Zigbee Button Controller + Dimmer Switch | Project Walt

So Hot Right Now Projects & Roadmaps
#69

Decision making point here for my fan and light setup. I have my wall and J-box wired with two load lines into my J-box to control light and fan separately with this switch Leviton Switch. I want to smart-ify my fan and light so I can control them separate…and within the spirit of redundancy for those who are not smart home savvy, be able to control them when in case my hub goes offline (I did have a case where my zigbee network on my Hubitat go down).

If I were to replace this switch with the button controller and the fan/light module, would I still be able to achieve offline control if my zigbee network goes down? My understanding is that the fan/light module is controlled via zigbee binding with this button controller. If that’s the case, then would the better option be to expand my 1-gang switch to control the light and fan with 2-gang using a Blue Fan Switch and a 2-1 Dimmer Switch?

I’m at a crossroads to figure out whether I should wait for the button controller and fan/light module to come out or proceed with adding two switches and expanding my switch box.

#70

Using binding or association then yes it will function sans hub, internet, or any other smart devices/services. Binding does just that, binds the two smart devices so they communicate directly and almost instantly. About as close to having a wire go between them as possible with out the wire.

You are lucky that you have separate hots between the switch and fan/light. If you can expand it to a double gang that would give you more options. But the idea of these is that you wouldn’t need to do that. My advice is always if you’re are currently building/remodeling is to install a double gang box using 12-3 or 14-4 nm-b between the switch box and fixture box in the ceiling. This gives maximum utility and side steps the predicament many of us are in today. You could in that case use what inovelli is developing today and just put a blank in that spot or install another scene controller for even more capability, or if this doesn’t fit your fancy install separate fan and light switches next to each other.

#71

So where you’re probably getting at is because I have the fortune of two hots running to the wall, its probably better to switch to two separate switches due to functionality. This makes a bit more sense since I don’t have to redo any wiring weirdness to get the fan and light to work. It’ll be a bit more expensive, but I want to do it right…I specifically had the J-boxes put in with my builder to have separate hots to control the light and fans separately.

#72

Good afternoon @Eric_Inovelli

I am fairly new to this home automation. I was trying to find this product, but it does not seem to be on Inovelli website. I also was wondering if this was the better choice to work with the Smart Fan/Light canopy module or what switch would you recommend? Thanks.

#74

I believe this is still in the planning/pre-production process as it’s not available for purchase just quite yet.

#75

Project Update:

This project has become quite the undertaking, but we’re starting to make some great progress on the hardware. One of the challenges that we’re currently trying to solve for is to properly backlight both the etching part of the paddle as well as the notification LED’s. In addition, we’re trying to solve for the LED Bar effect as shown in this configuration of the switch:

image

We’d like to allow for people to have different colors available for the notification LED’s and the backlit part and so far the idea is to have a strip of LED’s run down the middle of the switch and then LED’s running down both sides. However, the challenge is the light bleed.

A competitors switch has solved this by blocking out the side LED’s but their LED’s are so tiny that it’s easy to accomplish. The manufacturer came back and said we could do the same thing, but the configuration would look like this:

image

We’re pushing back because we think they can accomplish the LED Bar effect by adding some light pipes and/or some sort of barrier to prevent the light from shining into the middle of the switch and we have a couple ideas sent over to them for review.

We should have some sort of answer before they leave for Chinese New Year which starts on February 7th.

5 Likes
#76

Great questions! I haven’t put this one up on the site yet as we’re still working through the hardware. I usually put these up when we’ve finalized the hardware portion of it, so I would anticipate that being at the end of February or beginning of March depending on how the initial samples come in looking like.

Regarding if this is a better option for the fan/light canopy module, I think it boils down to preference. I personally really like how the 2-1 works with the canopy module in that you can use the paddle for the lights and the config/favorites button for the fan speeds, but I also see the draw to having this switch because it’s a little more user friendly for people who aren’t familiar with your house (ie: you can etch a label for the fan speed and etch a label for the light).

2 Likes
#77

You got that right. To your point, the integration with the 2-1 is really cool but… user experience and adoption goes together for pretty much any product a user has to interact with.

I can see how for us tech/geeky/DIYers it is fun to have all these buttons doing all sort of things around the house but then comes family and friends… who have no clue about any of that and will have to learn that the same button has a completely different function depending on the room they are at and… in some rooms no function at all.

On the other hand, a dedicated, properly labeled controller/remote speaks for itself and is inline with end user expectations.

I went the extra mile of paying almost $40 for Lutron Pico remotes with fan icons while the exact same configuration with light icons was $11 - at the time of purchase. Meaning: I paid 4 times more for the user experience.
I have these remotes controlling my LZW36s through HA.

I just dropped them (using the Pico pedestal) on the bedside of each room and side tables on the living room.

I never had to say a word about it. Family just walked in, found them and started to use them immediately. Adoption was seamless. And not only that, seeing my kids friends (teens) seating at the living room and reaching out to the Pico remote to turn on the fan is priceless. They see it seating in there, they can tell it is a remote, they look closer and see the fan icons. Simple and exact what a human brain will expect in this situation.

I’m saying all of that (which you probably already know :slight_smile: ) just to put it out there, that when thinking bigger picture, UX can’t be ignored.

I really would love to see these multi buttons coming with some common icons (something like Lutron does). Push the price up for those pieces if needed, produce less units… whatever but there will always be people who values that.

I’m really happy with this design.
Are the large ones on the left, with the LED strip also buttons?
I understand what you are trying to achieve and the issue with the light leaking behind the switch but while the original intent was to have LEDs all over, if necessary I think would be acceptable to settle for some buttons having LED instead of all of them (which can make the switch a little too busy anyway).

In this particular design for example. Lets first assume the large buttons are actual buttons. Now let’s say you controlling a fan and a light, or two lights, doesn’t matter. The large buttons could be on/off while the small ones could be dim up and down. In this case you don’t need LED in the small buttons anyway - they should only make it the wrong configuration for this use case.

I understand someone will say well, what if I’m using this exact same configuration to control 6 devices? Well, you could still rely in the same 2 LED bars to give you statuses of all the devices combined.

I’m just saying that the limitation doesn’t seem like a deal breaker since it appears to be possible to work around notification and statuses with some other creative ways and not only that, the look of 8 large LEDs in a single switch… hmmm… I don’t know. Hard to say :grimacing:

Just a thought. Can wait to see these out there.

3 Likes
#78

I really like the look and versatility of these switches particularly with the canopy modules. Offering pre etched fan and light symbols would be perfect.

I am a geeky person and love the versatility and control options with the regular and fan switches, but I have to dial it down and provide a solution that my wife and visitors can intuitively use, or it has to come out.

Re the LEDs on the small lights, in the fan use case I probably would use the lower one to indicate low, both to indicate medium and the top to indicate high. But if they are not there I could work around that easily.

I will wait for this before installing the canopies that I need.

Keep up the good work.

#79

Question for you guys – we’ve had a ton of back and forth with the manufacturer on design and trying to pull off everything that everyone wants and unfortunately, they can’t get this design to work:

image

It’s just too hard with minimizing the light leakage as well as having an accurate display of the LED Bar (ie: the middle of the LED Bar would be darker as there’s no LED there) and they said the tooling costs would skyrocket apparently. I’m still fighting them on it, but it’s been an uphill battle.

The alternative suggested is this:

image

Is this something that would work? My gut tells me no but I wanted to check with you all.

3 Likes
#80

While I don’t LOVE it, it’s still better than anything else out there, so I can’t really complain.

1 Like
#81

While it’s better than nothing, why can’t they have more LEDs and cover more than half the button?

I’m trying to decide what having a full length LED bar on both sides would be like (outside the buttons, like on your current paddle switches). Or one on the right side plus the small ones in each position under the buttons?

#82

This is how I feel lol.

Man, now I have to explain it in more detail? Dangit lol jk. Let me try my best to do so.

So here’s what we need to do at the very least for the B2B guys (who are funding this project):

  • Backlit buttons so that you can laser etch out words
  • Dual LED’s on each side that can change colors for notifications and to let you know the load is on/off, etc.
  • Virtually no light leakage
  • They want it to look similar to a competitor (can’t disclose it, but I’m sure everyone can figure it out – they’re big in the B2B/high end space, no one that we directly compete with)

They don’t care about the mockup I showed as they don’t carry the Fan/Light Canopy and don’t have a need for the long LED’s. This is an Inovelli thing bc we want it.

Knowing that we’re building off of our competitors switch, they have backlit buttons too as well as buttons that run down the right side of the switch.

This is what theirs looks like under the paddle:

image

To achieve the backlit buttons, they have a row that runs down the middle. If you look, you can see how the light dissipates outward in sort of a, “fan” approach as shown by the red lines.

image

To achieve the LED’s on the right side, they have a metal piece that helps control the light so that it doesn’t leak into the center as shown by the purple lines.

image

–

To achieve the LED Bar, we’d have to do something like this:

image
image892×1484 34.7 KB

The LED’s on the side in the example above would do the same thing as the middle LED’s in that it would, “fan” out the light.

However, the challenge here then becomes light leakage into the other LED’s above/below. For example, this would work for this design:

image

But not this design (which was one of the requirements of the B2B client):

image

I proposed something like this (the white part would overlay the LED’s to help with light leakage) to initially solve for the LED Bar on the left:

image
image912×1480 36.7 KB

But the problem still exists with light leakage for this design:

image

We could build a special paddle that has some sort of blocking mechanism, but that’s where the increased tooling costs come into play.

–

Hope this all made sense. I’m still waking up and have paint fumes running around my brain from all my painting this weekend lol.

4 Likes
#83

Agree with jsb,

While I don’t LOVE it, it’s still better than anything else out there, so I can’t really complain.

If this can manage the Fan Canopy, I would buy it.

1 Like
#84

How many LEDs are in each of those proposed strip sections?

It appears to be 2 LED so the longer left strips really can’t show a dim level. So, why not do that design with an LED in each of the right buttons and no LED strip in the left buttons?

#85

I’m not sure I understand the light leakage bit… Couldn’t the LEDs that are not under a transparent defuser be set to off?

3 Likes
#86

How much of an issue is like leakage? Like is it 50% brightness leakage? If it’s a low percentage, how much of a problem would it be? I certainly prefer light leakage, but if it’s possible to get more fluid lights, that would be nice.

#87

I agree with you on this, I was spoilt by your preferred choice, but the other one could work for me.

#88

I too agree that I can work with that. The only suggestion/comment I have is to only have only LED bar/slot on the larger buttons since they would now need to be separated.

#89

How about a thin cardboard insert with different light leak cutouts? I forget the name of it, but there’s a special type of cardboard product that is used inside electronics…