Awesome work! All this Tasmota stuff is new to me and I’m currently away at work so can’t do any testing but it looks like you have made great progress on it. It would be great to see if it all works and also if there is a way to convert your findings to ESPhome code
Thanks. That Brilliant in line dimmer seems a bit limiting. If I’m not mistaken it can only be controlled via wifi? In my mind that would just be the equivalent of using a smart bulb in that the physical switch would need to be on 100% of the time and control could only come from Home Assistant/mobile apps.
I’ve been toying with the idea of using smart globes but mounting some kind of wireless switch over the top of the physical switches. Eg Ikea Tradfri remote or similar.
What’s turning me away from this however, is that if the system was down then the lights also would not work. Compared to if I had a smart switch with ESPhome I could have some of the smarts built into the switch itself and still have manual control via the switch.
I’ve been grappling with this as well. I think the approach I’ll use is to replace my existing light switches with some smart wall switches running Tasmota, and then configure the switches so that they send an MQTT command to turn on the smart globes. I’ll also set it up so that a long-press on the wall switch actually triggers the relay in the wall switch and cuts the power to the smart globe, in case the MQTT server goes down.
I’ve done something similar with the button on a smart plug, to control another smart plug attached to a bathroom fan via MQTT: Update to smart plug rules for controlling bathroom fans manually
In some locations I have smart globes and leave the light switch on at all times. I then have Xiaomi wireless buttons mounted over the switch which I use to control the smart globe via various automations for ON/OFF/AUTO settings. If HA was to fail, I can simply use the light switch and the globes are set to turn ON after a power cycle (ie: if HA is down I can turn the switch OFF, then ON and the globe will come ON). My plan at some point is to hard-wire the switch ON in the wall and mount the Xiaomi button inside / behind the wall plate such that a momentary button on the plate switches the Xiaomi button. Obviously this would prevent me power cycling the globe easily…but…
Honestly this hasn’t been an issue for a long time now as HA has been really stable for me since…
a) I got a lot better at coding YAML without errors
b) I switched to a NUC
c) The config checker is / seems a lot better these days and I always do a check config before restarting HA
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This is the smart house lighting dilemma, combining dumb switches, “customer” expectations, the possibility of system outage/backup control. You can’t have everything.
However it is wrong to say that you cannot control a wifi dimmer other than by an app or the home assistant gui. A rotary encoder can do it. And they have a momentary switch too.
This is what I do and it is great, until someone (won’t name you, lets just call you daughter’s boyfriend) fiddles with the switch trying to do some last century manual thing…
Thanks guys.
I think the best plan for me will be to mount a wireless switch over the top of the physical switch. Maybe 3D print a magnetic mount/cover or something.
I’d like to retrofit some older lamps with smarts. Yes, I could use smart bulbs, but the problem is the existing switches will physically power off the globe, making it useless.
Instead, I am looking for something that will allow me to make the power button a ‘soft toggle’ rather than a hard power switch.
Some solutions exist like this: https://www.amazon.com/Pack-iDevices-Socket-Enabled-Required/dp/B01M72SCXO
Does anyone know of a product that’ll either allow me to convert, or re-wire lamps?
TIA.
Any smart switch. Just bypass the load and use detection of a switch press/toggle in HA to change the smart light state.
The only way I can think of would be a DIY approach… Nothing off-the-shelf
Thanks for the suggestion, but this will not pass with wife’s approval. It needs to have an integrated switch/button like a normal lamp.
I had suspected as much.
Thanks for the response.
Can anyone recommend any cheap motion sensors that we can use with Tasmota/ESPhome?
Yeah id love to get it on esphome too, it’ll need code changes to esphome to support it
If you used it in combination with a smart light switch and wired it after the switch I think it might work, there might be a short delay after the “switch” turns on before the dimmer device becomes available though.
The recent update of ESPhome includes a Tuya dimmer using the Tuya MCU… Not sure if that is of help for the fan controller
I dont believe so, there might be a way to send serial commands directly in esphome i havent had a look completly yet.
I’ve been fiddling with some of these AM312 PIR sensors. I haven’t really used them in anger yet, but I’ve put some details of what I did here: PIR Sensor with Wemos D1 Mini and Tasmota