For reasons unknown to me, my Inovelli Dimmer - Red Series (Gen 2): LZW31-SN will occasionally reduce its wattage, which causes issues as it is below the threshold that makes my lights flicker. Example logs screenshot attached.
I've generally programmed around this by disabling local relay and instead talking to the bulbs directly, but due to these random wattage reductions, I still hit flickering issues.
Any ideas to help me figure out what's causing this... and ultimately to solve the issue?
Hey. I have that other thing done but can’t respond again until someone else does. I really hate this forum so far.
@SportyJordy, are you on the latest firmware for the LZW31-SN? If not, some changes made after the original shipping firmware may have helped with this. A few people had problems with smart bulbs flickering or even turning off with early LZW31-SNs, which recent updates may have helped with. A recent one also added a "smart bulb mode" parameter to ensure that the dimmer is always at 100% (Z-Wave level 99) if the switch is on, which is a problem some people ran into before, though I'm not sure it really adds anything you couldn't have already done yourself by being careful. I believe earlier revisions are supposed to have addressed a possible root cause of this other problem.
You can find the updates on Inovelli's website or forum, and you should be able to use the community Z-Wave Firmware Updater tool here, the newer "binary" version, to update both targets 0 and 1 as instructed. Alternatively, an external Z-Wave stick using Z-Wave PC Controller may be faster if you have one.
Also, do you have a neutral wire connected to the dimmer? If not, there is a minimum wattage you'll need for the load, or otherwise you can add a "bypass" to it to lower that (but it's still something like 6 W with one, I think). You've probably read this in their docs, but I thought I'd mention it if not. The wattage you see, as you may know, is just a power report from the switch--the dimmer isn't reducing the power sent to the load; the load is just using less power through the dimmer. That being said, even with a neutral connected, I still had problems like yours with one of my dimmers. I don't think I've noticed anything since using recent firmware, but I'm no longer able to test that in one of my rooms since I just rethought my setup to avoid that problem in the first place...
Hey @bertabcd1234,
are you on the latest firmware for the LZW31-SN?
Well, I'm not sure. I'm on LZW31-SN's un-numbered, 2020-10-01 driver version found on this page. Would the beta version that you pointed to fix this? If so, some pointers to install it would be greatly appreciated, since Step 5 on the instructions doesn't work: neither target 0 nor 1 show anything. And I can't really understand the instructions on how to install the newer "binary" version...
A recent one also added a "smart bulb mode" parameter to ensure that the dimmer is always at 100%
Sadly, I have this enabled, but it doesn't seem to help.
Also, do you have a neutral wire connected to the dimmer?
Yep.
The wattage you see, as you may know, is just a power report from the switch--the dimmer isn't reducing the power sent to the load; the load is just using less power through the dimmer
Ah! Didn't realize that! So it's garbage in, garbage out.
The firmware (on the switch) and the driver (on Hubitat) are two different things. If your switch is new-ish, I know they planned on putting more recent firmware on the latest batch, so yours might already be up-to-date. If it's older (before August or September or whenever the new batch came in?) or they didn't actually end up doing that, then you may need to update the firmware on the device. In step 4 of the instructions you linked to, you could use the "raw" URL (click the "Raw" button in GitHub first) from the binary version of the updater I posted, or just copy and paste the code into the editor and then, either way, save the code that should appear in step 5.
I'm not 100% sure that this will solve your problem, as it's possible you're already on the latest version. The updater can also retrieve the current version (1.47 and 1.48 should both be good, and possibly even older ones, but I'd recommend 1.48, especially if you have a model C-7 Hubitat and want to use S2 security--which this updater also won't work with, by the way, so you'd need to re-pair with all options unchecked). But the "smart bulb mode" setting in the driver won't work unless you're on a relatively recent version, and it can't hurt to check!
I'm currently on 1.47 and want to update to 1.48 what's the best way to update the firmware?
If you don't mind un-pairing and re-pairing, the external Z-Wave stick method is usually faster for me. But the community updater linked to above is pretty convenient and works for most devices (I have a couple stubborn devices that don't seem to like it as much; they won't start because it thinks they're sleeping, no matter how many times I try). However, as noted, it won't work with S2 at the moment, so if you've paired yours with that, you'll need to re-include them, anyway. But either way should work!
If you're already on 1.47, you don't even need to worry about using the "original" vs. "binary" updater on Hubitat, as the binary target does not have updated firmware in 1.48 compared to 1.47 (though it doesn't hurt to apply still if you're not sure). That used to be one limitation of the Hubitat updater for these particular devices, that it could only handle updating the first target.
As my wife says "You're constantly messing with things". I don't mind using an external stick. Thanks!
OH (facepalm). That explains a lot.
you could use the "raw" URL (click the "Raw" button in GitHub first) from the binary version of the updater I posted
OK, did this. Stay tuned to see if we have a winner!
UPDATE: Still having the color temperature snap-back issue like in this video, but I haven't seen issues yet where the bulb goes out. Might have fixed that one!
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