I have an RF light switch and a smart light bulb in the same room.
The RF switches work fine with dumb light bulbs but with the smart bulb, if i turn it off from the app or HA, then turn it back on, the RF switch turns the light off again.
I contacted the company i bought the switch from and they sent me a free capacitor and instructions (image below)
But the instructions aren’t very clear and I have no idea what I am doing or where to install this, I have been told by the company that it “installs on the light”
Does anyone know how and where to install this please? If it’s out of my reach I am happy to get an electrician, but would still like to know the work that is involved.
Instructions are clear. If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t do it and get a professional to do it.
You’re playing with electricity, which means you’re playing with your life or that of others if it’s not wired correctly.
Sorry I know it’s not the help you were after, but you need to be aware of what you’re doing and the consequences.
Of course and I have said i am happy to get an electrician, but i would like to know the work involved. Is this a 5 minute job that would cost me £60 or will it take a couple of hours and cost hundreds
Also, not that i’m an electrician, but i dont think this capacitor will fix your on/off issue.
It seems like something else is forcing your lights off.
I might be (and probably am) wrong, but, i dont see how this capacitor will fix your problem.
It’s because when the light is off from the app, it doesn’t draw very much power, so the switch thinks the light is off, and sets itself to off.
When the light is turned on from the app, the switch doesn’t know what to, throws an hissy and turns on then back off again, when it turns off, obviously it kills the mains power to the light, very annoying.
From my understanding, the capacitor feeds back enough power to the switch to keep it awake, untill i manually turn it off.
Edit:
I explained the above to the company who sells the switches and they said this would solve the problem.
They also sell dimmer switch versions, i asked if a dimmer RF switch would work better, they didn’t seem to think it would.
Well, as i said, im no electrician, but what you say sounds reasonable.
It is indeed an easy instalation, you need to install them in a parallel way, but if you are uncomfortable figuring this out from the instructions maybe it’s better to call an electrician and keep your health safe
I have to install this kind of capacitor back in the days when I had livovo RF switches. I also had dumb led bulbs and after a few minutes off they started to flash and was kind spooky! I guess you dont have neutral in the switch/wall right? Anyway, I installed the capacitors and was easy.Turn of the fuse, pull the fixture and connect the capacitor like the drawing near the bulb socket. One wire on the live coming from the wall and the other on the neutral coming from the ceiling.
But… Been there, done that. IMHO RF switches are not worthy the hassle and you already have a smart bulb right? If your switch is like my old ones, they dont report state back to HA. You will not be able to use your smart bulb if the switch is off. So your real problem is having something to push and control the bulb. I do that putting xiaomi wireless buttons above the dumb switch. You find other options in the forum like sonoffs/Shelly, tradrifi, hue tap and even RF buttons.
I have other RF Switches with dumb light and that works pretty well for me.
The original light switches were looking a bit dingy and non of them matched, so i wanted to “upgrade” all of the existing light switches and have them match. So that was the reason for keeping the same style light switch in the room with the smart bulb.
So I don’t really want extra non-matching switches (I know this would be much easier)
Not reporting states to HA isn’t really a problem, as I only have automations to turn them off and use voice Control to turn them on.
I have come up with a solution for the HA state for the RF switch + Smart bulb.
If the smart bulb is turned off at the switch, the state in HA is “unavailable” so I have a node red flow when I turn on the light, that goes,
