So I just got a bunch of zigbee scene switches, and every last one of em is slow to respond to a single button press, as expected. Because all of them, for some reason, add double click and hold functionality, they implement a delay before sending out the initial command, and the difference is noticeable.
What I’m looking for is:
Must haves
Scene switch with 2 buttons, that looks like a normal light switch
Initial press is sent immediately, I do not care about double or hold presses.
Zigbee, Matter, or other protocol that is local (no cloud)
EU available and compatible
Strong preference
able to put into wall and therefore also able to cut off power there manually. (this is a must if it’s in the wall of course)
I’ve heard about the inovelli switches, which I think are up my alley, just not available in the EU yet, correct?
My ideal would be a two front button wall switch, where the front buttons are zigbee with initial press (down) sent immediately, and a tiny button, semi-hidden on the side or so that can cut the power as a normal switch would.
Anything like that out there? Just out of interest, feel free to post non EU recommendations too (please mention it though, don’t want to get my hopes up :))
One possibility that I’d like to know more about is the Aqara S1E, the biggest downside there is that there’s no physical button to turn off the power. If the screen gets damaged…
Might be my fallback option if there’s nothing better suited out there.
So how it works with this things, is that a delay needs to be implemented to know the difference between a single and a double press.
And I haven’t seen any initial down event from any of these switches in the logs unfortunately. Only fires the button short press event once the timer for the double press has passed.
Check out the inovelli switches, you can adjust or even eliminate that delay in those.
And by zigbee scene switch, I mean a switch for scenes as opposed to a switch for light, like the smart wall switches. Scene switches are just buttons that fire an event via zigbee or so, and smart switches just allow the power to be flipped.
Tasmota (local WiFi) switches have a configurable click period, SetOption32 I think. I have several I’ve reprogrammed single-click to control smart bulbs and double-click to toggle the relay, completely independent of HA, and have never noticed a delay or lag. Not sure if one of these is something you had in mind though.
Hm that’s interesting, so you can configure a single press to just an event? Not a fan that it would still require a delay for a double press, but if you can configure the click period, setting it very low could actually be a decent solution. I’ll check into this more, thanks.
I have a feeling the recently launched Aqara H2EU will do all you want:
Despite the look, one of the buttons (bottom) is a scene switch, while the other (top) controls the relay directly (but can be set to decoupled mode just like a scene switch).
They have a multi-click option which you can switch off for instant response if you don’t want double click & hold.
EDIT: Forgot to add - there’s a “2-gang” version, with 2 scene switches & 2 relays too
I deployed this ones everywhere in and around the house. Went with the 3-way version (around $5 on ali) and installed espHome on them (some newer ones feature some beken chips incompatible with tasmot but working perfectly with esphome).
Usually I have two or three actions per button, but unlike described by the OP they don’t have any delays. From my experience with Z-technology it can have some visible/noticable lag maybe just bandwith limitations (triggering group of lights for example).
Also when you opt in for full ownership (like espHome) no limitations on the toggle/button actions exists and you can also do double/tripple click stuff (instead of longer click for example) which are usually executed quicker as no “holding” time is necessary.
Oh you’ve tried the different ones on aliexpress? Excellent, I was already looking at those. Where did you find 5$ ones though? please share! haha
That sounds pretty much what I want, aside from the power switch not being off to the side / smaller.
edit:
Wait, did you flash the tuya wifi ones, not matter? those are cheaper indeed, but I didn’t consider them of course, since they’re, well, tuya wifi haha.
Thanks for the heads up! How easy is it to flash these tuya wifi versions of the switch?
Hm, so I’m guessing these are the DS-102.
ESPHome says the versions now after may 2022 aren’t compatible anymore though, since they use a WB3S chip (BK7231T).
I don’t know about flashing these things though, new to home automation, does that mean they’re a no go for what I want to do now, or are there alternative flashing options or?
It actually wasn’t supported for a short period of time but esphome meanwhile got support for beken and realtek chips included the mentioned one.
Well, flashing isn’t something really difficult (still cumbersome for the first time), essentially getting a $2 serial-usb adapter and connect 5 wires to the ESP/Beken/… chip. Good to know is that the TX/RX pins need to be crossed - the rest of the lifting is already included in espHome
The mentioned DS-102 is very easy to disassemble and for flashing I just hold the wires in place (other people like to solder), one or two helping hands get the job done in few minutes
amazing, some work but seems like a great option. with some discount I can get enough for my whole place at a reasonable price. might actually go for this, diving deeper now
So I looked up a bit on how to flash the BK7231T ones, closest to the DS-102 that I found is this here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb3zXtBdSnE A different switch of course, but I haven’t found any post 2022 BK7231T DS102 instructions directly so far.
My concern is that on each of these so far, there’s some desoldering of some parts required. Just to check, have you done the flashing on the DS-102 with the BK7231T chip, or do you know if someone posted about this?
Did a little digging and seems that these switches are produced by Ledeast, so I contacted them. Currently the switches are produced using the BK7231N chip. So seems like the digiblur walkthrough with that switch will be very useful.
Decided to give it a shot and buy a set of those switches last night, before the anniversary sale ended on aliexpress.
Should arrive next week sometime
Thanks for the recommend @peterxian and @orange-assistant I’ll be posting my flashing experience when I get to it.
