EU style Zigbee (and others) wallswitch cover

Farnsworth · January 25, 2019, 3:20pm

Behold everyone!

So, I was away from my house when I wanted to show off my newly configured Telegram bot that tells me what lights are on at home (also it lets me control them), when I realized that once again my Bedroom light (Philips Hue) was unavailable.

“Preposterous!” I thought to my self, since that light actually has its own Hue Dimmer switch, because I often manually turn it on and off.

I excessively pondered about the cause of this absurd behaviour and came to the conclusion, that since I life alone, it must have been me who carelessly turned off the wall switch once again, rendering the carefully selected and installed lights, automations and scripts completely pointelss.

So I developed a devide that lets you use your wireless zigbee switches on top of the wall switches in your house.

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This is an Instruction for EU style wall switches (since there are already many instructions for similar projects for US and UK switches)

The problem right now is, that you always have one very conveniently placed wall switch next to the door of a room. Up until now that was great.
However, with Zigbee (and other wireless) devices you don’t really need these switches any more on a day to day basis, but if you still want to manually controll your lights, you had to find another place for that wireless switch. Often (like in my case) people put those switches on the doorframe right next to the wallswitch. Which might not be very confusing, but I like to pretend that I’m not the only one who regularly reaches for the wrong switch of those two.

So my goal was to put the wireless switch where the old one was, but still keep the option to quickly turn off the power of that lamp (for changing light bulbs or something like that) - I just wouldn’t feel good simply shorting the wires in the wall with no option (but unplugging the fuse) to turn them off.

This is the initial situation:

On the right the original Wall Switch and on the left the magnetic Philips Hue Dimmer Switch

And this is the TEMPORARY end result

There’s a lot of room for improvements, but for what little tools I had at home, I think it worked out decent enought to give an impression of what could be possible.
(btw: it looks a lot better in real life)

And this is how it looks under the dimmer switch.

There is a little switch so you can still turn off the power

Here is what you need to build it yourself:

A regular wall switch (this model is pretty much the cheapest there is at 3,39€ and has a great feature we will see later)
acryllic glass
a rocker switch (make sure it’s suitable for 250V and enough A for your lights)
The zigbee switch you want to use - in this case ignore the Aqara one - it’s for the next project
Not in the picture:
a couple of suitable wires (make sure you use the right colours - I didn’t, I know)
a terminal block (or something similar)
Hot glue (for now I used double sided tape untill I find my glue gun)
felt-strips
tools (saw, electrical screwdriver, wirecutter, etc)

1.)

Prepare the Wall Switch:

Just remove the plastic Switch cover and that metal frame thingy

Now push out the actual switch by pressing these four hooks and pushing it back

If you have done everything correctly you should now have the bare metal frame with only these precious metal hooks that you mount the switch in the wall with

Notice these two little metal “noses”?! Bend them flat

like this, but BE CAREFUL - they seem like they break easily if you over-bend them

2.)

Now it’s time to prepare the Rocker Switch we are going to use

Depending on the type you have, either solder two short wires to it like I did (please use the right colours - i couldn’t find a white one for now), or prepare two wires with flat conectors (I would definitely prefer this method ofer soldering)

Also I’d suggets to use flex wire and use cable end sleeves instead of the hard wire that’s usually used inside of walls

3.)

Here is where the magic happens:

These rocker switches have exactly the right dimesnions to fit between these two flaps we bent straight before

Push it in and fix it in place with hot glue

4.)

Prepare the acrylic glass

Here is where I had the most troubles - I just don’t have the right tools to work with this. Next time I’ll definitely order them somewhere (there’s a lot of shops who do that and drill holes - 10pcs would cost around 25€)

Also, take the measurements not too seriously - they woked for me, but especially the little holes for the mounting screws should be a little closer together and maybe 7mm wide

5.)

Fix the frame with the switch on the acrylic glass - I’d suggest hot glue or REALLY strong double sided tape

NOT SHOWN HERE, but I’d highly reccomend doing it - I did it after I made this “error”:

Add strips of felt along the corners of the back of glass, so it can compensate for the thickness of the metal frame, AND the unevenness in the wall.

6.)

Take out the old switch and place the new one

ATTENTION: Needless to say, now you’re working with high voltage that can kill you in the worst case. Take out the right fuses before handling any wires inside the wall!

here you can see these felt strips I was talking about earlier

7.)

Finished!

You now have a piece of the future of living in you house

Some afterthoughts:

I will definitely not try to cut the acrylic glass myself the next time - it stinks, it breaks and cutting straight lines and round holes is not possible without the right tools
I’m not sure about the clear glass - I think opaque white would look better
right now the Hue Dimmer Switch only holds with the magnets through the glass against the metal frame. It’s not a strong hold though, so either I’ll have to stick it to the glass (which defeats the initial goal to easily reach the switch), or I’ll add some magnets to the back of the glass - well see…
this is 3mm acrylic glass - I think 2mm would look better
the Hue Dimmer Switch (ans also the glass plate I made) is actually smaller than the hole in the wall for the switch, so as you can see, it’s not completely coverd left and right
not shure what to think of the price - I would love to have the Aqara switches all over my house. If I make 10 of those, it would cost around 250-300€ (15€ for the Aqara, 2,50€ for laser cut acrylic glass, 3,40€ for the wall switch, 3€ for the rocker switch + shipping which is around 25€)

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Well, I hope you enjoyed these instructions and I could help some of you to improve their houses, or at least kick off some ideas.

deuntje · January 25, 2019, 3:46pm

I have used the aqara switch instead of the Hue remote. I’ve connected the 2 wires which are normally on the wallswitch and replaced the old wallswitch for the aqara one. With a HomeAssistant automation I respond on the click:

automation:
  - action:
    - data:
        entity_id: light.slaapkamer_r
      service: light.toggle
    alias: Lichtknopje Slaapkamer R
    condition: []
    trigger:
    - event_data:
        click_type: single
        entity_id: binary_sensor.wall_switch_1000000000000
      event_type: xiaomi_aqara.click
      platform: event

You can drill mounting holes in the aqara switch (battery version) so it can perfectly be mounted on EU electrical socket.

This solution is a bit cheaper then the Hue remote, the Hue remote on the other hand has more features

Farnsworth · January 25, 2019, 3:53pm

These aqara switches are way too big to fit inside the standardized round sockets there are in pretty much all houses around here.

So this is unfortunately no option. (at least if you don’t want to make a huge mess by chiselling the holes bigger and not being able to put standard stuff in ever again)

Also I wanted to keep the option to turn off the power manually

deuntje · January 25, 2019, 4:16pm

The powered ones are indeed way to big for EU sockets, I used a battery powered switch which can be mounted on top of the socket (with the connected wires behind them). But when you want to be able to switch the power manually you have to put a switch in between.

Here’s a picture of my switch:

koen01 · January 25, 2019, 5:13pm

Are you sure the switch you used is rated for high voltage use? You are switching high voltage, hope the rocker is well isolated so you don’t get shocked when something goes wrong inside the rocker …
And that it doesn’t melt …

Farnsworth · January 25, 2019, 5:14pm

That was actually my initial plan - but it would have required drilling holes dangerously close to wires (which are all over the place in some locations…)

also, like I said, then I wouldn’t have had the possibility to turn off the power

Offtopic - how do these Aqara switches work? any downsides?! I just got mine yesterday and don’t have a Gateway yet (plan to use Zigbee2MQTT)

Farnsworth · January 25, 2019, 5:24pm

Yes it’s rated 250V 4A - it says so on the side

But It has seen many projects in the past an I will definitely replace it with a new one

There is no way to accidentally touch any metal, except for the screws (but I put some insulation tape over the holes)
I chose the hole for the switch in a size, that touching anything else than plastic by accident is impossible

BUT I plan to add a ground wire to the next one I make

That’s something I will keep my eye on definitely. Not because I think it’s a likely scenario for this kind of setup, but it’s a prototype with an used rocker switch. Better safe than sorry.

technically everything should be safe and rated for this use

deuntje · January 26, 2019, 6:15pm

I have them connected through the aqara gateway at the moment, they work very well and very responsive.

Downside of this solution is that I can’t switch if HA is down (HA is usually very stable, but had some issues in the past with upgrading and breaking changes). Z-wave switches can be a solution to solve this, but this will cost more per switch.

I also have zigbee2mqtt running in a proof of concept, going to tedt the switches in the future with this solution as well, see if I can get rid of the aqara gateway eventually.

mic62 · December 26, 2022, 10:49am

Now, 4 years later, did your mod work flawlessly without any negative side effects? Or did you do any other modification to your mod?
Your solution seems to me to be the best and easiest way to have working wireless switches with a hard wired switch as backup. I realy would like to adopt this modification for all my wall switches.