Z-Wave 5-Button Scene Controller + Dimmer Switch | Project Limitless

Preorders opened 04/01/2021. April Fools. Turns out the joke was on us. :neutral_face:

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I had forgotten all about this 5 button controller I ordered, will they ship or will we get a refund?

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We have offered everyone a refund if they would like it. You can DM me if you would like one and I will get it taken care of.

We still hope to make the switch but no date on if/when this would be completed.

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Thanks for confirming. I support the folks at Inovelli. Happy to wait, surprise me…someday

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I don’t mind the wait. It’s just that it feels dead. An update once in a while from Inovelli would be great.

Thank you.

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That’s disappointing. My wife is ready to throw away our whole smart home, because she can’t control some of the devices reliably. This 5-button switch was what I was waiting for to get it working well.

Apple Home Kit or something similar doesn’t work for her?

She doesn’t like using her phone to control the smart home.

Maybe setup a smart home that does things automatically reliably? Rather than requiring user input?

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One does what one can. My wife has no interest in interacting with the house, so almost everything needs to be passive. However, I’m anxiously awaiting the release of the 5-button switch because I know there are some things that it will make much easier around the house. Just the other night, there were a handful of lights that she wanted to turn on that she couldn’t, because she can’t be bothered to remember that to turn those lights on, it’s three clicks on the top of this unrelated light switch.

I can’t blame her; I can’t really get into some of her music, and won’t ever, so asking me to recall who did that song is useless.

Setting up ‘a smart home that does things automatically reliably,’ ‘rather than requiring user input,’ is the goal, sure. I’ve got a lot of things automated. I’m proud of my setup, and how lots of things require little to no interaction. I don’t even touch a lot of my light switches anymore. But I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect any smart home account for every little scenario its fleshy inhabitants can concoct. For those things… we have switches.

A home with buttons… that we have to walk over to, then smash, what, with our stubby fingers, to do things? That is not a true smart home. But since that’s pretty much unobtainable for most people, we have switches. And that’s OK, because not everyone cares about how smart our homes are.

Excuse the rant.

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This! My wife absolutely hates (and doesn’t try) to remember n number of button presses for a scene.

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5-button switch totally makes sense here. Plus, I’m really excited to display a whole bunch of LED notifications in a handful of places around the house.

@Eric_Inovelli is there any update on this? Been awhile

Yes, we do what we can and it always a compromise.
I could automate a lot more, but my wife just likes to play with dimmers based on her mood, a whim, or a particular task that day. Some people just don’t care for stuff to happen automatically based on best guesses. I mostly stick to basics and “my areas” generally do more than “her areas”, but she is very pleased with the things I have done and misses it if I happen to be updating or working on something and some automations are disabled. My automation system is built for us both to be happy, with the understanding that my hobby is not her hobby.

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This just popped up on FB. :rofl:
FB_IMG_1673035759518

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I’ve done what I can, but our household only has so much that can be automatically scheduled, and she really doesn’t like having things happen automatically, if it’s noticeable.

A big one that she uses a lot and is really annoying for her is when putting the kids down for bed. We’ll read a book with the light on bright white, and then switch it to a dimmed red when it’s time for them to actually go to sleep. None of that smart light is controlled with a switch because the 5 button switch is ideal for that scenario, and I’ve been waiting for it. So, she’s primarily using Alexa. But it’s late, she’s tired, she’s trying to put the kids down. So, she’s talking quietly and not enunciating. Alexa hears it wrong half the time, and she gets really frustrated.

The 5 button would be ideal because we have a 1 gang for that room. Brightness buttons could control the ceiling fan light. One button could be for turning the rgb light on(white)/off. One button could be for turning rgb light on(red)/off. One could turn naptime on/off (naptime turns on/off brown noise, room heater, and humidifier).

These are things that can’t be made much smarter, without a lot of unintended consequences. Already, I have naptime set to automatically turn off at 9am, but if the baby wakes up early, she’ll she’ll sometimes go down for her nap before 9, and then the naptime routine will automatically turn off, and she’ll wake up prematurely, because the brown noise isn’t hiding house sounds anymore. I could get an occupancy sensor for that, but this will only be a problem for a few more months, at which she she’ll be old enough that she isn’t taking morning naps.

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If you’re that hard up for a 5-button controller ASAP, why not just put in a Zen32?

I’d love to see Inovelli release a similar device someday, but until then, the Zen32 is a bird-in-hand that works well.

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I didn’t know about it. Thanks! I wasn’t looking for alternatives while I thought Inovelli was going to come out with theirs soon, and hadn’t had time to look for an alternative since I found out it was on a permanent freeze.

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Agree. I used a couple of these and you can use them to set scenes and send color values to the buttons to indicate different status. Took a bit of writing, but for instance, one button cycles from Green to Blue, to Red each time it is pressed to set my Porch Light to Stay On, Motion Activated, Stay Off respectfully.
They are very configurable.

I should add that the logic and control is handled by my Hubitat Elevation - YMMV.

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I’m also using Hubitat.

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