Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer Review: The Ultimate Matter Light Switch?

After years of installing and reviewing smart light and dimmer switches, it's admittedly hard for me to get excited over the prospect of trying out a new offering. Sure, I love seeing new technologies like Matter and Thread being incorporated into a smart home essential, but with most light switches and dimmers performing the same basic functions, I haven't truly been "wowed" by their features alone in a long time.

I'm happy to say that this changed recently though, with the release of the Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer. With a robust feature set that goes beyond simple lighting controls, solid build quality, and excellent performance and reliability, Inovelli's dimmer switch is hands-down, my new favorite Matter smart home device.

Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer Unboxing and Design

Before we get into what wowed me, let's start with something that didn't quite impress me. With the Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer priced at $55 each, I was expecting a premium unboxing experience with loads of extras. Instead, Inovelli's dimmer only came with the basics: the switch, a neutral jumper wire, mounting screws, an instruction manual, and a setup guide.

The lack of an included wall plate is baffling, especially considering that other Matter-compatible light switches—like the significantly cheaper Tapo S505—come with one along with other nice-to-have items such as wire nuts and wiring labels. Thankfully, Inovelli bases their eight available color options—White, Almond, Light Almond, Ivory, Brown, Black, Grey, and Red—on Lutron's Claro Screwless Faceplates so tracking down a perfect match shouldn't be too hard.

Sticking with design, the front of the White Series Dimmer is primarily dominated by the aforementioned rocker paddle. The paddle slants outward near the top and bottom edges making it easy to identify where to press for quick toggling of the lights, and it provides plenty of travel which reinforces that you actually hit it in the right spot.

Underneath the rocker is a small air gap that can be pulled out to instantly kill power to the connected lighting load. Near the top-right of the rocker is a small configuration/favorites button that allows for assigning custom actions and for programming advanced switch parameters on-device (more on those two later).

Rounding out of the front is a skinny RGB LED light bar that acts as a locator light and status indicator for brightness levels. The LED light bar can also be used to show the status of other smart devices and is exposed as an entirely independent light when paired with platforms like Apple Home.

Finally, around the back are five wiring screw terminals—Line, Load, Neutral, Traveler, and Ground. Unlike most other smart light switches, the White Series Dimmer forgoes pre-attached wire leads in favor of a more traditional direct wiring scheme that helps to save space in cramped electrical boxes.

Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer Specs and Connectivity

For a smart switch, the Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer is surprisingly compact with the rocker paddle measuring just 2.8 inches tall x 1.6 inches wide and the overall depth coming in at 1.2 inches. The dimmer is of course for indoor use only as it doesn't sport any weather-resistance certifications and with safe operating temperatures only ranging from 32-95 degrees Fahrenheit.

Speaking of safety, the White Series Dimmer is FCC, IC, and UL-certified with the latter being a must when it comes to electrical devices. The White Series Dimmer is rated for lighting only, with support for up to 150-watt CFL, 300-watt LED, and 600-watt incandescent loads. 

The dimmer can be wired in single or multi-way configurations with or without a neutral line present, but non-neutral loads require a bypass adapter and a separate Inovelli Aux Switch for three-way setups. Inovelli's dimmer also features a Smart Bulb mode that allows it to provide constant power to connected lighting to prevent it from dropping off of the network when toggled off—a huge plus for fans of color lighting.

When it comes to wireless networking capabilities, the White Series Dimmer supports Matter-over-Thread connectivity. With Thread, Inovelli's switch connects directly to Matter without the need for a hub, account, or third-party app, but it does require an active Border Router setup with one of the major smart home ecosystems—Alexa, Google, Apple Home, SmartThings, or Home Assistant.

Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer Setup and Matter Multi-Admin

Without a required account or even an app to download, setting up the Inovelli White Series Dimmer was incredibly quick and easy. Once wiring was complete and power was restored, I only needed to scan the included Matter pairing code with my preferred platform—Apple Home—to get the process started.

After a few brief moments, the Apple Home app picked up the dimmer switch, connected it to my existing Thread network, added it to my home, and then became ready for name and room assignment. The entire process took less than a minute which was quite impressive, to say the least.

With Apple Home ready to go, I then moved on to other platforms via Matter's Multi-Admin functionality. First up was Google Home, which went smoothly with no issues encountered, but I will note that it did take slightly longer at right around two minutes total.

Next was Amazon's Alexa which, unfortunately, didn't go as expected. After pasting in the newly generated pairing code from Apple Home, the Alexa app got hung up while connecting to the dimmer resulting in a failed message after a few minutes had passed.

However, the issue didn't persist as I was able to get it paired by simple attempting the process again. I'm not sure what happened during the first attempt, but I have experienced similar issues—and generally less stable performance—with Alexa in the past so I don't put any blame on Inovelli's dimmer at all.

Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer Performance, Reliability, and Controls

As with other Thread-based smart devices in my home, the performance and reliability of the Inovelli White Series Dimmer have been excellent. I've had the dimmer switch installed in my kitchen for over a month now and it has been rock-solid with no disconnections, and it has always responded to remote commands and automation within a second or so regardless of platform.

My only qualms performance-wise with the Inovelli White Series Dimmer is that I find on-device dimming controls to be a little slow to take effect. Although pressing the rocker to toggle the connected lights on and off is instant—minus the fade-out effect—pressing and holding the paddle to adjust brightness has a short pause before it begins which makes me question whether or not it recognized the action at first.

Usually for my reviews, I place the most emphasis on reliability and performance, so I could just end it now by saying that the White Series Dimmer easily gets my recommendation as it meets my expectations. But what truly takes the Inovelli White Series Dimmer to another level is its customization and control options.

If you recall from earlier, I mentioned that the small Favorites button next to the rocker paddle supported custom actions. Through the Apple Home app, the Favorites button is treated just like any other Matter-compatible button and remote, so I was able to easily assign it to open and close my window blinds through single, double, and long presses.

I absolutely love that I no longer have to rely on a battery-powered button that sits awkwardly off to the side of my light switches to perform these actions. The large rocker paddle also supports these actions too, but I haven't found a use case for those as of yet—but I certainly enjoy having the flexibility to do so.

But wait there's more. The Favorites button is also used for programming a wide range of "power-user" type parameters. While I won't be naming each one—there are over 30—I do want to take a moment to highlight one: audible relay click.

As its name implies, the audible relay click setting allows you to disable the loud clicking noise that most smart light switches exhibit when controlling them remotely. All it takes is holding down the button paddle button and then pressing the Favorites button eight times and voila, no more annoying sound.

And last but not least, the independent LED indicator light on the switch being fully customizable is also a huge plus in my book. Currently, I have the indicator light set to relay the status of my alarm system to others—green for unarmed and red for armed. The switch placement in my home is one where you can't miss it when heading out the door, so we never have to wonder if we are accidentally going to set the alarm off.

Should You Buy the Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer?

If it wasn't clear by now, the Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer is absolutely the best Matter-compatible light switch on the market today. Not only does the White Series Dimmer support the latest technologies like Thread that make it incredibly responsive and reliable, but it also supports a ton of customization options with its programmable buttons, lights, and parameters.

Aside from the price, availability, and lack of an included wall plate, the only showstopper with the White Series Dimmer is that it only works with lighting loads. Inovelli is working on a White Series Smart Fan Switch that should be available soon, but I would have preferred to see the dimmer's on/off mode handle that internally so that it could truly be the one switch to rule them all.