I was planning a new house and was looking at options to automate parts of the house. I was looing for solutions and Home Assistant was looking good. But, what to use to control things. Saw Z-wave and the 1st gen switches on Amazon were on on sale so bought two of them and a Aeotec sensor. Then, bought one more refurbished switch before they were gone, with another sensor. Got them installed in my current house and they worked perfectly without any glitches. The lights in kitchen and bathroom and the bathroom fan now all work automatically. The new house got 2nd gen Inovelli devices in every switch location.
Soooo I had these old wifi light switches, and I always wanted color bulbs to go with them. Then I found the Illumin bulbs on Amazon and they were BRILLIANT… but not very compatible with switches.
THEN I discovered that this lightbulb company ALSO did their own switches and I was hooked!
I was shopping for my first switch for Home Assistant and found Inovelli and one other company mentioned in forums as better alternatives to the big names, back when both were selling a similar product from a generic manufacturer. I bought the other one. After figuring out how to set it up and using it for a while, I realized that Inovelli switches had more features that I wanted, so all the rest have been from Inovelli.
I was finally ready to start up my smart home and wanted the best smart dimmer switches on the market. After a lot of reddit reading, I kept seeing praise for Inovelli. Alongside the praise, I saw Eric replying to a lot of people so I felt the community here was reliable. Diving deeper into Inovelli, I see that the red series dimmer switch just has so many options to play with! I bought one to test and I’ve been able to do so much with the 1x-5x tap scene controls. Most other switches would have been set for power on/off and be done with it. I can’t wait for the stock to be replenished so I can buy more switches/bulbs/sensors and all the new products. I want to go all in on Inovelli!
I research the heck out of things. Browsing various hub boards (then Smarthings, now Hubitat), a few people mentioned this US based startup making smart switches. Finding out they were from my home state, i started following them. I was on Version1 of their switches from Amazon back in January 2018. Which version was it? Amazon tells me it was this ’ Z-Wave Switch (On/Off) + Repeater | Scene Enabled (Acts as Button) for Samsung SmartThings (Zwave Plus On/Off Switch Only for other HUB’s)’. I was also a pre-order for the red-series that came out in 2019.
Finding out more and chatting with the Eric on the ST message boards and via messages about challenges I was having with my setup, he grew up about a mile from where I grew up. I’m all about buying/supporting local where possible, even though now I live in MN. Their customer support has been great on this site and the other hub sites, and fun to see in this type of area. This is how you build loyal customers.
I learned about Inovelli when you were clearing out your old first gen switches in 2018. I didn’t buy any of those at the time, but was all in when you introduced your second gen switches. I now have 18 red switches, 3 black dimmers, and 3 4-in-1 sensors.
Thank you to everyone who participated, it was super fun reading through everyone's reponses. Now if you'll humor me for a second...
So I love doing these types of campaigns where we can get to know you all better and honestly I get to feel like Oprah for the day (and YOU get a light strip!) so it seems like a win win… BUT I want to know how you feel!
Are these types of campaigns fun? Would you like to see more fun ways to earn points or are you more interested in random drawings for free swag? If you have any input I’d love to hear it as I always want to be creating content and campaigns that are actually engaging and beneficial to our community!
EDIT: Part 1 – Part 2 will come later – I didn’t think it would take me this long to respond to everyone haha!
Hey all – I just wanted to pop in and say that I’ve read all of these and from the bottom of my heart, thank you. This was really cool to read and learn how you all stumbled across our brand. It really meant a lot to read these and know that even on the days where I don’t feel like hopping on Reddit, or answering tickets on the weekend, or logging into the community after a 12hr day, that it’s worth it and we’re more than just a company/customer relationship – we’re (as cheesy as it is) a family and together as a community, we’re impacting and leading the smart home industry.
This gave me a slight ego-boost, not going to lie lol. All along, we’ve tried to position ourselves as anti-corporate and the underdog brand that is willing to fight for you. Thank goodness for that last ditch Google search and thank you for your support, it really means a lot!
Ha, man I didn’t know this is how you found us? Wow, that’s pretty cool! You don’t happen to have the original Reddit thread do you? I’d love to see it. If not, no worries. Either way, glad to have you here in the community and all your contributions. It means a lot
Thanks! And congrats btw on winning. Nice to see the Amazon marketing spend may have paid off lol. Thank you for being so active in the community – it wouldn’t be what it is without you my man!
Curious on which ones? Either way, thanks for hanging with us and I’m glad I was able to make a good enough impression that you came over here!
So… sometime between 2017-2021
Kidding, I’m glad you were able to eventually grab the holiday kit and I also want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your contributions. I’ve actually learned a ton from you and taken a lot of your suggestions to heart and implemented a few (especially our convo around the packaging and being more valuable of a brand than I sometimes think). Thanks for your continued support – it really means a lot!
Thank you! Hopefully one day soon, we’ll be able to make people happy inside those big-box stores – either way, we sincerely appreciate you checking us out and glad to have you on board in the community!
Awesome to hear another Reddit convert. We often look at the metrics of what social channels people come from to purchase on our site and Reddit always seems to be at the bottom. But, I’m convinced the, “sowing seeds” across Reddit strategy works really well to connect with people and it appears from this thread that theory holds some water!
Anyway, glad to have you here in the community and thanks so much for your continued support. That three-gang switch looks pretty
In all seriousness, thanks @waffles2 for the laugh and for being a part of our community and for your continued support. I see you over in the Hubitat community too and it’s great that you have such a distinctive screen-name as it makes me go, “oh, there’s a friend from the Inovelli community – hopefully he’s on our side in this convo”!
Dang, in all this time, I never knew that’s where you found us. That’s pretty cool! I’ll never forget our first interaction when I asked you a question about your wiring and you said something like, “well, I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I’m pretty sure my wiring is correct” and the rest was history. Glad you stuck with us over the years despite having to purchase that aux switch initially!
In all seriousness, I enjoy our PM’s and we often run office to office sometimes when somethings going down in the community and half the time we’re like, “did you see what harjms said lol?” and we laugh bc of your zingers. So, thanks for providing not only amazing help, but also providing the comic relief when we need it. It means a lot!
Wow, that’s really cool hearing you found us in the ST Forums. Fun fact, that’s actually where I met Eric M. and I’ve spent many hours in there too. It’s a cool community and there’s been some cool memories over the years. I’m glad we could help out with the scene controller product, hopefully you’re pumped about the 5-Button switch lol! Either way, happy to have you in the forums!
Oh we are so alike in our journey. Ughh… I remember wondering why none of my stuff worked – why was my dumb switch smarter than my smart switch? Why was everything so flipping slow or offline? I then went down a rabbit hole trying to figure this out and started seeing, “z-wave”, “zigbee”, “hub”, “mesh”… excuse me, what? I just want a switch that works and is fast. There was no real centralized location where I could learn about the various terms and get a solid recommendation on what to use. Somehow, and honestly I can’t remember where, I ended up learning about Z-Wave and it saved my smart home experience.
Wanna know the way to @Brianna_Inovelli’s heart? Talk about packaging lol.
In all seriousness, thanks for being a part of our community (and I also think you and I are buddies on Reddit, but I could be wrong) and for sharing a passion for home automation. It really means a lot!
Hey thanks and this is a good reminder that people can come in via a good deal. While it’s been hard to really discount anything, this is definitely something I’ll remember moving forward – getting on SlickDeals can really bring people to your brand. Thanks so much for taking a shot on us and we’re glad to have you in the community!
Awesome, how did you come across our brand? Just curious
Really cool that you’ve been around for a few years and have found benefit in our switches. That’s really cool to hear actually. Thanks so much for the support and congrats on the vacation home!
Lol, wow – never knew you were an ST user! I was wondering where you knew the Gen 1’s had a scene version (there was a thread where you stuck up for us in the Hubitat community where you mentioned our Gen 1’s had the same structure in that there was a base model and a scene model – thanks btw) but that makes sense now.
I miss the 2-Channel plugs, that was the first product we ever went to market with and it actually holds some sentimental value to me. Maybe one day we’ll make them again!
Anyway, thanks so much for your help across the various forums – it’s crazy, we have a ticketing system that allows us to scan all the other forums out there (ST, Hubitat, Home Assistant, Vera, HomeSeer, etc) and whenever I click on the ticket to be taken to the forum, you’ve 9/10 answered them in the Hubitat forum. I sincerely appreciate it and want to thank you for saving me the headaches. It really means a lot! Glad to have you a part of our community too – love seeing that little cartoon character as well – I instantly relate it to BertABCD1234 lol.
It’s been a wild ride lol. Thanks for being one of the OG’s and for sticking with us, we really appreciate all the hard work you put in after hours, working in areas you weren’t hired for and for always having such a positive attitude, even when times are tough. It really means a lot!
Ha! Nice! Yeah, I miss that plug so much. I wish we could bring it out of retirement, but unfortunately, it’s an ex-girlfriend at this point who has a restraining order against us. Kidding, it’s not that bad, but it’s close – that product was made by an old manufacturer who owned the product, so we can’t sell it anymore. However, I’d love to make a new version, so hopefully we can start on that project in the near future.
Pretty cool to see you’ve been with us over the years and we sincerely appreciate it as well as your contributions to the community. It really means a lot
