Zigbee Button Controller + Dimmer Switch | Project Walt

[Eric_Inovelli]

Crap, I posted this prior to responding to everything – hang on, I’m still typing responses to all!

I go on vacation and this thread turns into a sword fight! Sorry, I should’ve jumped in sooner, but glad to see all the ideas flowing. Let’s remember that everyone is here for the same reason which is to create a great switch

@PreZ

If the buttons are just plastic covers on top of some kind of LED, it would also be REAL good if you could release a few STL files (or equivalent) for blank buttons. Then people with a 3D printer like me could literally print up a new button, with whatever I wanted on it, in whatever color or material I wanted. You would likely only need 6 STL files (8-spot (full coverage) button, 4-spot (half coverage) square button, 4-spot (half coverage) long button, 2-spot button (horizontal), 2-spot button (vertical) and a 1-spot button). I doubt anyone would really want a 6-spot or 3-spot button.

Yeah I don’t see why this would be a problem.

@PreZ

I know you were talking about custom etching, but I can easily see that 1) taking a long time to turn around, 2) being a lot more work than you expect (ie. more people wanting etching, or custom etching, that will eat into more and more of your time), 3) is more of a pain when you want custom images etched, 4) getting expensive if you want a lot of etched buttons, and 5) some people might not want Inovelli to see what they decide to etch on their switches

Yeah good point – I’m still evaluating how difficult this will be and how much time it would consume. LOL what are you guys putting on your switches?!

@PreZ

Also, consider having some cheaper pre-defined etchings (like the arrows, or the numbers 1-10 or something, a light bulb, etc). Things you don’t need to get custom etched, but you can get made up in bulk - even possibly include in the package.

That’s a great idea!

@PPounce

I actually don’t need these to have relays or dim. Perhaps consider a version that is smart with no switching. Saves space in the box. If you have extra room in the unit after leaving the relay out how about an announcement speaker and sd card for sound files? Could work well for visually challenged to have audio for button pushes. “Turning all lights off and closing the blinds, Sir”… “Someone is activating the airlock”… “There is a water leak in bathroom 17a”…

An interesting thought – I think we’re pretty locked in on the switch having a relay because it’s what we pitched to the B2B company and they made it a requirement. I know they paid for the Z-Wave version and this is the Zigbee version, but it helps us on costs to share tooling.

But, if we end up going down the non-relay path, I’ll keep this in mind. I’ve always liked those switches that have Alexa built into them. This seems like a similar concept with a little more control.

@PPounce

Backlight and LED should have the option for automatic brightness adjustment to handle night vs day levels.

@kreene1987

Just a note, when we pursued something similar in the past we decided that the switch has no time intelligence so the hub needed to automate this.

Roles and responsibilities in a smarthome environment are important.

@PPounce

Lets revisit that a little.The switch or device does not have to be void of time knowledge or perhaps luminosity sensors. The software can also support device modes or similar concepts to make automating backlighting levels easier for all users.

I’m not at all trying to debate a past choice, but its good practice to question previous design decisions when considering new products. It can be hard to automate adjusting lights in a room without other sensors. A room with no windows vs a room with windows can have very difference light levels at 2am.

Anyway, it’s just a feature request or suggestion. I don’t think you meant to temper the free flow of ideas for the new product.

It’s a great idea, but I think @kreene1987 is right in that this should be a hub level automation as most, if not all at this point, have the ability to set automations based on the time of day. The LED Bar will have the ability to adjust brightness levels, so you would set up the automation based on the time of day to change the brightness level.

But, as you mentioned, this is an exchange of ideas and to respect that, I’d like to understand from your point of view why this would be a switch level automation and what the benefits would be?

I can see some benefits in that it’s local and if the hub goes down your switches LED would still change based on the time, but that’s a rare occasion and also the switch would need to be connected to a hub of some sort to account for the change in sunrise and sunset times. The only way I see this being feasible is if it is a strict time of day change.

But maybe I’m missing something and I’d like to hear your thoughts!

@PPounce

Not sure I understand why we have people arguing against a basic suggestion. I thought this thread was for helpful suggestions for putting anything and everything on the wall to consider. You both should consider the impression you are giving to other members and readers. Should we post suggestions and have members criticize us or just say nothing at all? Perhaps you both would like to take a moment and add your suggestions to the thread? I didn’t see any above. I promise I wont pounce on you.

Sorry if it’s coming off that way – as someone who is just looking at this thread for the first time since I left for vacation, I read their comments as being more inquisitive, not mocking.

Knowing both of them personally, I don’t think that was their intent either, but I’ll speak for myself in that my response was inquisitive.

Either way, if it is something that’s not too hard to do, and people will see benefit from it, I don’t see why we couldn’t add it to the switch. Heck, we have a parameter that inverts the switch that I think is silly, but someone requested it!

@PPounce

I’m a software engineer. I of course think anything is possible with scripting. As a person that has worked 30 years in product development I like to consider the ease of use and human factors of products. Backlighting that adjusts to room lighting conditions is a nice to have especially if its automatic. I’d wager the majority of consumers that buy things would agree. It’s ok for those not in the majority.

Yes, I’m sure this can be done – let me talk with @EricM_Inovelli our CTO to see the feasibility of it as I’m not sure what all Zigbee can handle or if there’s a way to capture time of day.

EDIT: I see you mentioned there is a UTC time cluster so it may be possible then – @EricM_Inovelli – thoughts?

@PPounce

Thinking of this some more and looking at other offerings I think there is room for 3 scene controller type devices that can share the same look and feel for consistency in a house.

• switched and or dimming device with scene buttons with backlighting
• line powered non relay device that supports scene buttons and backlighting
• battery powered end device that is strictly buttons and no backlighting

I agree – I think there’s room for each of these in the portfolio. Based on the success of this initial switch, we can certainly entertain some of the other ones! In fact, there is a vendor who has been asking us to sell their remote version which I think there’s a huge benefit and we’ve tried to get one ourselves for a while, so it would be a great opportunity to grab one without all the associated costs.

Just to give a background on costs as I’m sure there will be a lot of people that read this… it costs about $80-100k to launch a new product (not including the minimum order quantity of products). I realize that there will be some cost savings if we share tooling as well as dev costs, but we’ll still have to incur UL/ETL, FCC/IC, Zigbee fees which are probably in the ballpark of $30-50k altogether. Add that cost to the minimum order quantity that we’d have to order and we’re probably in the $100k range, which is hard for a smaller company.

EDIT: I see you and @rohan talked more about these challenges and I agree, this is good discussion for future strategy and I see your points for each SKU and agree with them!

I think you’re onto something with the three versions – now we just need to convince the masses. I believe we have a strong case for Option #1 and Option #3. Option #2 makes sense if the costs are significantly less per unit. I’ll have to take a look, but my gut tells me that it would be maybe $2-3 less expensive, which at the end of the day would be maybe a $5 reduction in MSRP.

@PPounce

People are adding smart bulbs. One of the reasons is that they want to control areas where they do not have separate circuits. When you go to change a 3 gang panel of switches that control smart lighting you have a few choices. You can leave it alone and allow the smart lights to be switched or you can do what a lot of people do… hard wire the light sockets to hot so people don’t turn off the smart bubs. If you wire the sockets hot you just need smart bulb control. Lets say you use one of the 3 switches to switch all 3 loads that used to be switched and add two non relay scene controllers. You can now control the smart bulbs using smart bulb mode and still have the ability to cycle the power on the circuits. Of course you need to be concerned total load.

Can I get you to explain this to the Hue team? I’ve tried so many times and they just don’t seem to get it, hence one of the reasons why they don’t see a benefit of becoming Friends of Hue. It frustrates me to no end.

@PPounce

I also have locations that would benefit from a scene controller, but don’t have line power. A scene controller that had the same aesthetics as the others, but could be installed anywhere with an old work or low voltage box could make life easy for a lot of people even if the functionality was reduced to some basic presses.

Same at my house – completely agree.

@PPounce

Revisiting old assumptions is often fruitful. Things change over time.

Just wanted to comment on this to say thanks – we do need fresh ideas and I appreciate it!

@mamber

First off, this device is a wall mounted switch. Which means it has a very restrictive size limitation and is already cramming a lot of functionality into a very small space with little to no room for expansion. The limitation is not just physical size, also processor and memory limitations. If this is added to the switch, it may require the removal of something else. This all needs to be considered when adding new internal functionality that could be done another whay externally.

@PPounce – this is a good point that I forgot to mention in my response. This switches firmware is going to be massive. The largest we’ve ever done because there are so many variables with all the different button combinations, multiple binding options, etc.

I think it’s a fair challenge by @mamber – at the same time as I mentioned above, if we can fit it in, we certainly can. But from my POV as the marketing guy, I need to prioritize what I think is the best features and if we have to pick and choose, I like to hear the arguments for certain features.

Now this will have more memory than our current 2-1 switch and our current 2-1 switch hasn’t maxed out memory, but this is something we ran into an issue with on our Gen 2 Z-Wave switches so I think that’s why you’re seeing some pushback. Again, IMO it’s coming from a positive place and no malice is intended.

@poptart911

If I were to get these, I wouldn’t need it to support a load at all. If I’m remote controlling enough devices to need that many buttons, the devices are all probably already actuated or are smart bulbs anyway.

I’ll bite here – and @PPounce, @caduck, and anyone else who is looking for a non-relay hardwired version, I’d like to hear your POV too since this was also a suggestion from you guys for removing the relay.

Are you guys just tying the line/load together behind the switch or would you be extending your gang-box from a one-gang to two-gang and keeping the load bearing switch there?

I just can’t think of any situations in my house where there’s a switch that doesn’t have a load connected to it and I’d have to extend the gang-box or tie the line/load together for a non-relay device to work.

I do see the need for a battery powered device and I 100% want to bring that to life, but I must be missing something on the benefit of a hardwired, non-load bearing device other than you wouldn’t have to change batteries with the downside being you have to cut a larger hole in your wall or tie your line/load together behind the switch (which I have never really liked).

Thoughts?

@caduck

What if it had a magnet base like my Zen34, that CHARGED the scene controller. So I was able to use it like a remote, never worry about batteries, and the best part would be that it would still help my network mesh and not be a battery powered device. And if someone wanted to use it purely as a remote, they could. It would essentially be two devices, a “basestation” and a remote!

Now this is interesting - so some sort of Qi charger or something?

There are also some devices that do not require a battery and use kinetic energy to send signals to the hub: https://runlesswire.com/

We’ve been talking with them, but the problem is they don’t work with SmartThings, Hubitat or Home Assistant as none of those hubs, to my knowledge, support Zigbee Green Power and the other protocols will not work as the energy produced by clicking isn’t enough to transmit the signals.

@CodeMaster

In my home for example the only places I don’t have a Blue switch are those where I have the z-wave fan and light switch, Zooz double switches and scene controller. If inovelli can fill those gaps and one can have a house that is completely powered by inovelli… man… it become just a matter of time until you are developing new products from a lab in your new yacht, while navigating through some European waters .

Lol, you make it sound so enticing! You mean I could get out of the frozen tundra of Michigan in the winter? Sold.

@CodeMaster

But think about it: new homes being built with inovelli switches, a consistent modern look through the home, built in intelligence (such as double tap for this and that) and compatible with whatever hub the builder or home owner wants to throw at it, from Amazon Alexa to Home Assistant (because it is Zigbee) - for the zwave lovers out there, I’m just looking at it from mass sales perspective, I love z-wave as well

Yeah, all jokes aside, that’s what my vision is for the company. Now that I’m seeing the light a bit more (pun intended) with logistics, lead times, and inventory being in stock, we have a bit more money to play with to come out with new projects again, which is exciting.

I’m thinking through the same lens as you are – trying to fill the voids so that a sales team or distributors/installers who want to outfit a house can choose us because there’s no gaps.

@CodeMaster

1. A double switch with two loads: Top dimmer/on off (just like Blue is today), bottom: relay.
   Use cases include but are not limited to:

• Bathroom light and exhaust fan.
• Exit/Entry door: top dimmer/on off for indoor light, bottom on/off (relay) for porch, outdoors.
• Indoors: top dimmer/on off for ceiling light, bottom on/off (relay) for outlet (lamps, fan and so on).

Yes, this is my next switch after the 5-Button and mmWave. I think this is the last piece of the puzzle. Also, selfishly, I’d like this for my house because it’s all I have left to automate.

@CodeMaster

A replacement for the (discontinued?) fan light switch. Self-explanatory (dimmer plus fan control).

I got you: Zigbee Fan Canopy Module | Project Cheryl (named after my mom so it can be a companion to Project Walt, my dad). Just kicked it off with the manufacturer yesterday.

You will be able to use it with this switch or one of our other switches via bindings.

@CodeMaster

A scene controller between 5 to 8 buttons where they could be all scenes for those who doesn’t care about load or, some of those buttons could optionally control the built in relay and/or dimmer. User can mix and match.

Perfect, you are in the right thread!

@CodeMaster

• A fan controller (already available)
• Dimmer on/off switches 2 in 1 (already available).
• Switch and a presence sensor combined (in the works)

You got it

@CodeMaster

A battery powered remote /scene controller for the same use cases where a Lutron Pico is applicable (something for the future)?

Definitely want this – we have a white-label option that we’re looking into that I think will work. I’m just not sure how much tweaking we can do to the firmware which is what I’m worried about.

@CodeMaster

I understand you are funding it on your own but if more money can expedite things, don’t hesitate to start the campaign. The fact you don’t need the campaign to start it put you in the same position of the big companies who don’t need crowdsource but still uses it, like Anker as an example.

The campaign can not only let you understand demand, manage pre-orders but also work as free publicity since sooner or later someone, somewhere will be talking about.

Understood and I may open it up once we are further down the path of development, but thanks for having our back!