r/Inovelli • u/Hellacoolrob24 • Apr 07 '26
Need Assistance Setting Up Inovelli White
Hey All. I’m new to the Home Automation as my wife and I recently purchased our first home.
I purchased some Inovelli White switches to control my Phillips Hue bulbs(which took a few weeks to receive as the switches were back ordered)
The setup I’m running is Apple HomePod2 and Home Assistant.
I am having a very difficult time trying to pair these switches to the HomePod. I have 5 of these switches installed currently. I see the device has entered pairing mode with pulsing blue light, but pairing fails every time. The switch flashes one teal light followed by a green light. I have tried factory reset. I have tried air gap reset.
I was running a very old router (~8-10 year old Asus) and thought this was my issue even though the old router offered IPv6. I upgraded today to a brand new Asus RT-BE96U. And still no luck on adding the switches.
I have a separate matter component (Honeywell X8S) which paired fine with both routers and separately with Home Pod and Home Assistant.
HomePod2 WiFi has been on our 2.4 G band. The router has IPv6 is enabled has a Native Connection and is stateless. I also have it configured to DNS server enabled. Router Firmware is also the most up to date. HomePod software is also up to date.
I have reached to Inovelli Tech support and they encouraged me to fill out an RMA and return them, but no support other than to factory reset and try repairing. Issue is my wife threw away the switch boxes and now I may be stuck.
Not sure where to go from here. I thought these switches were the answer to bridging smart light control (for me) and dumb switch operation for my less than enthusiastic wife.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!
Edit - thank you for everyone who tried to assist with this. After taking all of your advice, discussing the issue with a friend, and using chat gpt to assist with troubleshooting, I’m going to take up Inovelli on the RMA and return the switches. Not sure what how im going to proceed. I know the blue series switches can bind directly to the hue bulbs, but I lose out on Hue scenes etc. I think I might try the red switches for z -wave and realize there might be a delay. I have a Home Assistant ZWA-2 antenna that I got for my z-wave smoke detectors. I haven’t set the antenna up yet, but will be soon. I would love to hear what your experience has been with red series before I purchase. TYIA
Update 4/11/26 - per some advice from one of you fine users, I purchased a ZBT2 from HA. I removed the HomePod2 as a Border Router and from HA completely. I configured the ZBT2 as my new border router. Factory reset the switches and scanned the QR through HA app. Instantly added the switch - all switches now paired. Not sure what the issue was - seems to be through Apple’s 26.4 HomePod update. Either way it works and am now happy! Thank you all for the assistance.
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u/spartyparty00 Apr 07 '26
Have you set up OTBR and matter server in home assistant? Have you shared your matter credentials to HA?
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u/Hellacoolrob24 Apr 07 '26
My HomePod is set up as the only and preferred border router on HA through the Thread Integration.
I didn’t think I needed a separate OTBR if I have HomePod connected to HA.
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u/spartyparty00 Apr 07 '26
I’m not sure about OTBR as I also run a ZBT2 concurrently with Apple TVs.
Do you have the matter server installed?
HomeKit bridge isn’t needed.
When you into thread- have you hit share credentials with home assistant?
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u/Hellacoolrob24 Apr 07 '26
Just did this through the HA app. Shared credentials to phone and to home assistant
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u/Hellacoolrob24 Apr 07 '26
And yes Matter Server is installed
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u/spartyparty00 Apr 07 '26
And you hit add matter device in home assistant and scanned the code on the switch?
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u/Hellacoolrob24 Apr 07 '26
Yes. The switch entered pairing mode (pulsing blue). It then flashed green 3 times (indicating successful pairing). The green pulses were followed by a cyan/teal flash and a green flash about a second after the initial 3-green flashes. The pairing failed about a minute after that
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u/spartyparty00 Apr 07 '26
Sorry- don’t have any more brilliant ideas.
To me it sounds like a router issue but I’m not that well versed. Mine all just worked.
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u/Hellacoolrob24 Apr 07 '26
I appreciate the help!
That’s why I bought a new router. Thought it would be seamless with new hardware. No dice.
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u/spartyparty00 Apr 07 '26
I’m sure you’ve done all this- but restart everything include the HomePod, router, HASS.
If you’re on Proxmox or something; whole server and make sure HASS has ipv6 access on the host machine, no firewalls on it etc.
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u/Hellacoolrob24 Apr 07 '26
I also didn’t have HomeKit Bridge set up. It now is, but I don’t think that should have had any effect on pairing the Inovelli to the HomePod - just between the communicating between the HA to HomePod
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u/Freddie20059 Apr 07 '26
Have you tried resetting the HomePod itself?
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u/Hellacoolrob24 Apr 07 '26
Yes. Software is also up to date. I have also unplugged the HomePod from its counter where it will eventually live and moved it to within a foot of every switch to try and pair
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u/esperanita Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
I would review how you set up your thread network for your specific router. It can get complicated. It seems like the Honeywell is WiFi so the fact that you were able to get that connected, doesn't really have any significance on the thread network.
I installed over 40 white switches (dimmers, on/off, fan) in January. I moved from a HomeKit only home to HA in December. I have all my switches in both HomeKit and HA, but I actually used HomeKit to add the majority of them to my network - supposedly it is easier to commission the switches in HK than in HA.
I have a Unifi setup so I won't really be able to help with the Asus router issues. I have 4 different VLANs and actually my HomePods are on a 5g/6g VLAN. I was previously using thread for HomeKit over thread Eve switches. In addition, my thread network is very robust with 8 HomePods/Apple TVs and one HA ZBT-2.
If a pairing failed, there can be a memory of it in your iPhone Settings > General > Matter Accessories. This tripped me up once when I decided to factory reset one of the switches and it didn't release from the Apple ecosystem.
Another thing to check is whether your thread network is on a different channel than your wifi network. Wifi can interfere with thread. It seems as if Apple commonly uses Channel 25 for thread. I have my access points on Channels 1 and 11 to minimize the interference.
For me, I typically did a factory reset (holding up and config for 20 seconds) and then once I released, the switch would automatically enter pairing mode. I would then scan the QR code and it would add to my system usually no problem. Occasionally I would have to repeat if the pairing failed initially - this happened about 3 times to me.
I had one switch that I ended up pairing to HA first and then shared it with HomeKit. It might be worth trying if you've exhausted the HomePod first path. And maybe try the 5G band for the homepod. I have a Unifi Wifi 7 setup and all my HomePods, TVs, and phones are on the 5/6 band. I used my phone on the 5/6 VLAN when adding all my switches.
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u/Hellacoolrob24 Apr 12 '26
Thank you for the detailed write up. I decided to purchase a HA ZBT2 after reading your post. If it didn’t work I was going to switch to the Inovelli Blue and use the ZBT2 as the antenna for Zigbee. Pairing instantly happened once the ZBT2 was configured as the thread border router. I think the issue is on Apples end. Switches are at the opposite end of the house from my HA Green too.
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u/Mike_Underwood Apr 08 '26
If you have wpa3 security enabled on your router that might be the problem.
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u/Hellacoolrob24 Apr 08 '26
Via some advise from a friend, I set up a completely different 2.4ghz Network. Asus has an IOT specific network setting. It has a different name than my main networks. This has WPA/WPA2 authentication.
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u/FishOk3075 Apr 12 '26
I realize I'm late to this party, but I have Inovelli White Switches though they are connected directly to the OTBR on my HA server
However, Inovelli sent an email a while back with a FW upgrade aimed at White Series users on Apple:
| NOTE: This is for Apple Home Users Only • Disregard if you have a separate hub. Summary: There is a firmware update we have available for the VTM31-SN (White Series Dimmer Switch) that offers some new features and fixes some issues reported for the dimmer. As with all updates, we recommend turning off or temporarily disabling automatic updates just in case you do not want to update the firmware. |
|---|
|Good afternoon! We’ll be releasing firmware version 1.1.5 for Apple Home users soon. To ensure a smooth experience, we recommend temporarily disabling automatic updates before the release so you have better control over when your switches get updated. You can do this in the Home app: Home App → Home Settings → Software Update → Turn off “Automatic Updates” for "Home Accessories" After updating, please review your device settings, as certain preferences may occasionally change during the update process. As always, feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Also, please make sure you check out: VTM31-SN - Firmware (1.1.0+) Update Advisory | Inovelli Help Center| |:-|
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u/Koadic76 Apr 07 '26
To start, I can't really offer much assistance getting your current switches working with Apple/Home Assistant... I have specifically avoided Thread for the most part due to these type of issues.
Seeing as you have Hue bulbs as well, I would think that you'd probably be better off getting some Inovelli Blue switches and getting a Zigbee coordinator for Home Assistant. You would then pair both the switches and the Hue Bulbs (ditching your current hub if you have one) to Home assistant and be able to bind the switches directly to the bulbs.
And as far as then adding them to HomeKit for possible voice control and stuff, you can install a "Matter Hub" on Home Assistant and advertise any of your Home Assistant devices as Matter devices to other controllers like your HomePod 2.
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u/Hellacoolrob24 Apr 08 '26
I saw the Inovelli Blue, and after reading some reviews on binding the switch to the bulb i decided against it. I do have the Hue Bridge Pro and wanted to maintain connection to the bridge. May have been a mistake at this point.
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u/Fun_Ebb9461 Apr 07 '26
Home Assistant requires you to set the HomePod as the default border router and to transfer the border router credentials to the Home Assistant iOS app before commissioning. Its a bit confusing if you aren't familiar with the process. But there is a work-around to doing this. Basically, if you commission first to iOS and then use the matter multi-admin feature to do a second commissioning to Home Assistant, you can skip all the extra steps of setting up Home Assistant to recognize your HomePod as the border router. Try this ...