Elegant solution. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me.
Thank you for the advice!
I used to use something like this to add outdoor smarts, chucked it under my deck.
https://www.bunnings.com.au/excalibur-6-outlet-outdoor-safety-box_p4360215?gclid=Cj0KCQiA6Or_BRC_ARIsAPzuer8osI-RwECdLVnt7yh_Epp3PvC8atEGgUFCi8k6rneewJpogb7fMecaAnBqEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
Hi all,
I have a quick question about neutral wires in house wiring…
I am really unsure atm about how to go about setting our house up for smart lighting. We have a combination of LED and ‘regular’ light fittings, ranging from single to several two-way setups. The house wiring ranges from ~30 years old to very new (less than 12 months). I’ve taken off several lighting switch plates (with mains off) and I can see that there is definitely a neutral behind the switch panel, but (in all the cases I’ve looked at) the neutral is not actually wired into the switch itself. The switches themselves only have a red and white wire running to them.
Does this mean I’m pretty much stuck with having to use no-neutral smart switches and dimmers?
I’m not intending to do any of this myself, I just need to try and work out what hardware is best fro use
case.
Cheers, R
That’s fine. It’s normal for non-smart switches to only switch the active. What matters is whether there is a neutral wire there that a smart switch could be connected to.
Instead of installing the smart switches behind the switch plates, they could be installed in the ceiling (near the fittings) where there must be a neutral. As long the switch can connect to wifi, it doesn’t matter where it is with a neutral wire.
As long as your roof space does not exceed the environmental ratings of the device. Unfortunately monitoring my roof space revealed that the temperature sometimes exceeds the 40°C max temp rating of the Shelly 1.
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Does that include the temperature rise due to the heat generated by the measuring equipment? (with apologies to Dr Heisenberg 
)
I’ve minimised self heating to less than a degree. Unfortunately the limit was exceeded by more than that and summer has only just begun.
Exceeded briefly, perhaps not enough to worry about? Short exposure above the temp limit may be OK.
That’s a highly compressed time-scale. The visible excursions lasted 3 and 5 hours respectively.
I’ll wait and see what the rest of summer reveals but at the moment I am prepared to risk it.
Also care is a priority when the other option is burning down the house.
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Yeah, placement away from flammable materials will be a priority.
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Hi all, thanks for the information and advice. I can certainly put some of the Shelly’s in the ground floor roof space (which is the floor of of the second floor) but certainly the roofspace of the old part of the house will regularly exceed 40oC in summer.
I have a similar device with a Brilliant Smart multibox in it. Can switch up to four 240v loads, and four usb 5v loads. (Although the 240v sockets can be controlled individually, the USB are all controlled together).
Ah yes, one of the problems with Aussie home renovations is the disregard for proper insulation, including the roof. Double glazing, a R rating of at least 8, hopefully higher, and a leakage assessment should be mandatory, as well as banning dodgy builders and tradies.
The stranglehold on wiring be electricians must be removed. NZ has far fewer restrictions but the mortality rate from electrocutions is a lot lower. Being a nanny state (and pandering to militant unions) actually kills more people.
Older houses in Australia are the worst.
My ceiling is insulated well - now that I actually installed the batts. The installer just threw bags of batts up there and ripped off the previous owner. The tin roof over it however only has a foil backing. Single glazed windows - and heaps of big windows. External walls are brick, air gap, plywood, foil, insulation batts, then gyprock. Uninsulated floor between levels (now impossible, I’ve checked). Standard construction technique for two decades ago. It’s piss poor.
Other than double glazing, not sure there is much else I can do.
And I doubt that will do much in some areas. One of the worst rooms is the master bedroom. It’s windows are not facing the sun and they have tightly fitted foil backed double cell blinds yet it boils in summer and freezes in winter.
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Do you know which template you used to get the smart diffusers working with TuyaMCU?
External Blinds/Venetians/Louvres will stop the heat hitting the windows - will not do much in winter though!
We have a number of different external solutions - Vental Exterior Venetians for Westerly facing windows, somfy powered blinds on a couple of the Eastern facing windows - work pretty well.
Have you investigated pumping cellulose or expanding foam into the cavity in your walls ?
Craig
Hi Guys,
I am not happy with my Nue Zigbee Fan Light Controller as the difference between low and high is very small, that is, the low speed is too fast. Since I have a fan with a knocking noise I was going to replace it anyway and I have thought maybe a different route. Here is a new fan coming which uses Tuya. I am assuming I won’t be able to flash it OTA, correct me if I am wrong? (I have flashed plug in switches before so can do it)
Anyone with any experience of Tuya Local that could comment on the likelihood of me being able to get the fan to work with that? My quick read suggests that you need to get the local key for it and I just want to make sure that Tuya hasn’t changed somehting in their recent products to make that impossible?
Thanks in advance!
Tuya grab - localtuya key finder
Slightly easier way to grab the keys. You still have to do the iot.tuya setup part. I put a post a couple weeks ago with links for that in this thread. Should be easy enough to add to localtuya.