Hardware button to use as a trigger for home assistant events

Hardware
1

Does anyone know of a smart button that can be used with home assistant to trigger events/service calls, or scenes?
This would not need to be wired to anything, but simply a button that when pressed, sends a signal to home assistant to perform some action, similar to how NFC tags or QR codes work.

I know some companies like Lutron make wireless switches (Pico or similar) that accomplish this on their hardware, but i’m looking for a similar product that’s not tied to any one particular platform.

If anyone has come across anything similar to this, please share.

Thanks!

2

Should it be a wifi device? Or zigbee? Or Zwave? Bluetooth?

3

Wifi or zwave preferred

4

I use this which is zwave and relatively cheap. It does go through batteries but we do push it twice a day so its to be expected. I think I need to change the batteries 3-4 times a year.

Example automation based on either key being pressed.

  - alias: "Press Button Turn Light Off"
    id: 36cfbed3-3a0e-43b0-a517-836c262773c9
    trigger:
      - platform: event
        event_type: zwave_js_value_notification
        event_data:
          node_id: 23
          value: "KeyPressed"
    action:
      - service: light.turn_off
        entity_id: light.notification_light
2 Likes
5

I also have several of the zwave go-control devices mentioned by silvrr above that work well, and would recommend those for zwave. They are designed to go over a wall switch but don’t have to - one is on my mantle for fireplace control. I just printed some labels for on and off since it is hard to tell which is which when you don’t have it mounted.

I know you didn’t mention zigbee, but there seem to be more zigbee options for buttons - checkout this list of supported devices on the zigbee2mqtt page Zigbee2MQTT - I also use the Smartthings Button (Now Aeotec). I like the Aeotec/Smartthings button because you can have 3 separate automations for press, double press, and hold.

https://aeotec.com/products/aeotec-button/

Ikea makes an inexpensive zigbee button as well

6

Thank you guys!

7

I just installed this inexpensive Yeelight YLAI003 Bluetooth Low Energy button. Costs about $8.

It works great and supports single press, double press and long press. Requires a Bluetooth adapter on your HA host and this custom component:

8

I Have just reconfigured one of my old Philips Hue Dimmer Switches, to control my garage door…
Works flawlessly…

Philips Hue Dimmer

9

Thats awesome. Are you still happy with the buttons? How is the press received, as a pure event that you need to figure out for the details or „fully prepared“?

10

I purchased these Yeelight Switches YLAI003 too, since February 2024 (HA Version 2024.2), they can easily be integrated into HA with the official HA Xiaomi BLE integration. No more need of the passive BLE integration. Single/Double/Triple press events for the switch are availbe out of the box.

Here is a little insight, where I struggled before. It might prevent other users of losing time :smiley: Be aware, you must add them to the Xiaomi Home App first, and the Xiaomi Home App must be set to region China, else it wont discover these BLE Buttons. Then, use the Xiaomi Token Extractor Tool, linked in the above mentioned integration to get the Token/BLE Key.

The Telink Flasher cannot generate a Token/BLE Key for this YLAI003 switches unfortunately, so don’t waste time here, it took me quite a while to figure out I’m not doing it wrong :smiley: