Did you exclude it from the PC Controller before you tried to add it back into SmartThings?
I did eventually get this upgraded device to smartthings, but then I started having problems with “ghost” devices (copies of this device that just wouldn’t work or go away.
This and many other problems made me want to try out Home Assistant. So far, I really like it. That said, I’m now back at having an issue with this upgraded Inovelli device. I added the device to Home Assistant and it recognized it okay. It also showed it was now on the later version of the firmware, which is also good.
That said, a while after I added it and started adding other inovelli switches, that switch started acting crazy. It was on an endless loop of red, green, blue LED lights:
And at the end of each loop the light the switch is connected to flashes on and then off.
Interacting with the switch hasn’t helped. I tried:
- Holding down the config button for 20 seconds, but the sequence never stops and the button doesn’t seem to matter
- Pulling the “air switch” to cut power and restore it. No effect. It goes right back into its loop
- I used Z-Wave controller to “reset” the controller, wondering if maybe it was sending it wacky signals. Nope. No change. This seems to be local to the device.
Any idea what’s going on? I can’t access the device to include/exclude and modify the firmware. I’m hoping it’s not bricked.
Thanks!
I should mention that I checked out this thread here: Red Series flashing red, green and blue after pairing - Sorting Category - Inovelli Community
The problem seems a little different, however, as I can’t even get this to pair or respond to any button pushes.
The light bulb attached is just a dumb bulb. Nothing special.
Neutral install or non-neutral?
Non-Neutral
Incandescent or LED bulb? Sounds like the dimmer is rebooting due to a lack of power. You probably need a bypass.
Incandescent. It’s odd because the dimmer was working fine the day before and had been for over a year. No changes to wiring have occurred.
That said, we did have a 5 second power outage the previous night. Is that a factor? I didn’t immediately jump to that as my other 8 inovelli dimmers, on the older firmware, are fine.
Thanks!
It could be. Power outages are notorious for surges when the power is restored. I have never lost an Inovelli to a power restoration event, but I have lost GE switches and garage door opener boards. I highly recommend the use of a whole house surge protector in your panel.
Just came across this, which sounds similar:
@Eric_Inovelli : is this the reported behavior when a red series dimmer suffers power surge damage?
I may have reproduced the behavior on a different switch without any concern around power surge.
On a second switch that I have paired with my home assistant, I tried changing the “smart bulb mode” setting to true (my bulbs are wiz in this case) and the red/green/blue behavior started again. I switch it back and it is fixed. When I look at my firmware version it says “1.47, 1.41”.
Only difference between these switches is that the second one remains connected to my home assistant. I can’t seem to pair the other one.
That give anyone more ideas?
Great news! The device is not bricked. I moved it to a different dimmer switch location with a neutral and now it works. So there must be something wacky going on when a device is told to work in “smart bulb” mode, but without a neutral to support it. Maybe this is documented somewhere and I missed it.
That leaves me with two options. I can either live without smart bulb mode or wire the load and line together, using the switch purely for scene control. The latter kinda stinks as it defeats the purpose of getting these switches. I dunno…need to contemplate…
Do you have a dimmer wired to a receptacle? You said you moved it to an outlet with a neutral, which suggests to me that in both cases the dimmer is controlling the load on a receptacle.
A dimmer cannot be wired to control the load on a receptacle. This presents safety issues, which is why in the US, the NEC prohibits it. Even if you turn on the smart bulb mode, it’s still a dimmer.
For the leg with the neutral, I would suggest that you do what you mentioned, wire the line and load together so that switch does not control it. The dimmer can then be a scene controller.
For the non-neutral leg, you will have to forgo the use of an Inovelli.
Smart bulb mode routes constant power to the load wire. Wiring line/load together does essentially the same thing. The only real downside is if you ever decide to remove the smart bulbs and go back to regular bulbs you’ll need to move the load wire back up to the load slot vs just updating 1 parameter. So removing smart bulbs takes a few extra minutes of work. But who wants to remove smart bulbs anyways? 
Personally, I just wire them together, use zwave association from the switch to the LZW42 bulbs and never think of the wiring again lol
@Bry : I don’t completely follow and admit it may be my inexperience in electrical. The original location was started with a “dumb” dimmer controlling some incandescent lights. That dimmer did not have a neutral attached, but it did have a ground. For some reason in this remodeled basement, all of the outlets/switches in the center of the room lack a neutral, but those on the exterior walls have them. Given the basement was remodeled, I would have thought the newer stuff would have been installed with neutrals, but nope…they weren’t. Unfortunately, this was before I bought the house (2015) and so I didn’t have any control of it.
I swapped out the dummy dimmer with the Inovelli. I chose inovelli because they advertise that they work without neutrals, which until recently I’ve seen to be true. I was planning on swapping out the bulbs with smart bulbs, hence my interest in upgrading the dimmer and enabling smart bulb mode.
The secondary location I tested on DOES have a neutral and already uses smart bulbs (Philips Hue). I described what happened when I enabled smart bulb above.
So @Bry can you help me understand what I am doing that you are observing to be out of code? I sincerely want to know…very well could be!
@MRobi : I used this “connect load and line together so load is always on to the switch” technique for a different set of smartbulbs and a non-inovelli smartswitch that does NOT support keeping load alive. That works well and perhaps that’s what I need to do here. Just thought that the whole point of Inovelli’s smart bulb mode was to enable this without wiring, but maybe it’s finicky.
Thanks!
@Bry is concerned you connected a dimmer to an outlet. That can potentially be very dangerous. Dimmers are not meant to handle loads others than lights. For example if you plug in a vacuum cleaner the dimmer could catch fire.
I read though the thread and I’m confused as to the final firmware on the dimmer? Is it 1.47 or 1.57? SBM has changed a lot of the different revisions.
Inovelli still needs to output it’s spent power; meaning if you have a neutral, the hot would come into the Inovelli and out the Neutral back to the panel. For non-neutral to work, Inovelli “leaks” this power through the load (where a neutral is) to allow it to work in non-neutral setups. You can’t just install the Inovelli in the wall with just a hot and ground connected. You either need a neutral or a load connected to it also.
Production is 1.57 (so any new stock).
The dimmer in the google photos at the top of the thread is stamped 0720 so I wasn’t sure.
Certainly!
I think was is confusing things is that in an earlier post, you said that you moved the dimmer to an “outlet with a neutral” which led me to believe that the non-neutral installation you were having trouble with was an outlet without a neutral. An outlet is a receptacle . . . that thing with 2 blade slots and a sort of round hole that you plug things into. Additionally, you said that you were using an incandescent bulb and were using the Smart Bulb Mode. This makes it sound as if you are attempting to switch an outlet/receptacle using an Inovelli dimmer, since you can’t use an Inovelli switch for that purpose, since it needs a neutral.
Using dimmers with outlets is potentially dangerous and therefore prohibited by the NEC.
But in your followup comment to mine, I’m not sure that’s correct. It sounds like you are trying to switch a light fixture. Did you maybe mean you moved the dimmer to a SWITCH BOX with a neutral, not an outlet? If you are trying to switch a light fixture with a dimmer, that’s perfectly fine . . . just not a receptacle.
Let us know what you are trying to control . . i.e. fixture, etc and bulb type and we’ll get this back on track.
This is definitely light fixture. No outlet involved. I misspoke. Sorry! I will correct the post above!