Battery-powered push buttons

Hardware
1

Hi all,
I’m just looking for some battery-powered push buttons which I can just stick to the wall and click, so I don’t always have to use my phone for some things.

Regarding ecosystem, I’m still relatively unbound, so I don’t have Zigbee, Z-Wave or something else in my home, yet. But I think that would make sense, because WiFi is probably not very battery-friendly or slow if you put it to deep sleep and it has to reconnect on every button press. I first thought about building something myself with an ESP32, but discarded the idea for this reason. But maybe I’m completely misestimating WiFi for this use case so please correct me if I’m wrong.

So, I’m currently looking into existing solutions, but I’m a bit overwhelmed by the amount of different systems available and it’s not quite clear to me which ones are compatible with each other and which ones work well with HA.

From the looks, I actually like these from sonoff, but I’m not sure if it is possible to integrate them into HA.The page just lists some other sonoff switches which are compatible, but no hub or something to connect them to HA.

Bonus, but no must-have

I do still have a bunch of very old 433 MHz plugs which I still use and also connected to HA in a quite complicated way. To elaborate on how I integrated them (it’s a bit historically grown from 10 years ago). I have a FS1000A type OOK 433 MHz transmitter module which is attached via GPIOs to a Raspberry Pi to send the On/Off signals (just playback of recorded remote control signals) to the plugs. The plugs themselves do not send an answer, and since they are also occasionally switched from a remote control, I never know their current state. The key sending can be triggered by a REST interface I wrote and integrated with buttons in HA. Looks like this in HA

image
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So the chain of events is

  • Press button in HA App
  • Trigger HTTP call on Raspi
  • Send out recorded signals from Raspi

So if that could be simplified by removing the Raspi from that chain, that would be a bonus, but no must-have as it actually works quite reliably.

What would be your suggestions for starting with an ecosystem? For now, I just want some wall plugs, but extensibility is nice of course. Features I would like of the system. Trade-offs can be made to some degree.

  • Integration into HA
  • Good reliability
  • Fast reaction time
  • Long battery life
  • Cheap price

Thanks for your suggestions!

2

Those Sonoff RF2 buttons can be integrated in HA with a Sonoff RF bridge flashed with Tasmota, Openmqttgateway or EspHome.

3

I cannot find anything about Sonoff RF2 buttons. Could you please clarify what you mean by that? All I could find was RFR2 and that seems to be switches for direct installation in the wall.

I will read up a bit on the hubs you send, thanks for that

4

These work well for me, but are zigbee. They also come in 1 or 2 band versions.

5

I like these Z-wave wall remotes because I can put a switch plate around them to look classy, or take it off the wall (it’s magnetic) if I need it closer. They’re also rechargeable. I think I got mine for about half price during a Zooz sale.

6

I went the Zigbee path and got the following Zigbee dongle and setup it up with Zigbee2MQTT:

I then got the following from IKEA and paired them to my Zigbee network:

The Tretakt plugs also work as routers to extend your Zigbee mesh network.

I also got one of these 4 way switches and it works well:

7

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think, I’ll start with a Zigbee as it seems to be very wide spread with good support. Also, I like to just plug in a USB dongle that works without having to flash something.

However, I’m still interested in the 433 MHz option and might do that additionally once I get the Zigbee stuff working. So, the way I understood it, there’s no USB dongle, but I would have to get a bridge essentially connecting the 433 MHz devices to WiFi. And this bridge would have to be flashed with some other firmware. However, the newer hardware versions are not well supported for flashing them, as I read. It all seems like a pretty complicated solution. @francisp could you please explain a bit more what you have written above? By RF2 buttons, do you mean the ones I linked above? And is the Sonoff RF bridge the only way to connect them to HA or is there an alternative (potentially easier) way?

8

I think I did not look good. I thought it were these

And you don’t even need to flash the bridge if you use alexxit’s SonoffLan integration. (But mine are flashed with OpenMQTTGateway)

9

Yes, I think, they are the ones I linked above. So these work with the bridge? I’m just unsure because it’s not listed as compatible:

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Thanks, that sounds good!

10

It is a 433.92MHz RF remote control, and it is compatible with all Sonoff products with 433MHz RF function, such as Sonoff TX, RFR2/RF3, 4CHPROR2/R3, SlampherR2, and so on…

With these products, you can control e.g. a Sonoff RFR2 directly, without HA or Sonoff App.

With the bridge, it goes indirect, though HA. In HA, you receive an event, and that you can use to do anything.

11

Okay, so the bridge would pick up the signal when I click the button on the switch and pass it to HA via WiFi. And from there, HA can do anything.

Does it also work the other way round, i.e. HA sending signals to 433 MHz devices via the bridge?

12

Yes it can

13

For 433mhz see https://docs.openmqttgateway.com/

14

Thanks for the hints regarding 433 MHz radio. I settled for the Zigbee solution for now, which based on a few short tests works reliably. However, my compulsion to try out new things makes me want to play with the OpenMQTTGateway. Unfortunately, the docs seem a bit abandoned - dead links, little text on the RF gateway setup. I still have a few ESP32’s, a CC1101 and 2 pairs of FS1000A / MX-RM-5V lying around, so I guess, I’ll just try out a few things with them to see what I can achieve. However, a few general questions beforehand.

  • @francisp you mentioned above with OpenMQTTGateway, I could send and receive. That means, I could not use the RTL_433 protocol, right? What did you have in mind there?
  • Is it possible to activate multiple protocols or would I need to build multiple adapters for that?
15

Openmqttgateway converts between 433 mhz and mqtt. Mqtt interfaces well with home assistant. And one gateway can serve multiple protocols.

16

kinetic
kinetic698×649 154 KB

If there was just some way to use kinetic switches

17

Thanks for that! I got some of these, but did not manage to connect them to HA. They are not recognized by OpenMQTTGateway. Did you manage to use them with HA? If so, I would be thankful for a hint how :slight_smile:

18

Sadly not so far. There was a youtube video but I haven’t tried to copy it yet.

19

Just fyi, I managed to get these buttons working. Unfortunately, it does not work with OMG, but they work with the original rtl_433 lib and an RTL dongle.

20

Indeed, I actually have that RF bridge, but flashing it seems really complicated and requires a USB-to-serial cable. On top of that, it adds another device that consumes power.