I am having a hard time googling what would be the design of a DIY solution for light dimming that has a physical/on the wall dimmer knob and also works with dimming from HA, without storing state on the knob level.
I guess this would be straight forward if the dimming knob stores “state” and connects to HA with WiFI/Zigbee etc.
But I’m thinking about an “infinite” rotating wheel on the wall that just sends the movement information to HA/a central system (that stores state) and based on +/- rotation it dims on or off. This would obviously also work from a phone.
This kind of design makes sense to me but I just don’t know what to Google to find some video or tutorial of someone doing this.
(my issue is not related to a PWM board that would power LEDs, but rather the control side of things, where the physical dimmer should be “digital”, just like a digital push button, that is, not store state, but just communicate rotation direction to a state-storing system),
Just buy one component rotary encoder and a blank faceplate to the wall.
That is your start, add a voltage regulator and an ESP and your pretty much done.
Just keep in mind you need some extra enclosure between the mains wires and the components, so gluing a box on the back of the blank faceplate is probably a good solution.
But a rotary encoder for DIY purpose that has a ready made “shell”, I don’t think that exist.
Perhaps if you buy a non smart dimmer and strip out all the stuff you don’t need.
Just make sure it has a rotary encoder inside.
And what do you think about this design where automation is completely wired:
have rotary incremental encoders on wall for light dimming
use one ESP32 board per room/floor (whichever makes sense) and “read” the rotary physical rotation from ESP32
use @pilotak’s Ethernet IO board with that ESP32 to control light switches, read temperature sensor, control blinds etc. etc.
connect all ESP32+ethernet boards to an ethernet switches and to the HA server
And the system should be designed to work with physical in-room controls even if HA server is down.
While controlling stuff from your phone will need the HA server up.
But given that you only need two pins for a typical rotary encoder a ESP32 is probably overkill, 8266 is probably enough. (Unless you want to use the devices for room presence also)
But perhaps I have misunderstood the concept of that device and it needs a 32.
ESP32 is not needed, indeed, it just the newer and more powerful model. I think ESP8266 and ESP32 price is about the same. And since it controls lots of things, extra CPU power would be useful for future extensions.
