You will still have as much control over your lights with the Inovelli switches as you do now with non-Inovelli switches. Inovelli switches are still switches. Meaning that they can turn the load on and off just like your current switches do (assuming the same type of switch: regular vs. dimmer). You can put them in Smart Bulb Mode, where they detach the switch control from the load. But they aren’t forced to be that way, and do not come from the factory that way. So whether you’re using an Inovelli switch (that isn’t in Smart Bulb Mode) or your current switch, they’re going to turn off the load the same when you press turn them off (with caveats about dimmers and the way they control loads vs. the way a regular switch controls loads). But you’d have routers that are on all the time, which should make the network more stable.
If you do put the Inovelli switches in Smart Bulb Mode, you would want to bind the switches to the lights/groups of lights. That way, even if the network is still busted, the switches will control the lights directly. Bindings (can? do?) bypass the mesh, so it shouldn’t matter if some light isn’t meshing with others (as long as the switch can directly connect to the light).
What I’d do if I were in your situation is:
- First, peruse Zigbee network optimization: a how-to guide for avoiding radio frequency interference + adding Zigbee Router devices (repeaters/extenders) to get a stable Zigbee network mesh with best possible range and coverage by fully utilizing Zigbee mesh networking, if you haven’t already. It’s long, but for this sort of diagnosis, the information is useful.
- Then add a couple of Inovelli switches following @dproffer’s layout suggestion.
You might have to re-pair the some lights. Or if you change channels you might have to re-pair everything. It’s unfun, but I’d imagine it’s less unfun than having 55 lights installed that you can’t fully control.
My anecdote about the Philips Hue Gos was supposed to provide more credence that sometimes Zigbee doesn’t work the way it seems like it should. Here’s another one.
I had a Sonoff SWV set up. It worked fine, reported properly, was able to be controlled. I installed a second Sonoff SWV less than a foot away from it, both of them started having problems. The first one that worked fine minutes before would drop off the network regularly. A friend suggested adding more routers, which I thought would be a waste of money. I thought, “Why would a perfectly working device fail when I added another one next to it? Surely there’s something else wrong.” I struggled trying to sort it out for a few weeks before getting another router. They were right! I added a router a few feet away, and both started working reliably. Neither Sonoff SWV has dropped off the network since (that I can tell, anyway).
Much like my other anecdote, this isn’t to say that everything is going to behave like this. And I fully understand that I’m talking about two end devices, not 55 routers. But the anecdote is only to say that Zigbee doesn’t always behave the way it seems like it should.
It’s entirely possible that your lights are fine, and power cycling them isn’t the problem. But it’s also entirely possible that power cycling them is exactly the problem. We don’t know what logic Philips put into the firmware of these lights. Maybe when they’re power cycled they take a long time to change topology after coming back on-line? Maybe they act light end devices for 48 hours after coming back on-line, and don’t router for the other devices? Maybe they do something else? Without a stable mesh, it’s hard to diagnose.
