You can do that, but it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.
So purpose of wiring the line and load together or disabling the relay is to provide a constant power to the bulb. You want that in the case of smart bulbs because smart bulbs should be constantly powered and not switched off.
So if you have a non-neutral, you have a constant hot being sent from the light to the switch box and being returned to the light as a SWITCHED hot over the other conductor of a 2-wire Romex. So if you tie those two conductors together you are tying together the line and load. It’s also simulating a dumb switch in the permanently-on position. This will give you the constant hot to the light, which you need for a smart bulb.
The big problem, obviously, and this is what I think you were getting at, is that in this non-neutral configuration you’re hosed at the switch box, because you don’t have a neutral to accompany the hot to power the switch. So you are not going to be able to use an Inovelli switch there.
The alternatives are to add a battery operated z-wave paddle switch to that box or put the Inovelli in another box with a line and neutral, either by using a blank slot, expanding the box or adding a 2nd box adjacent. Or you can piggy-back a scene on an existing Inovelli Red.
Thanks for your reply, you’ve understood what I meant well.
Would you have any recommendations for a “battery operated z-wave paddle switch” that might work for me? Also, can you expand on this line: “Or you can piggy-back a scene on an existing Inovelli Red.”
I’ve been thinking that an Inovelli Red dimmer would suit my use case here, do you think that is the case?
On the first question, there are companies like Eaton that make Z-wave paddle switches that are battery operated. I don’t have any . . I’m just aware they are out there.
On the 2nd question, I’m presuming that you have a set of smart bulbs that need to be continuously powered that you want to control with a switch. Ordinarily, you could use the Inovelli and either disable the relay or wire the Line and Load together to keep them powered and then use scenes or direct association to control them. My suggestion is essentially the same, but it involves a switch that is primarily controlling something else.
For example, I have a set of smart bulbs in a room. The bulbs are in lamps that are in lamps that remain on. To control them with an Inovelli, I created a series of scenes, all on at 10%, all on at 50%, all on at 100% and all off. To run those scenes via a switch, I am using an Inovelli Red Switch that is physically wired to an outside light. So up on the switch turns the outside light on and down turns the outside light off.
But on the same switch, I configured it to run the aforementioned scenes. So a double-tap up sets the inside lights to 10%, a triple-tap up sets them to 50% and a quad-tap up sets them to full brightness. A double-tap down turns them off. So that is how you can use an existing Inovelli for a 2nd purpose.
Thanks for your reply - can an Inovelli Red dimmer be used with non-neutral, single pole - where line and load are tied together at the line terminal? Or would that lead to the same position as the Black dimmer (ie. no power to the switch, so it won’t work)
I’m not sure I understand the Red vs. Black part of this. The Gen2 dimmers work the same regarding power, so it will either work or not work regardless if it’s a Red or a Black.
My guess is that the Gen2 dimmer will not work without the switched hot wired to the Load terminal. But I don’t know for sure.
TBH, in a non-neutral configuration, I’m not even sure it will work if you wire to the Line and Load and disable the relay. I know that the disable the relay (quotes intentionally left out) is one of @Eric_Inovelli’s favorite topics, so he might be able to shed some light on this.
@Eric_Inovelli The TLDR question is for a 2nd Gen dimmer set up as a 2-way non-neutral, can you disable the relay and still have the dimmer powered to use as a scene controller or with direct association?
@ginkoboloba with Home Assitant you should be able to “borrow” the Z-Wave USB controller to plug it into a PC and use the PC Controller software to perform an update. I think there are several people in the forums that have done that. I think your best option here is to update the firmware and enable “Smart Bulb” mode.