I didn’t realize that Inovelli had their own drivers for their switches for Hubitat separate and apart from those that, I assume, Hubitat developed.
When I did the include for the Black Switch it showed it was a Inovelli Z-Wave Smart Switch S2. (I’m guessing the S2 part is because I left the default security settings as is). The Fan/Light came in as an Inovelli Fan/Light Switch. Since they said “Inovelli” I assumed those were the correct drivers. I was having all kinds of problems doing associations, etc. until I installed Inovelli’s drivers for them into Hubitat.
Once the Inovelli drivers were installed and I did and exclude and include the Black switch comes up as Inovelli Switch LZW30 (LED Color) and the Fan/Light comes up as Inovelli Fan + Light LZW36 with the child devices being Hampton Bay Fan Component for the Fan (before it just said “Fan”) and Generic Component Dimmer for the light (before it just said “Light”).
BTW, I installed the Inovelli driver for the Red series before noting what it said after an include without it so I can’t tell you what it said originally. With the Inovelli driver it comes up as Inovelli Dimmer Red Series LZW31-SN (LED Color).
So, my suggestion is that Inovelli put a very bold or colored Driver Insert in ala the Wiring Insert alerting people to this. Better yet, it would be great if Inovelli and Hubitat could have an agreement where Inovelli could supply Hubitat with the drivers. (Which would auto-update when the Hubitat was installed, but that’s for Hubitat’s forum).
Hubitat’s position on drivers is that their included ones provide basic device functionality, and the device vendor is responsible for providing/supporting third-party drivers for advanced features.
With that said, is there a problem with the online Hubitat-specific Inovelli instructions that should be clarified?
So I went back and looked at the printed instructions that came with the switch and have a few suggestions that would have helped at least me.
I would definitely like a driver insert like you did for the wiring insert telling me about how essential installing your drivers first are (with scan codes that would take me to the driver’s or to the instructions from page 1).
In Step 4, on page 8, Pairing the Switch to the Hub, I would put something very prominently about installing the driver for the users hub first and referring us back to page 1 (and/or the driver insert if you also go that way).
The way the instructions were written on page 1, being a total noob, I thought the Hub Installation Instructions and QR code’s were what we were supposed to scan to do the Z-Wave Smart Start. That is I didn’t read “Hub Installation Instructions” to mean that was a link to the instructions, but you were telling us these are the instructions on how to install the device in a particular hub, and those instructions were to scan the QR code, which would then automatically do that. (I also suffered from having a little knowledge is a dangerous thing because I’ve seen some YouTubes for some devices that do that - I think that might have been someone’s mesh router or other product where you scan a code on the device to pair it in some fashion). In fact, when it didnt work I went back to what I thought was the non-smart start way of manually typing in the DSK code. I had no idea that typing in those codes manually was considered a “smart” start. Plus, the way they are written (“if you are a manual guy/gal”) it made it seemed this was just optional, when in fact it is essential to install your drivers to really take advantage to the very features that distinguish your switches from all others (at least in Hubitat).
So my bottom line is that the instructions are correct, but I would just make it much, much more prominent that one should install the drivers first and separate the Smart Start from the part of scanning the QR code’s to get the online version of the instructions or probably better, re-work the heading and text to make it clearer that this section is about an essential step of installing your drivers for the various hubs first.
It’s too bad Hubitat has that attitude about not taking your drivers. It seems it would be much less work for them by not having to write any code at all for your drivers and instead have you provide the code for your products. Seems like it would be a win-win as your users would then get access to your advanced features without having to install your drivers.
I think Inovelli and Hubitat are a fantastic pair, but as long as the system is set up for users to have to do things like manually install code both will stay a niche product. (And it isn’t just Inovelli and Hubitat of course, it is the whole IOT universe for these class of products). Look how Microsoft won the Office Productivity wars when they got computer manufacturers to ship Windows, and Office preinstalled on computers. Word Perfect may have been “better” but who bothered when Office was already there? Same here. I just wish you guys could work closer together, but I realize that it’s Hubitat not taking your drivers and not you offering them to to them. (I also think it’s silly that Hubitat even makes the user manually install everything including their own basic button and switch apps and Rule Machine, so I can imagine what an uphill battle it would be to have them preinstall your drivers).
So with your drivers in place virtually everything fell into place.
Isn’t the sequence of events the same for ALL devices you add to a Hubitat? So shouldn’t the sequence be the same for Inovelli or any other device? I’m on SmartThings so I know when to add drivers and how to adjust if I add them out of sequence.
My point is that if the sequence is crucial in Hubitat with all devices, then you should already know that as a Hubitat user. The Inovelli manual is just that; it’s not a Hubitat manual.
I have to disagree with installing the drivers first being essential. The built-in drivers work just fine to get the device paired and tested. Changing the driver out is trivial after the fact (drop down menu selection, and one additional click).
I started to screen shot the differences, but stopped, because part of me wants to say starting with the Inovelli driver is simply too overwhelming until you are more familiar with what everything is. There are probably quadruple the number of fields to comb through.
I disagree with your disagreement. At least in Hubitat I have to go out and get the code from GitHub, either by copying and pasting or pasting the URL in. It is only then that I can go to the “type” (which I think is a misnomer on Hubitat’s part and should be called “driver”) and select the correct driver. If I do that first then even just starting out it has the correct driver and won’t have to swap it out afterwards. This is especially true with Hubitat because their Black and Fan/Light drivers said Inovelli on them. Because of that I didn’t realize they weren’t the “real” Inovelli drivers. (I don’t remember what the Red Dimmer came in as). I spent hours and hours trying to get them to work and couldn’t figure out what was wrong until I discovered that there were 2 different drivers. For people who don’t want to mess with any advanced functionality they don’t have to mess with the parameters at all. But, if and when they do, they will all be there, in place for them.
So I think best practice is to have people put in the Inovelli drivers from the git-go.
My final thoughts… Based on my experience, you can’t depend on the hub always picking the right driver even if they are all installed. I don’t like that the HE doesn’t inform a new user the nature of the built-in drivers, but that’s a specific complaint about Hubitat. That said, even if you haven’t installed the Inovelli drivers when you add a switch to your HE, you can always go and change the device type (driver) out after the fact.
Maybe a middle ground would be to have a wiki page dedicated to specific hubs that’s user maintained. I would gladly contribute to one.
I agree on the Wiki and I too would help, if that would be helpful. Perhaps a lot of my problems stem from the fact that I’m (or at least was, a couple of weeks ago) a total Noob to hubs and switches. I knew I had to install Hubitat apps from watching YouTube videos about it, but not about the need to install Inovelli drivers.
While the community is fantastic, I find I often have to pick a bit here and a bit there. A really great Wiki that distilled it all would be fantastic. But, it has to be kept up. Just a quick example, the Wiki for Associations is clear, has screen shots, etc., but doesn’t talk about setting Group 3 from the Slave to the Master for dimmers to keep the Master LED in place - which I discovered by going through threads in the community.
So thanks again for taking so much time to respond to all of this.
Related to OP, I also installed my switches using the default Hubitat drivers because I too saw Inovelli and figured that those were the correct drivers. I ended up installing the drivers and swapping the existing devices over to them a few days ago. I just updated a preference and hit apply and never bothered to exclude and then reinclude all of them.
Is that going to cause issues, or am I correct in assuming I’m good to go now and the preference update was enough to apply the driver?
I agree with your disagreement Its not [normally] necessary to install the custom driver first. The built-in driver is usually fine to get the device paired and its easy to change to the custom driver after the fact.
That is not necessary in most cases. The Hubitat built-in drivers are fine for pairing most of the Inovelli switches and you can change the “type” very easily after its joined. (I agree “driver” would be better wording here)
I think this is the problem you ran into. I believe its specifically the Fan/Light combo switch that is a bit messed up regarding the built-in vs custom drivers. I don’t have one, so I can’t say specifically but I suspect there is no built-in Hubitat driver that works properly with the Fan/Light combo and in that specific case you would need to install the Inovelli custom driver first.
All good points. From Eric’s very appreciated frequent contributions on the Hubitat site I know Inovelli is aware that some Hubitat drivers say “Inovelli” this or that, which could lead some to believe this is the driver from Inovelli.* So, hopefully to find common ground, maybe Inovelli could include an insert that would make users aware that there are Inovelli created drivers which they may want to install at some point to obtain the full benefits of their switch, or bulb, etc.
Stuart
*I don’t mean to imply it isn’t appropriate for Hubitat to do this. In fact, it is great that they do that so there is a driver specifically built into Hubitat for Inovelli products. My purpose is to just point out how this may confuse people.
I have a pair of the LZW36’s, and they were working fine on the Hubitat drivers first, it created the child devices and everything. They’re just missing the extensive amount of customization available through the Inovelli provided drivers.
You want to use a user-contributed called [BETA] Hubitat Package Manager - Custom Apps - Hubitat - it will save you much time by making it possible to install (and keep up to date) drivers and apps without copy/pasting code or URLs.
I do use it. For me it wasn’t that big of a deal, I just wish Hubitat would bring things like the HPM in-house and install more of their apps when it ships instead of making the users install even the built in apps.
At least in Hubitat I have to go out and get the code from GitHub, either by copying and pasting or pasting the URL in. It is only then that I can go to the “type” (which I think is a misnomer on Hubitat’s part and should be called “driver”) and select the correct driver. If I do that first then even just starting out it has the correct driver and won’t have to swap it out afterwards. This is especially true with Hubitat because their Black and Fan/Light drivers said Inovelli on them. Because of that I didn’t realize they weren’t the “real” Inovelli drivers. (I don’t remember what the Red Dimmer came in as). I spent hours and hours trying to get them to work and couldn’t figure out what was wrong until I discovered that there were 2 different drivers. For people who don’t want to mess with any advanced functionality they don’t have to mess with the parameters at all. But, if and when they do, they will all be there, in place for them.
Its not [normally] necessary to install the custom driver first. The built-in driver is usually fine to get the device paired and its easy to change to the custom driver after the fact.