Much appreciated. I’d love to see if there is something I missed in my setup and want to keep using these switches.
Might be a little late but here is my distinction.
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All LED’s convert the 120V mains to DC voltage. This DC voltage then powers the LED’s.
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All wall dimmers achieve dimming by cutting off part of the AC voltage coming in the mains.
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Dimmable LED’s have additional circuitry to insure the LEDs react to the partially cut off voltage coming from a wall dimmer.
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Non-dimmable LED’s do not have the additional circuitry of the dimmable LED’s and may dim inconsistently or may be damaged by attempting to dim them. I really doubt the non-dimmable lamp can be damaged but I don’t have any evidence to the contrary.
Thanks, JohnRob. That makes sense and adds to my knowledge. So dimmable LEDs somehow sense the ‘partial’ sine wave and reduce the LED current or possibly duty cycle it based on the fraction. So they probably “look” slightly differently to the switch. Got it.
I think the thing that initially confused me was that I think some people were having trouble with incandescents, and those are really dumb bulbs 
But maybe I misunderstood. Not critical to me since I have Inovelli dimmers and here we are talking about pure switches, I think.
Thanks again for the great explanation!
Same or similar problem here. I have a pretty typical 3-way circuit and wired up a brand new LZW30 on/off switch and a brand new dumb 3-way switch. The dumb switch must be “up/on” AND the LZW30 must be on.
- Black
- 3-Way
- line/load in different box
- 1 fixture, 2 bulbs
- Sylvania LED, 8.5W 120V 60Hz 135mA, non-dimmable
- maybe 10 feet
I tried 2 brand new LZW30s and 2 different dumb switches. I tried a few different wiring combinations with the traveler wires and load.
I swapped out my LED bulbs for some old CFL bulbs and it’s almost working. Most of the time I can turn the light on and off as expected from either switch. But sometimes a toggle will result in the light staying in the current state. This also means that sometimes the LZW30 will reverse itself and up is off, down is on… for at least a few toggles 
Still not seeing much activity or response from inovelli on these 3 way problems.
When you say
Same or similar problem here.
Is your wiring a Non-Neutral configuration? If so read below:
Perhaps you need one of these Bypass.
But before you purchase a bypass see if you can scare up an old 60 incandescent bulb. It all works with the bulb then the bypass is likely required.
John
No I’m using the neutral wire. I’ll try to find an old incandescent bulb though.
Have you set parameter 12 ?
John
Patiently waiting…
Week of Christmas gone and we still have nothing.
May I recommend that you/we take a breather and give this fledgling company a breather to solve whatever technical/personnel problems behind the scenes? I have for now moved the Red 3-way ON/OFFs to non-3-way locations. If they figure out a fix sometime soon, all the merrier. For now, they are working just fine as 2-way Z-wave switches.
I took a chance on this company because they were trying to do something cool/innovative, and am willing to give them the time to figure out the issues. C’est la Vie.
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Bringing this back up as my issues have been “solved.” I purchased a red dimmer, installed it in this 3 way setup that was giving me troubles, set up the handlers and configured it and it works as it should. The only issue I had was one time when I switched the dumb switch too fast and the status was not correct. My big test will be the wife and kids. I didn’t tell them anything had changed here (they see it’s a different switch but that’s it for now.) If they have no troubles with it, I’m good.
I am still a bit upset I had to buy another switch to accomplish something the on/off was supposed to handle. This location has non dimmable bulbs, has no need for a dimmer, and does not need any scenes or anything like that.
Trying to understand why the dimmer worked when the switch didn’t. Did you not have a neutral in the box with the Inovelli?
I wish I knew. By all accounts, it should have worked. I do have a neutral. It was first thought it was the bulbs as they are LED’s but I switched to incandescents to test and it still had issues. It was then brought up that the manufacturer recommended non dimmable bulbs…which mine are so that wasn’t it. Inovelli even replaced the switch, still the same issues though. After that, things went silent here so I had to remove the switch from that location.
The only thing really different is that the dimmer has additional settings to allow for the 3way configuration that the on/off doesn’t have.
Having experienced the issue where a 3-way w/a dumb switch is behaving oddly/erratically w/different bulb types exactly like @dwradcliffe is experiencing in this thread, does anyone know if I were to add a GE Aux switch, will the issues go away?
Trying to figure out if the bulb type issue is an issue regardless of the configuration or if it’s only if you pair an Inovelli with a dumb switch. I’m really hoping it’s only with a dumb switch…
From what I have gathered here, 3 way “issues” seem to be fairly common. All that I have read though, have been resolved. In my case, it was not the bulbs, the on/off just did not work for me at that location. I had to change to a red dimmer, configure it properly and everything has worked fine with my existing dumb switch. I chose that over trying an aux switch. Others have been successful with switching the bulbs while some have had to use either a dimmer like me or swap their dumb switch with an aux switch.
Changing to a different model switch is not really resolving the issue.
I’ve recently purchased a number of Inovelli switches (Dimmers, On/Offs, Black & Red Series) and just ran into the same issue that many in this thread have already faced. I was hopeful seeing as this thread started back in November that by the time I scrolled to the end there would be an “official” resolution from the Inovelli team, but it doesn’t look like that is the case. My scenario is the same as many above me.
- Black series switch
- 3-Way
- Line/load in separate boxes
- Single bulb
- 10W LED, non-dimmable
- maybe 10 foot run
Wasn’t functioning properly and was scratching my head for a while. The Inovelli switch would only work when the dumb switch was in a specific position as the traveler/load weren’t being properly energized in accordance with the state of the load when turning the switch on/off. Looking through the thread suggestions, I swapped out the LED bulb for a 60W incandescent and the switch immediately began functioning correctly.
I did my homework as far as Z-Wave switches and really liked the fact that you were able to install in 3/4 way configurations and keep your dumb switches. But, if there are limitations to those scenarios such as the type of load that is on the circuit, that should be noted clearly for the consumer to see. I’d much prefer to use the more energy efficient LEDs where I will not need any dimming capabilities, but it doesn’t seem I have a choice now that I’ve already invested the money in the Inovelli switches.
@Eric_Inovelli please keep me in the loop if there are any firmware or hardware fixes coming that will address this scenario. If there is no firmware fix available, is there any plan to address the issue with the existing units we all have?
I also spent some time looking for a solution before finding this thread on the forum. If this is a known issue, you should make an attempt to have the information easily accessible on the website or in the online documentation. A quick edit to the online wiring PDF would time very little to do. I imagine there are many people out there that would not spend the time sifting through forum posts to solve their issue and will just assume that they have been sent a defective switch.
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I have also had a similar issue with an S2 black switch in a 3-way with a dumb switch. After reading this and several other threads about it, I did a little more targeted trouble shooting.
Setup:
Black S2
Line and load in the same box
Dumb switch
All wired correctly
A single LED non-dimmable bulb during testing described below (also previously exhibited the confused behavior with a single CFL bulb).
First I confirmed that the S2 was confused, then I tried to control it with the Z-Wave hub. It did not respond to most commands and those that did were sluggish. So sluggish that it could not execute the “flash” command.
At this point, I excluded the switch from my mesh and then performed a factory reset of the switch. Then I was able to switch it manually dozens of times, then the dumb switch dozens of times. The S2 switch worked just fine regardless of the dumb switch’s position.
Based on previous posts about switching the dumb switch rapidly, I gave that a shot next. When switching it rapidly I could hear the relay in the S2 change position. More rapid switching of the dumb switch and the S2 relay would change position again. Doing this an odd number of times would put the S2 relay in an “other than factory” state. This is when the S2 was completely confused. It would not respond to its paddle switch being pressed. A few times it would eventually respond by switching the relay after leaving it alone for some time. Sometimes it would switch, then switch right back. Most of the time the status indicating LED was out of sync with the state of the relay. After having established that the S2 was thoroughly confused, I went back to the dumb switch and changed its position. The S2 was still thoroughly confused and “couldn’t tell which end was up” regardless of the dumb switch’s position.
However, after 1 more rapid switching of the dumb switch to trigger the relay in the S2 to change state (putting it back in the “as factory reset” position / sync), the S2’s proper function was completely restored. It responds to manual paddle switching as quickly as ever, and responds to the dumb switch just fine. Both switches worked flawlessly in any combination of positions.
Hopefully this information will help with the diagnosis and fix…
In the meantime, I’ll just have to make sure that the dumb switch isn’t rapidly switched (or partially switched slowly enough to simulate a rapid switching). Or perhaps swap out the dumb switch for an aux switch, although not requiring an aux switch is 100% of the reason why I purchased the Inovelli switches in the first place. I expect hat all my other S2 black switches in 3 and 4 way setups (with dumb switches) will likely behave exactly the same should anyone ever slow toggle or rapidly switch any of their respective dumb switches…