Inovelli Blue Series mmWave Radar (Zigbee Human Presence Sensor and Smart Switch) crowdsourcing/crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo

FYI, Inovelli, a few days ago launched a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo for a combined no-neutral smart wall-switch and in-wall integrated/hidden millimeter wave (mmWave) sensor for detecting human presence/occupancy:

They specifically mention Home Assistant ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT compatibility on the campaign page.

As I understand they have given the product codename “Project Linus” in reference to the fact that their idea of making this product was originally inspired by a Tweet by Linus (the creator of Linus Tech Tips), and Linus of LTT fame himself also helped launch the campaign live in his WAN Show on YouTube, even though he is otherwise not affiliated with or sponsored by Inovelli, which by the fact that he just mentioned it of course still made the campaign on IndieGoGo blow up, and it raised over $130,000 US-dollars in pre-orderers during just the first 24-hours.

https://community.inovelli.com/uploads/short-url/gOd0Q8iHEMgjwgp7GDDegthTofO.pdf

Anyway, the product design and features look very cool on paper, however, seems like they might only be making a 110volt/120volt model in a form factor designed for in-wall junction box mounting for the United States/ North America market. There is at least no information about models for the European or Asia-Pacific markets as of yet?

In their first update post from the 3rd of April they mentioned internal talks about potential stretch goals, including perhaps a Z-Wave variant (which would make sense since Inovelli today already makes both Zigbee and Z-Wave series devices they these days call “BLUE SERIES” and “RED SERIES” respectively).

Since it will be based on Silicon Labs EFR32MG24 SoC chip they could technically also upgrade the firmware on the Zigbee variant to make it support the Thread protocol + Matter over Thread and/or HomeKit over Thread.

Also worth noting is that they make it out to be a combined crowdfunding campaign and crowdsourcing campaign as they are not only looking for funding, as they have not even made the device yet, so they are also asking for feedback on the features and functions that potential customers would want in such a product.

Btw, wondering why Inovelli has not yet joined the “Works with Home Assistant” partner program?

https://partner.home-assistant.io

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2022/07/12/partner-program/

Home Assistant’s Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA) integration already supports OTA firmware updates for Inovelli Zigbee devices, and Inovelli devs has also contributed ZHA Device Handlers (a.k.a. quirks):

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#ota-firmware-updates

https://github.com/zigpy/zha-device-handlers/blob/db3288dd0387331178b6b7d02a5558424aee6124/README.md

Looks like they’re going for the stretch goal and z-wave version. :grinning:

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