Hello,
Would anybody be able to share their experiences in creating a central “switch board” (e.g., with zbmini) while keeping non-smart light switches? (Ideally with hardware available in the UK.)
The wiring in our house has many 2-gang switches, with various “layers” of wiring, and is not current. So we will get the house rewired. How do we do this, so that we can have smart switching?
Obviously I could just replace switches with smart switches. However, there’s a very limited choice of colours, and also I’m concerned that technologies may go out of date, meaning changing switches.
We have maybe about five groups of lights that we’d want to put under central control. These (groups of) lights are lights in the hallway (front light, back light), landing (2 lights) and bathroom (downlight), as well as some outdoor lights. If the system works well, we could add the kitchen and living room as well, bringing the groups to about 10.
Idea 1.
Run power to the lights from e.g. a set of zbmini-l (which can be rail mounted), and then run from some physical light switches to the control ports of the zbmini. Each light group has a “primary” / physical switch, which goes into the zbmini.
I then need to read the state of other physical switches, e.g. using a raspberry pi gpio, and can then use these to control the zbmini.
Idea 2.
Do I need the zbmini at all? What if I read the state of all physical switches e.g. using raspberry pi gpio. Then I have a set of wired relays that can switch 240v/6A? I have looked at this before, but couldn’t find easy-to-use / certified suitable relays. However, there must be some, and I’d appreciate any tips.
Finally, has anybody out in a “manual override”, e.g. put in three state (1/2/off) switches as part of a switch board where 1=manual on (bypass Hass), off=manual off (bypass Hass) and 2=Hass control? Then if Hass or the automation circuitry failed, you would be able to temporarily switch manually from the central switchboard.
Any tips and ideas will be greatly appreciated!
Many thanks!
Björn