I think a certain other vendor took this concept and ran with it, so that’s an option until if/when Inovelli releases one. 
(Actually two: the Zooz ZEN34 and Aeotec Iluminio remote look nearly identical, though I’ve never used the latter and don’t know if the hardware appears the same in person as it does in pictures or not; I don’t feel like paying Aeotec prices to find out.)
we can probably help on the engraving aspect. we are doing it for Zooz ( Zooz ZEN32 Scene Controller – ZOOZ ) and soon another vendor I can’t announce yet.
a inovelli fan reached out to us for engraving on inovelli switches. so we bought an aux switch just to give it a try. turns out good. (ok picture is an epic mess of different shades, size and lines, we were testing laser strength and speed + aligning the laser… pretty sure you guys can see the potential 
)
we placed an order for 35 inovelli faceplates (including 15 for that customer)
we are thinking at giving the option to engrave up to 5 lines right next to the favorite button (as it has 5 tap options) and up to five lines next to the led strip (to list meaning of colors) + a main label for the switch. (I must say, we are zooz fan, but I love that led strip and the favorite button!)
and we would probably be able to engrave on this upcoming inovelli 5 button scene controller. if inovelli wants to send us one, we will be happy to test
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Your stuff looks great, @Domotinc-customs. I would love to be able to buy a few custom engravings from you for existing Inovelli switches.
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I would love to support a crowdfunding campaign for this project as well! Something like this is great, especially in general areas / guest rooms where I don’t implement any double or triple tap actions because it is confusing and hard to remember for people who don’t use the feature routinely. For example, I have a switch next to the bed in guest bedroom that can turn on just the bathroom light with a double tap, but my parents never remember that. Having the scene switch with an icon would be perfect.
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Quick update:
Received revised quotes back from the manufacturer and they are overall positive and I think the numbers are doable, but I’d love to hear what you all think. I’ll break the math down below.
The breakeven on these will be about 1,500 (forgot to add in MOQ for the breakeven) 2,330 units (breakeven being it covers all of our engineering costs + Minimum order qty).
To put that in perspective, the recent mmWave switch sold about 4.5k units in just over month (although it had heavy marketing behind it via Linus and it’s a switch that looks like a regular switch).
Here are my assumptions:
- This switches volumes compares better to our Fan switch in that it’s more of a niche switch that won’t be in every room (I’m thinking maybe 3-5 on average per house)
- The first time this switch was on pre-order there was probably around 1k units sold although I can’t remember the timeline that was in and the breakeven was much higher
Now, what gives me hope is that this is also a load bearing switch, so I suppose if people use this as not only a remote switch, but a two button switch, it could be in every room as maybe people like the design of the 2-Button better than the decora.
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I normally wouldn’t think twice about a 2,300 breakeven as that’s done in a few weeks, but the fact that there’s already four pre-orders out (Red Series 2-1, Blue Series Fan, Blue/Red mmWave) makes me hesitate (although the Red Series 2-1 should be here shortly – it’s in the ocean). Especially when it’s hard to deliver bad news of delays.
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Finally, I’m still waiting to hear back from the B2B client as they’ve been itching for a remote switch. If they accept our proposal, then this entire discussion wouldn’t matter as it would cover all of our fees.
But I wanted to approach you guys since I try not to rely on the B2B guys since they’re not really our target market.
Thoughts?
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Personally, i would wait until you can land two of the other pre-orders (speaking as someone who still has a bunch of the old 5 buttons pre-ordered).
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I’m stoked about this switch.
But, as you noted, it shines in certain use cases, so I’m not likely to replace every switch in the house.
Maybe a few scattered about though.
It’s recommend some snazzy marketing to help people see the cool possibilities it brings. Everybody knows about having a dimmer switch or an on/off switch–but sparkling their imagination with this one is likely to help.
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Personally I’m not willing to preorder and wait forever despite being in the market for smart switches so I don’t think it’s quite an accurate gauge of possible demand.
I also find your company and website and product line confusing, it’s probably even more so confusing for people just starting a smart home. For example, why are the red series zwave when the z wave logo is blue and why is the blue series Zigbee when the Zigbee logo is red?
The website is kinda cluttered, just organize it by switch protocol. Have a landing page for each protocol. More prominently advertise the decoupling ability of the relay and the status lights and give examples of how this can be super useful.
Also an outsider visiting your site is going to see zero switches available for order. Everything is sold out or preorder or a crowdfunding campaign. A prospective customer isn’t even going to bother exploring further if it seems like the company is on the brink of collapse and nothing can be purchased.
I would organize the website into an easier experience and I would get product in stock prior to trying to advertise. I would partner with all the home assistant YouTubers, send them product to review and then I think you’ll have no problem selling what you’ve had to order as a minimum quantity.
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First, are you referring to the 8-pad ‘modular’ switch shown on 24 Apr? If so, I can see 4-6 (and maybe more) places I could use that. (If there were exposed multi-tap and/or multi-button events, that would be a plus.)
Second, any chance of ever releasing a Zigbee/‘Blue’ version? (Didn’t I read here recently that developing the ‘other’ version of a device you have already fully developed is easier now?)
Third, (and this applies to your entire line) I’d love to see a tighter collaboration/integration with @Domotinc-customs on customizing these. As soon as I can get some Blue devices and color paddles (that wasn’t intended as a knock, just a statement) they’re getting rung up to engrave them. I wish my Red devices had that option available when I purchased/installed them!
What do you think the cost will be and will it be available in zigbee and zwave or just zwave?
I agree with your assessment. There will likely be less sales of this product, so likely (hopefully?), the order will not immediately sold out like the others and will be available for several months.
I have a couple of areas where I will be looking for this - their spot is ready, just waiting…
Just a data point, I have one ceiling fan (OK, two, but the other is DC motor and fully proprietary control) but about 8 Insteon keypadlincs that I would love to modernize.
The primary reason for the keypadlincs’ success in my situation is the labeling. Non-techie household members and guests can read the buttons and figure out what they do – and press the button marked “leaving” to turn on the front walk lights instead of some script trying to figure that out from sensors. So self-labeling or cottage-industry labeling (@Domotinc-customs looking at you) is key to a controller like this.
If the buttons can be lit up independent of being pressed, they can also be used as indicators. “Back door” lit up means the back door is open and you should close it before you go to bed. Even if pressing it does nothing, that’s still useful.
So my advice: make sure the labeling story is in order. Then play up the home automation scenes without tricky kludgy “let the house guess what’s going on” scripting. And the labeled indicators.
@dougl, funny you mention insteon keypadLinc. we will receive our first order early this week to hopefully start engraving for insteon as well as zooz.
@Eric_Inovelli, we placed on order for 55 paddles (order #40230) which we have been told should arrive next week at inovelli facility. let us know if you would like us to send you a sample (free, obviously). We would also love to test your z-wave 5 button for engraving!
also, we run a business of selling home automation to home builder in residential development. we should do about 50 homes this year and we put 5 button scene controllers in front of each doors that leads to the outside (front door, side door to garage, patio door) one in the master bedroom, one in the middle of the house and one in the bathroom to do a countdown timer for the fan. so on average it’s 5 to 7 of those 5 button scene controller per house. FWTW… I think your estimation is pretty accurate
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Holy hannah, I have been out of the loop on this for a while, what a ride.
Am I interpreting this correctly that as one of the people who pre-ordered a 5 button switch in April 2021, if I continue to wait patiently, I’ll automatically be one of the first in line to receive whatever is finally produced without taking further action? I rarely am on the forums actively and haven’t received an email update on this since October 2021… (+ @Courtney_Inovelli)
My current house is 3 stories with 2 stairways. That’s 6 switches just to turn on the stairway lights. Why do I need a scene controller instead of just 4-way switches? Because I want to be able to also turn off (or otherwise set “away”) an entire floor. If I’m the last one out of the basement, for example, I want to be able to not only turn on the stairway lights, but also turn off all the basement lights. If this scene controller has a dimmer built in, I don’t need to expand the electrical box, it’s a 1:1 replacement.
I’ll also put one at each entrance to the house for landscape lighting control and for setting the house to away, panic button, etc…
And I’ll probably use 4-5 for large rooms with multiple lighting circuits for doing scene lighting.
So that’s going to be 23-25 for me. And that’s just retrofitting.
If I was doing new construction, I’d probably use this with smart bulbs or smart remote dimmers instead of having multi-gang boxes. For instance, I have a 23 sq ft half bath that has 4 switches in box. 3 lighting and one fan. That’s just stupid. I’d rather have a control like this that has labels for fan timer and scene lighting control. That would add probably 8 more orders from me.
I think the key issue will be labels. If those are cheap to get pre-engraved and/or easy to DIY, the use cases open up a lot.
I envision these being the main switch in all my bedrooms and living spaces. It would give me an on/off light switch plus buttons for manual controls for motorized shades and a couple left over buttons for scenes.
That said, even if I went crazy with these, we’re talking about 5 or 6 max, and the rest of the house would have around 18-20 of the 2-1 switches. It’s easy to understand them being 10x less popular.
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I would purchase 5 or more.
love this and would love to replace my 8button keypad lincs. As some of the others stated i have similar thoughts on one at every door, stairs and master + garage. I’d be in for 6-8 easy. If they have the light up buttons I’d probably put them in more places. My house i would prefer to have these or mmwave I would prefer to see a blue series/Zigbee version though to match in and streamline the tech. (I Didn’t pre-order the old ones)
Yes, correct. And you wouldn’t have to pay anything else, even though my guess is the switch will cost more than $50 this time around.
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