Is the above mentioned ZigBee plan going to include Fan/Dimmer control as well?
I feel like I’ve searched for years for reliable single gang fan + light control and it just doesn’t exist 
You guys seem to fill the need but supply chain is terrible 
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Did you guys just run out of stock on Amazon of the Dimmers?? Had a bunch in my cart to finalize today for a new home and they are now gone!!! Freaking out over here.
So, it’s not looking good at all for Z-Wave in 2022. This is why there’s simply, “unknown” for many (if not all) of the statuses above.
I appreciate the transparency. Can you please confirm if Inovelli is still committed to manufacturing their Red series Z-Wave products, once Z-Wave chip supply improves? Your Z-Wave switches are the best in the market and if you’re certain to eventually get more, I’m willing to wait a couple quarters.
But if the entire Inovelli Z-Wave future is in question, it’s probably best for us to explore our alternatives now (including switching to ZigBee in preparation for your Blue series).
- If we do want 500 Series for our current switches, we can buy on the, “spot market” but that adds an extra $6 per unit (our cost… does not include tariffs on that new cost)
Just a thought, but I think many of the people waiting on Red switches are willing to pay an interim premium (even 30% or more). We understand – everything is more expensive right now … just look at what’s happening with car prices.
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I’ve already converted all of the light switches in my home to either Red Dimmers, the Fan+Light or the Blacks (for the few places I just needed on/off), so I don’t have a dog in this fight, as they say.
Since there is certainly a certain market for the Red Dimmers right now, IMHO Inovelli should set up a poll page where people could post how much more they would be willing to pay right now, how many they will order right now (say within say a week or 2) and how long they are prepared to wait for the Red Dimmers to get an idea of how to set a temporary price. (BTW, the wait time would NOT be used to prioritize the orders, just to see if they are willing to wait as long it will probably take to fulfill the orders).
That’s the ultimate goal (have the fan/light in both Z-Wave and ZigBee). Time will tell what we can/cannot do though. I love the fan/light switch and hope we can bring it back quickly as it really was a good product.
Best case scenario, we could convert it this year to ZigBee 3.0, worst case, we’d have to wait until 800 Series Z-Wave comes out in 2023 as 700 Series (what this product is) is very hard to get right now.
Yes
They go extremely quick. We do have the Blue Series coming into stock in a couple months, but as for the Red Series, unfortunately there is no ETA at this point.
Oh yeah 100% we are committed. Z-Wave still serves a major purpose for us and is a part of our strategy moving forward.
Here’s my fancy PPT slide that I show all the investors:
Being blunt though, I really don’t think Z-Wave is going to get better in 2022 and it will likely be 2023 before stock starts to improve. We do have the opportunity to get a limited batch of Z-Wave products, but we definitely are paying a premium to secure the chips. We’ve so far opted out of this as we’re talking like $55-60 MSRP for switches and that is IMO ridiculous.
I’m definitely willing to put a poll out there – let me lock a few things down with the manufacturer to even make sure this is a possibility before promising anything.
As a point of reference, we were told we could get 4k units per quarter – anything above that would be a 30-40% increase as they’d have to go to, “the spot market”.
4k units lasts us like 3-4 weeks, so we decided to put that money into ZigBee (no inventory issues + we wouldn’t be continuously pissing off customers by going in/out of stock on Z-Wave – we’d just be out of stock completely lol).
This is definitely a good idea – let me get with the manufacturer and see what we’re looking at.
My one fear is that we’re looking at $55-60 Z-Wave switches and we’re launching a $40ish ZigBee switch that can do the same thing, if not more than Z-Wave – so aside from the protocol, what would be the incentive to purchase the Z-Wave one? I just don’t want to sit on inventory would be my point (we have plenty of bulbs and lightstrips lol).
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I would absolutely pay a premium for the fan switch combos. Peoples houses are absolutely going to have less of those than a straight dimmer/switch.
At least personally, I think going all in on ZigBee and abandoning Z-Wave (understanding it’s temporary) is a gamble. You’re going to need to count on new installs for this. It’s a tough sell to add ZigBee to an existing mature Z-Wave install to ensure you have sufficient coverage and I think at least up until now, Z-Wave was the more common protocol and didn’t interfere with wifi networks which ZigBee has a chance too because of the shared common 2.4Ghz spectrum.
Granted newer wifi has been 5Ghz for a while, but 2.4Ghz wifi is going to be around for a long, long time yet.
If you were ensured 4k units per quarter (in a perfect world, lets assume you actually got that) and then maybe “spot” ordered another 2k units and average the additional cost per chip of the 2k units across the full 6k units, and explained this to the community, you might be able to get through 8-10 weeks at that clip with the elevated costs. Gets you pretty close to the 12 weeks. Again, tons of assumptions from a complete outsider but just a thought.
Then when things normalize, so do your prices. This also probably helps with cashflow on your end as you don’t have to front salaries with no sales during R&D.
So many of us are used to limited stock at elevated costs at this point. It’s 2022 and this has been going on for at least a year and a half now with so many industries.
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My one fear is that we’re looking at $55-60 Z-Wave switches and we’re launching a $40ish ZigBee switch that can do the same thing, if not more than Z-Wave – so aside from the protocol, what would be the incentive to purchase the Z-Wave one? I just don’t want to sit on inventory would be my point (we have plenty of bulbs and lightstrips lol).
Totally get it and understand you need to check with your manufacturer to see if this is even a possibility but I’d definitely pay $20 more for a Z-Wave product. In fact that is pretty much about the premium I’ve been used to paying for Z-Wave for other products like smart plugs, etc. over equivalent Zigbee items. Especially for those of us who have been buying switches here and there but haven’t converted over everything, I really don’t want to have half my switches be one protocol and the rest be the other. I really love the Inovelli switch design and LED bar on the dimmers (I use it for so many things!) but I will probably just try and get Zooz or a different z-wave switch over the Blue series if it turns out to be 2023 or even later for Z-Wave since I don’t have much of a Zigbee network as is and I’d have to buy repeaters or other devices just to get the switches to function reliably (or at least that’s my expectation, I might try one to see if I’m wrong).
All that to say, definitely appreciate the supply chain issues you are facing and love the open communication, but I do think there’s a market for a higher price point if it’s that or nothing. I’ve been scouring ebay every day looking for red series dimmers and I know I’m going to pay more there, especially now.
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Thanks @Eric_Inovelli for the updates!
I’m actually pretty excited about the Blue switches. After stock ran out, I have been on a quest to compare all the switches that are available and nobody compares with all the features of the Red Series! Just wasn’t sure on timing. Availability in March? That might be good enough for me…
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Just food for thought because I also have a relatively small Zigbee footprint (though am slowly expanding it), but this would actually be more of an incentive to me to have a mix between the Red and Blue series switches if there’s any chance of you using Zigbee more down the line. My understanding is that with both of these products being mains-powered, they’ll function as repeaters or routers for their respective protocols. This in turn means the switches I have spread throughout my house will strengthen each protocols’ usability for any future devices rather than requiring it already built out the way a light bulb or other so called end device (non-repeater/router) might.
(though if you have no desire to use other zigbee devices in the future, I get just sticking with zwave too)
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I definitely see your point and actually had the same thought process for a long time (regarding Z-Wave being the more prevalent protocol), but seeing the hard numbers really changed my perspective.
I can’t officially give the source for this as it’s a paid report and I don’t think I’m authorized to share it, but this is the data I’ve been going off of:
Granted, the above is Global Sales and the report doesn’t break down protocols by region, but I still think it’s pretty accurate for North America.
The age old debate that we have internally is: does the average smart home user care about protocols, or do they care about features more?
My gut tells me (and it didn’t before, trust me, I was a hard, “Z-Wave all day” guy and so was the other Eric – he even more-so than me) that the average person does not care about what protocol is installed in their house, they just want it to work with their hub and they want all the cool features promised in the marketing.
The other thing that I often have to remind myself is that this forum doesn’t always reflect the general population. This is a hard pill to swallow sometimes, especially since we’re all so passionate here.
Point is, while there are some great threads in this forum about Z-Wave and how it’s the best technology (I definitely agree from a security and interference with WiFi standpoint, but I’m now actually really impressed with ZigBee and the fact it can do all the same things Z-Wave can from a feature-set) but going out into the wild… Reddit, ST/Hubitat Community, etc – there are a lot of people who don’t ever reference protocols and just ask, “what’s the best smart switch” or “how do I get my bulb to work with a smart switch”, etc.
Yeah for sure – this is a good point!
My question would be (same with investors), though, are there enough people who care about the protocol to justify a $15-20 price difference on essentially the same switch?
This is the part I’m struggling with personally.
But, if it makes the community happy, I’m always looking to score some points lol. I just don’t want to look at a bunch of dusty Red Series boxes.
I suppose, I could order 1-2k units easily and just see what happens.
This is also something I have to get engrained in my head and I appreciate you bringing it up again. Back when there were more employees here, I would always be the guy pushing to keep prices low, whereas others would say we needed to increase prices to cover costs, inflation, etc.
I hated seeing a $40+ smart switch on our site. In fact, it drove me nuts and I was convinced no one would buy it given the competition is somehow maintaining a mid-$20 switch.
But, you all proved me wrong lol.
To be clear, I still want to keep the price sub-$40, but yeah, it’s literally impossible right now.
This is definitely encouraging to hear – it does pain my heart to have to possibly do it, but I appreciate the honesty. I will check with the manufacturer to see what options we have.
I just sent them a proposal last night and am waiting to hear back (likely won’t be until after Chinese New Year) which included Z-Wave, so we’ll see.
LOL, I always tell ppl they could make a fortune buying our switches in bulk and then flipping them on ebay when we eventually run out.
Keep an eye on our site too – I wish we had an alert system, but @Courtney_Inovelli often puts up refurbs. They go within seconds, but they do get put up.
Yeah no problem! I can’t wait for the day when I can deliver good news all the time lol.
Right now we’re still tracking for late March, but to be conservative, I would count on April as UL is backed up in their certification process.
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That is certainly interesting to see and not something I would have assumed to be the case. Curious if the breakdown changes with the target demographic of what you’re selling (i.e., Commercial vs Residential, DIY vs Vendor like ADT, etc.).
Either way though, it looks like it’s the best interest of Inovelli to at least have both at some time.
Oh for sure. The average person isn’t going to know the difference at all and calls them all “smart switches” and the people in similar communities are generally the more advanced users. I do tend to think that your product is a different animal and comes with an expanded feature set. That expanded feature set should command a bit more MSRP if you ask me. Comparing yourselves to a like for like Z-Wave or ZigBee dimmer, that frankly doesn’t exist, isn’t doing yourselves any favors. You’re comparing yourselves to much dumber switch. Your problem is, does the general public care about those extra features when we do.
Me personally at least, I think your fan/light switch is a diamond in the rough. There is nothing like it that even exists in the space. There are some wifi ones being stamped out by TreatLife, et al. but they aren’t UL/ETL listed, making them illegal to install in most places in the US, don’t really work with 3rd party stuff directly and all require an integration step, etc. Unfortunately, it’s a lower volume product as people generally have many more dimmers than ceiling fans.
I tend to use the GE Enbrighten lineup as a barometer on price. Their basic dimmer is $39.54 on Amazon right now so nowhere near mid-$20s. Semi-recently, the UltraPro lineup was introduced from Honeywell (same Jasco hardware) so works the same as the GE units but without all the extras like faceplate, and extra colors, etc so they shaved a few bucks off and it’s just under $30 now. Maybe you can provide one like that without the faceplates, to shave a buck or two off the price? I don’t think you’re competing with the same products though at the mid-$20s because I have to get to off the wall unreliable brands to get there.
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Don’t forget the other competition that currently has a $59 smart switch — but don’t worry, it’s on sale right now for … $58. 
HomeSeer HS-WX300-R2 Z-Wave Plus Scene-Capable RGB Smart Dimmer & Swit
(I always told myself I’d never buy another one because they were too expensive, but I had to try the HS-WX300 out just because it looked neat. Not as neat, IMHO. But apparently people still buy things at those prices. Someone will also have to remind me how much the ability to update firmware costs…)
Say what???
- Color & blink status of LED indicators are controlled with Z-Wave commands (patent pending)
How is this not on SlickDeals?! LOL.
Yeah, I’d love that info too! I guess it makes sense given the amount of Philips Hue bulbs, Amazon Alexa’s etc that are in play that may distort the numbers. When it comes to light switches, I just have a hard time believing Z-Wave is not #2 (WiFi being #1).
Nailed it. Like honestly, this is the biggest issue that we’ve faced for the past 5+ years. How to convey to the general population that our switch is way better (and commands the price-point), dumb down the features in a way that people understand and go, “YES, I DO NEED THAT!”).
But, this is what I honestly love to do (marketing), and I’m going to have some fun with the Blue Series that is more gen pop focused.
At the same time, keep the hype of the Red Series to all the tech enthusiasts / power users.
I’m actually very excited to take on the challenge… I know… I’m a nerd. But we all geek out about silly things!
Preach it.
This one actually hurts that it’s out of stock and likely will be for a while. There’s literally nothing like it.
That’s good to hear as that’s typically where I drive MSRP targets as well from. In the past, we tried to have a switch that hovered around the GE price-point (Red Series) and one around the Zooz price-point (Black Series), and this worked for a while. But ultimately, it wasn’t worth trying to shave margins to a sliver to compete with the low-price point, especially when it was clear the higher price point item was outselling the lower one 10-1.
Anyway, I’m rambling – thanks for the well thought out thoughts, I really appreciate the dialogue!
Yeah… what? How do you patent open source technology?
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Well… you file for a patent. And if nobody objects… then you get a patent. The patent office doesn’t care about prior art unless someone points it out to them, at which point the relevant claims in the patent get invalidated. Might be worthwhile to double-check with a lawyer.
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I was thinking that it was a design patent for using LED notifications, which could put a HUGE dent in your unit costs if they were granted a broad patent and forced you to pay a per-switch licensing fee.
Speaking of open-source, what’s your guess on a market price for something like this based on an ESP32 or ESP8266 in a normal manufacturer’s batch size?
https://www.tindie.com/products/luma/ha-switchplate-hasp-single-wide-assembled/
I just wish that it didn’t look so butt ugly and out of proportion next to Decora-style switches…
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If I had to guess, it may be this patent. I didn’t try to read the whole thing (way too much legalese for me), but it does appear to be a patent on notifications in some way. I’ll leave the interpretation up to someone smarter than I am.
US20200233390A1 - Wall switch with annunciator - Google Patents
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Good find guys, ugh… Just what I need right now lol.
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Are you asking about what I think they pay per unit?