If you guys make a thread & Zigbee version of your dimmers and market the heck out of them, in my opinion there would be no better Switch/dimmer to buy. The only reason I still use any z-wave devices with Hubitat is because of Inovelli. I use Homekit for the frontend/gui and presence detection with Hubitat I don’t use their dashboard or phone app. If I was able to use your switches with thread led bulbs and light strips that I only have paired with homekit for obvious reasons that would take things to a new level of dependable home automation. Zigbee/thread dimmers such a win for everyone.
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I think I’m going to start a new thread (pun intended) to discuss HomeKit and Thread. I think I’ve been convinced that we need to do a Thread version. I just need to learn a bit more about HomeKit and the ins/outs of Thread and it’s relation to HomeKit.
I’ve done some preliminary research and it looks like only certain products are compatible with Thread from an Apple side, but I also spent maybe 10min researching it on my phone waking up in the morning lol.
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Hi Eric, You’re right there’s not many thread devices atm. Nanoleaf bulbs and LED strips, eve plug in outlets and maybe a motion sensor if I’m not mistaken. The Thread Protocol seems to be just as good as Zigbee when it comes to speed and reliability. I haven’t been effected by the lack of thread devices because I use homekit with home bridge which ties everything together except being able to control thread devices. The lack of a good thread switch/dimmer might be a good thing for you guys though if marketed properly and sold on amazon, I think they would sell like crazy. Apple Home-kit is easy to setup and I’m sure lots of people already have a hub/way of running home-kit. Oh I think all hue devices will tie in with home-kit as well. I use hue bulbs, motion sensors and outlets. I’m sure some people just want simplicity when it comes to home automation and a sexy highly configurable thread dimmer/switch from inovelli would surely help them achieve that.
Forgot the main benefit if you guys decide to make a thread switch. Not having to use smart bulbs. A in wall switch to control non-smart lighting is priceless. There’s no way of doing that currently with home-kit alone if I’m not mistaken.
Very excited about this project!
Sounds like the Beta list is filled, but please keep me on standby if the need ever arises.
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@Eric_Inovelli, just wondering if you have started that other “thread” to discuss thread and home kit or if there are any updates on the estimated timeline for this one?
Oh I should probably ask, broadly speaking, how long after the release in the US would you expect this switch to make it to Canada. I am sure you are still too far out for anything definitive at this point.
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Project update: beta units are in and they look awesome.
DISCLAIMER: There will unforutately not be screwless faceplates – the design shown is an old one as we just couldn’t get it to work and if we changed to a Lutron style (where there’s two plates) it would’ve added $0.50 to the cost.
ZigBee version is on the left, Z-Wave on the right:
Aux switch on the left, ZigBee on the right:
A note about beta testing – I sincerely appreciate everyone who volunteered in this thread. There were over 50 people who reached out to me via PM or in this thread and we only had 18 units to hand out (Eric and I needed 5 between the two of us and we wanted 2 for spares).
I wrote down a list of everyone and if you didn’t get in this round for the 2-1, I will make sure @Courtney_Inovelli puts you on the Fan switch beta group or one of the other projects in the future. I promise we will get you in one of the beta projects!
Again, thank you so much to everyone who volunteered and we’re looking forward to pushing these forward to their release date in Q1 2022!
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You mentioned that your switches SHOULD work with Xiaomi. Is your team actively testing them? I’m only mentioning because it seems like it’s pretty rare that things actually DO repeat Xiaomi stuff.
I bought a bunch of them, and 0 of my devices repeat them. I’m hoping to replace a lot of my switches with these Blue series, and it would be nice to know that part of my mesh (which will be most of it) is Xiaomi tested. It seems they don’t follow the Zigbee standard somehow, but some devices have figured it out, so obviously it’s doable.
Do you have some specific xiaomi devices you’re wondering about? I have some of their Aqara contact sensors that I haven’t set up yet, but specific models or devices would probably help to confirm.
I have Aqara buttons, temp sensors, and water sensors. They only stay connected to my system if they’re directly connected to the Hubitat.
I would think their sensors all use the same implementation of their protocol, but I am not sure. I am 100% sure my Iris repeaters will not repeat the signal properly; I’m looking to remove them from my system once I can find physical outlets to replace them.
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Honestly, for the headache that they are, I’d STRONGLY recommend the hub. Anything short of that is just cause for frustration.
Just an FYI, I’ve had pretty good success with IKEA Tradfri repeaters. My aqara sensors don’t reroute automatically like normal Zigbee sensors should, but they do work through the repeaters. If you setup your repeaters first and then pair the sensors, they will work great.
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We are not, but I’m happy to put it on the list as a fanboy of Xiaomi myself 
Where did you buy them from and do you happen to know the exact make/models? I can try to pick some up and also send to the manufacturer as I know Xiaomi is pretty popular in the ZigBee space in the US.
I know you asked ecasegrande, but the sensors are popular enough I can provide some info as well!
The most popular Xiaomi sensors are under the Aqara brand. There is a door and window sensor, motion sensor, temperature and pressure sensor, and a water leak sensor. A few other things as well like the magic cube are used as well. Most people either get them from whatever store on Aliexpress has the most orders or just off Amazon when they go on sale or when they are impatient For the record, all of mine were bought in bulk from Aliexpress.
I’m currently using a combo of 20+ of those sensors and as mentioned before, they do not play well with others. The best repeater I’ve found is the Ikea tradfri dedicated repeater. The plugs work too, but repeater has a bit longer range (and is easy to just plug into an existing USB plug somewhere like an echo flex in a hallway).
For reference, someone has previously done a massive amount of research with the sensors and it is well documented: Xiaomi & Aqara Devices - Pairing & Keeping them connected - Devices - Hubitat
I would definitely encourage checking it out.
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Hi Eric, I think I’m one of your mass market target users so figured I’d chime in with what I’m looking for. I discovered Inovelli Reds as an upgrade pick for Enbrighten switches, but Z-Wave is making me hesitate. I recently moved into a new home and I’m looking to replace about ~25 light switches with smart switches, and about ~60 halogen lights with dimmable LED bulbs. My current dimmers are Lutron Divas that won’t work for LED bulbs. Where I’ve got smart bulbs (mostly in lamps) they’re Philips Hue. Home runs on Amazon devices, and with echoes (zigbee hubs) and eeros (thread routing) I expect to be squarely in the Matter wheelhouse eventually. I’ve got a couple other hubs (Aqara, Hue) and HomeKit. I have neutral wires for my switches.
I’m mostly looking for nice smart dimmable paddle switches that are future proof. I like the feature set of the red switches, so future proof means I can add a hub later and it will have Matter support. I’m a software engineer during the day and I don’t want another system (hub) to debug right now and I don’t want to feel either FOMO or that I have to research and swap everything out again in a few years.
Beyond what the reds offer the killer feature for me would be Zigbee or Thread and a promise for Matter compatibility (ideally OTA but flashing is okay). Besides that a lot of my switches are multigang with small boxes so space matters.
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Awesome, thank you! I’ve added it to our GitHub feature request to explore. I’ll keep everyone posted!
Awesome, this is great feedback! Sounds like we’re on the right track then
I have read through this thread and in general am very excited about this new switch. I am finishing my basement and will soon need a dozen or so smart switches to install there. My house mostly has the red (z-wave) dimmers throughout the house and they work quite well. I am trying to decide whether to hold off on new switches for the basement until the blue (zigbee/matter) switch is available. Or just to get more red dimmer switches. Can anyone articulate why i may want to hold off? What will the new switch be able to do that the red dimmer can’t? I use home assistant which can interface with z-wave or zigbee devices. I’ve read through posts in this forum, and largely can’t think of why to wait. I am bought into the apple ecosystem so the idea of thread support with my homepods seems like a benefit. But if i do that I’m guessing i would not be able to access the device from home assistant easily. Anyway, if anybody can share the benefits and key differentiators for the blue switch vs the red dimmer that would be much appreciated!
So I am not sure there is a clear advantage.
if you are happy with their z-wave switches by all means I would stick with them. That being said I am personally waiting to see this story unfold.
Here is my take on it. If I am wrong someone pleas speak up.
I want to love Zigbee it is an open standard that in theory let’s you get into the weeds and play with building a mesh network and have a more intimate understanding of what is going on. The problem with Zigbee is between the manufacturers. Because of its open nature companies have taken it and built their ecosystem, but that is where it has seemed to stop, interoperability has been an issue over the years.
Z-wave is a closed standard. It’s goal is conformity of its members. This conformity has been good for interoperability but not sharing the code behind it is like saying trust us there are no issues with our code, and there has been issues.
Both of these standards have improved. Correct me if I am wrong but after thread was announced as one of the communications protocols for Matter I remember hearing something about Z-wave opening their standard up.
Thread is the “evolution” of smart home protocols which is why I am following this switch. The chip inside can be flashed to work with Thread. Thread will work with Matter and will let all the things work with all the things. That being said I am starting to feel like Matter won’t live up to the hype. They keep delaying their launch. As more companies jump on board I am left feeling like Matter is going to be released as a bloated iteration of a dream everyone wants. For example, they haven’t launched their initial standard and they just added casting to screens as one of their bells and whistles. Yes the goal is for Matter to unify everything but who is running the show?
Sorry for the rant.
This! I just stared playing with zigbee. I tried ZHA, zigbee, and even my old ST hub and I could not get an ecolink leak detector to work on any of them. They all behaved differently but not quite right. Granted I’ve only played with a few devices at this point but I find zwave much more consistent.
That said I’m excited to try out the blue series when it’s released. Inovelli has developed some great products over the years and judging by their interaction with the community they will fix any issues that may come up.
The only reason to wait is because you’ve had bad experiences with the extra hardware/software needed to maintain your ZWave network. If you’re perfectly happy with home assistant and specifically zwave on home assistant - then there is likely no reason to wait.
I’ll give you my perspective of someone who owns many red dimmers but is waiting on blue to buy anything else.
I’ve had breaking changes happen on the zwave plugin in HA. The most annoying one was when they arbitrarily changed the name of the events that get fired so I had to re-write all my automations (after spending a couple days just to realize that was even the issue). In that whole ordeal - I think the most annoying part was the attitude of commenters on Home Assistant’s forums who basically acted like anyone who complained about it was dumb for not reading the plugin change logs before installing one of the weekly updates to said plugin. I’m old, I want set it and forget it not spend your whole life on message boards and be intimately aware of everything that’s going on. I kept using it at that point because unwinding all the stuff that I had built to date would be too much trouble.
Then a few months later - a HASS OS update broke the entire VM. The OS itself wouldn’t boot past a certain point and just kept locking during the boot process. That’s when I made a hard break and decided to just go in another direction rather than keep investing time into home assistant (as capable as it is). I grabbed a Hubitat just to keep my wave network active and running, but that is also a generally not positive experience and it exists in my home only to keep my current red dimmers on life support and I have no desire to expand my wave network because I don’t want to maintain the extra devices needed to keep it functional.
Hey great question! I think @jrperry, @stu1811 and @kendrosg nailed most of the reasons and know more than me about the intricacies of Home Assistant so definitely take their comments with open arms.
I’ll give you my perspective if that’s ok – Z-Wave is going to be very difficult to source for the next year or so. We’ve been told by both manufacturers that we shouldn’t even think about 700 Series at this point and to start preparing for 800 series in 2023. Our current switches run on 500 Series, which has slightly better sourcing than the 700 Series and we will have limited supply all throughout 2022. In other words, 2022 is going to be a very tough year for us with Z-Wave.
So, if you have 10 or so switches left to finish your build and are happy with Z-Wave, then I would say stick with Z-Wave and buy the Red Series. However, if you have a much larger build and/or don’t feel like buying the remainder of your build all at once, then I would consider the Blue Series as we will not have these problems sourcing ZigBee chips.
From a features perspective, the switches are basically identical. The great news is that we were able to replicate all the favorite features of the Red Series with ZigBee (something I was very nervous about) in that you will have scene control, notifications, energy monitoring, etc.
From a hardware side, really the only difference is that there are no heat sink tabs (which make it easy to install), it’s slightly slimmer, and you won’t have to worry anymore about purchasing separate SKU’s for On/Off and Dimming.
Our beta testers are currently running HA and we’ve been actively testing against that platform, so I’m hoping by the time the switches are released, all the kinks will be worked out with HA.
Hope this helps and gives a better perspective of some of the pros/cons to waiting as well as what we’re up against from a supplier side to help you decide whether to stick with Red or move to Blue
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