That makes sense, is it possible to centralise the lighting control by cabling every light switch via CAT-6 ? - This would mean that all lighting circuits would have to come to a central relay matrix that is controlled by HA, is that right?
I do like what @exx suggested: Light switches should continue to work when the automation system is down.
Another problem is that most WiFi devices are set up to use the manufacturer’s cloud servers. You have no control over how reliable their servers are. Manufacturers have been known to change their firmware and APIs, forcing more work on you. They’ve been known to start charging for formerly free services. And they’ve been known to simply go out of business. Not something I’d want to offer a paying customer.
How does one solve that? Is it possible to prevent this from happening?
Which brings me to my last point: TP-Link and Kasa. These are an ongoing source of frustration for users here (just search the forum.) TP-Link used to support local control, but over the past few years they’ve introduced firmware updates which have been slowly eroding this. Just the other day I was reading a post by a HA user who inadvertently lost the blocking they’d set up for all their TP-Link devices and they got firmware updates. Now they keep rebooting because they can’t “phone home” to the vendor’s server.
This is worrying. I have access to and would use UniFi switches and APs. I prefer running cables (CAT-6) to every device in new builds. However for retro-fits, one has to work with wireless solutions.