m very impressed so far and I plan on buying at least 10 more, just trying to get the most out of them with the least friction is all. Not looking forward to having to set the minimum dim level on every switch but it’ll be a set and forget unless I change my bulbs/fixtures.
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