This thread is to try to figure out what’s going on with the Fan/Light switch disconnection issues. We are just as stumped as anyone else and would love to get to the bottom of this as it’s weird that this product had this issue in the beginning, then we hadn’t heard this being a problem for at least 6mo and now it’s resurfacing
Between the 4 of us that have these switches installed for over a year now, we’ve not had any of these issues, but it does seem to be an issue lately with tickets and forum posts, so let’s figure this out!
Please answer the following questions below so we can try to get to the root cause. If you have any further information that may help or theories as to what may be causing this, please add it to your answer.
We’re very sorry this is happening and with any product we put our heart/soul into, it’s very sad to see people having a bad experience. This is definitely one of my favorite products and I’m confident we can figure this out. We just need your help.
Questions (please highlight and quote for your answer):
Date switch was purchased
Approximate distance from switch to fan canopy
Approximate internal temperature (in house) and external temperature (outside)
What is your hub/gateway (ie: SmartThings, Hubitat, etc)?
What firmware version are you on (if you don’t know, leave blank, but it’s helpful)?
Have you made any parameter changes?
Approximate wattage of your bulbs
Does the disconnection happen when using the fan, the light or both?
Do you notice any patterns (ie: time of day, time since last disconnection, etc)?
I think that’s all for now – if there’s any more common questions, let me know and I can add to the list. Again, very sorry for the issues and we definitely have this as a priority to get fixed.
Raw Data – there does not seem to be any correlation.
Date switch was purchased: Purchased in 9/2020 but had a RMA for 1.36+canopy module around 10/2020
Approximate distance from switch to fan canopy: 20 feet at most
Approximate internal temperature (in house) and external temperature (outside): Inside: 70-80 Outside: 60-70. Room can get hotter on hot days until we turn on the air conditioner.
What is your hub/gateway (ie: SmartThings, Hubitat, etc)?: Smartthings
What firmware version are you on (if you don’t know, leave blank, but it’s helpful)? 1.36 BETA
Have you made any parameter changes? turned off the 700ms delay. Turned off power monitoring settings. Some LED color changes. Dimming and ramp speeds are all set to 0.
Approximate wattage of your bulbs: 2 LEDs each using 14W
Does the disconnection happen when using the fan, the light or both? both
Do you notice any patterns (ie: time of day, time since last disconnection, etc)? No… seems random
Also, I am using a Hunter Exeter Fan for reference: Fan
So essentially, what I found was one day the fan and light were not responding to switch presses/controls. So what I did was reset the breaker and tried again. It would respond immediately for like 2-5 minutes, but after a long pause (30 min+) it would stop responding again. Air gap made no change. I performed a reset of the canopy connection at the switch, but this time air gapped the switch on breaker reset. When it started pulsing, I initiated the connection, and the switch flashed green, but the canopy module still pulsed. The switch was then not controlling the canopy unit at all. Then I downgraded the firmware to 1.31 and tried the air gap, pulse, reset canopy connection, then connect, and it was been working more reliably since.
Note that I also have had a NIGHTMARE installing 1.36 and actually getting it to work. This 1.36 was a swapout that you guys sent me in 2020.
Oh and one more thing that just crossed my mind. There are occasions where I will turn on the light and then immediately the fan. The light turned on, but the fan failed to respond. I would check the switch and now the canopy is disconnected and wont respond to anything.
Thought it was odd how it received the first command and coincidentally lost connection immediately after. Of course this is not always the scenario as sometimes its just not responding at all… but this is one scenario that was quite odd.
Date switch was purchased
Nov 29, 2020 from Aartech
Approximate distance from switch to fan canopy
Approximately 12-15ft
Approximate internal temperature (in house) and external temperature (outside)
Internal temp ranges from 19-22c
Outside temp has ranged from -30c to +35c
What is your hub/gateway (ie: SmartThings, Hubitat, etc)?
Initially Hubitat C5, currently Z-Wave JS through Zooz ZST10-700
What firmware version are you on (if you don’t know, leave blank, but it’s helpful)?
1.36
Have you made any parameter changes?
LED color/brightness and ramp rate = immediate
Approximate wattage of your bulbs
2x 9w bulbs - 18w total
Does the disconnection happen when using the fan, the light or both?
I notice it when controlling the light since it’s the only one manually controlled, but when disconnected the fan can not be controlled either.
Do you notice any patterns (ie: time of day, time since last disconnection, etc)?
I’ve tried to determine a pattern but haven’t found one. When disconnect it takes between 45-60 minutes to reconnect.
I’ve also had the same experience as @chunkychunkz numerous times. Turn on the light walking into the room to grab something, a few seconds later try to turn the light off and can’t.
Approximate distance from switch to fan canopy: 8ft
Approximate internal temperature (in house) and external temperature (outside): 78 - 90
What is your hub/gateway (ie: SmartThings, Hubitat, etc)?: Home Assistant, Aeotec stick
What firmware version are you on (if you don’t know, leave blank, but it’s helpful)?: LZW36_1.31
Have you made any parameter changes?: switch delay - immediate
Approximate wattage of your bulbs: 8.5w x 5
Does the disconnection happen when using the fan, the light or both?: happened once, permanent
Do you notice any patterns (ie: time of day, time since last disconnection, etc)?: time unknown
Worked for a couple of days, then I suddenly had no control over lights or fan. Unable to pair. Tried air-gap switch, AC toggle, and resetting both modules to factory. Connections at canopy are good. Communications with HA are good.
Interesting, thanks guys for the help and answers. So, it seems like the following is true for everyone, correct?
Canopy units were either purchased or replaced after 10/01/2020
“Instant On” is turned on for everyone
@chunkychunkz – I can’t remember, did this just start happening or has it been doing this the entire time? If it just started happening, have you made any changes to parameters (ie: the 700ms, power monitoring, dim/ramp rates) recently or have you had these parameters set the entire time?
@kreene1987 – on 1.31 are you still experiencing these issues? The weird thing about that is 1.31 was where the issues began and we had to make a patch. Ughhhh… lol.
@MRobi – same questions as chunky – has this just started happening or has it been like this for a while now? If recently, has anything in your setup changed around the same time as you noticed the issue?
@blmorgan – if you’re on 1.31, would you mind trying to upgrade to either 1.34 or 1.36? Although, I’m somewhat confused here bc it should be 1.34 since you just purchased it. Now I’m wondering if they flashed the wrong firmware on the switches, which would explain some of the issues. Did you purchase from our website or from Amazon?
I took it out and sent it back to Aartech for RMA as offered by Courtney.
On the last few months that I used it the factory resets were so frequent that I just didn’t bother pairing it with HS each time. Zwave communication was never an issue. Only RF.
This issue started happening about 3 months ago and it is getting more and more frequent. I’ve had the 700ms and ramp speeds off since the beginning. I recently turned off power monitoring to see if it can help, which it did not.
Actually neither of these are true for me. Mine is the OG unit (its way up high), and it was always used with delay for scene control.
No, this was only on my 1.36 switch which has now been downgraded to 1.31. All of the 1.31 switches (never updated since they worked) are working just fine.
75 inside, outside varies from 55 overnight to 80 during the day
Home Assistant
1.34
Yes: LED on brightness and notifications.
Integrated LED, can’t be more than 10W.
Disconnect has happened twice: once during a power outage, and once during an HA core/ZwaveJS upgrade.
No, service interruptions have occurred only during system updates or power outages.
I have set “instant on” for some Black Series switches in my house, but I don’t even see that as a configurable parameter on the Red Series light/fan switch.
I only recently enabled the “Instant On” when I moved from Hubitat to ZWaveJS which was 3 weeks ago. That would also be the only change in my setup but the issue started with this one almost on day 1 and persists today.
Just a thought, could it be interference on the frequency used to communicate? WiFi Channel, Zigbee Channel etc??
Other issues: This was my first Inovelli purchase. I had these cheap bulbs and when configuring the dim levels, there isn’t much difference in the brightness. They go from off to perhaps 75% brightness one step up, then further increments get a tad brighter. I figured they were cheap and not very good as they were discounted heavily at the store. Then I installed a Red switch in my hallway which used the same bulbs. That one is able to dim down low, medium, high just beautifully. While my fan/light switch only flickers like the older thread very rarely, I lived with it and procrastinated for so long as in “One day I’ll get on the community forum and look at doing that RMA stuff for it…” Until this week.
