I’ll echo what many has already said: don’t do this. Keep manual/physical switches (whether directly wired or remote controlled) in place, for two reasons: nothing, and I mean nothing, is faster than flipping a switch. Home automation in this case is a matter of convenience. Secondly, at least in my country (South Africa), it’s not legal to have lights without switches. I happen to have asked my electrician that question just last week and he made it quite clear that it’s against the regulations. So, check this wherever you are.
Hi stevemann, thank you for your responses. I’ll try to answer to those which are more elaborate than “it’s dumb”.
- I’m aware of the fact that not all smart light bulbs act like routers. However, if the ones I install are, then it’s going to be a benefit for this solution.
- As I have mentioned, the bedroom lights are going to be overridden by smart switches. The scenario here is as follows: in the evening people are entering the bedroom and the light is being turned on and off by the presence sensor. When they want to go to sleep, a person enters the room, the presence sensor turns the light on, a person goes to bed, clicks the switch and the light bulb turns off. By clicking the switch, presence indicated by the presence sensor is ignored for example until midday of the next day. From that moment on until midday, the light is turned on and off by switches. Starting from midday the next day, the presence sensor gains control again. I guess this scenario would probably need to cover some additional edge cases, but that’s the general idea.
- As I mentioned before, I plan on more substantial renovation within the next couple of years. This is when I will add additional circuits to control the lights in the “old-fashioned” way. This will solve the problems of selling the house.
- Here I will make an exception by referring to a comment, which in my opinion is not elaborate enough. “Reasonably priced ???” - do I understand you correctly that in your opinion IKEA TRÅDFRI is not reasonably priced? Can you recommend me other smart light bulbs which fulfil my criteria and have a better price? Or are you referring to the fact that all smart light bulbs are much more expensive comparing to “dumb light bulbs”? In that case, as I mentioned, I had some specific criteria on my mind and only smart light bulbs seem to fulfil them. If you have anything more to say on that topic apart from “it’s dumb”, then I welcome you to a discussion.
- Presence sensors can be configured on their sensitivity. I’m aware of the fact that they can “see through walls”. I guess I would need to configure the sensitivity properly to limit potential false positives. However, in my setup, the worst case scenario is that the light would turn on in the bathroom when someone is walking the corridor. If you’d be reading my messages carefully, you’d notice the fact that I mentioned couple of times that in bedrooms, the lights will be overridden by a switch if someone goes to sleep.
- I’m aware of Murphy’s Law. That’s why I have started this topic. There is always a risk to every solution one can build. However, the proper way of designing a solution is to asses the risks and then answering the question if I can accept them. From what you have said, I see that your HA running on Intel NUC is quite stable, so I wouldn’t need to worry about the fact that it would fail me. Worst case scenario I can fallback from my Home Assistant Green to one of the industrial computers I have lying around. However if your Intel NUC works properly, I think this wouldn’t be necessary.
I’m happy to discuss this topic with you more in detail, as you seem to be quite excited about it. However, for the sake of the discussion, I’d need something more than “it’s dumb”. Of course, forgive me my lack of experience with smart homes - I’m a mere hobbyist.
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We also have a few lights that is hardwired this way.
It works fine. Perhaps it’s not up to code, but as long as you can revert it then it’s fine as I see it.
Hi parautenbach, answering the points you raised:
- I’m not so sure about the speed. Hear me out - for a “dumb switch” one have to move towards it and then click. For a “smart switch” driven by presence sensor one have to only be in its range. I guess what really matters is the time it takes to move to a “dumb switch” and click it compared to a presence sensor detecting presence and turning lights on. I’m not arguing one is faster than the other. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the times are going to be very similar. Correct me if I’m wrong please.
- The topic of complying with regulations is an important one here and has already been raised. Thank you for that! My problem is that I have many people to consult in my own country, but the house is abroad. I guess I’d have to ask around when I’m there. BTW, how does it work in the terms of complying with the code if someone has a lightbulb on the proch which is activated by a “dumb” PIR sensor? I guess people don’t have a separate switch for that. Is the relay activated by PIR sensor enough?
Hi Hellis81, good to hear that! May I ask you how reliable this solution is? Are there any downsides or potential problems that haven’t been mentioned in this thread?
The only issue is when you need to reboot the light.
But it has only happened once or twice I think.
If you want to make a good intermediate step then you could use a… Can’t remember the name of it right now. But it’s a shelly device that only listens to the light switch state.
This could then be used to turn on/off the bulb and/or the automation you mention.
The optimum would be to have a decoupled relay inside the light switch so that you by default just react to the state changes of the switch, but you also have a relay that can turn off the power to the bulb if needed.
Would I spend money to get a device like that? No… I see no reason for that.
Not even for my Hue light that is a major pain to pull down from the ceiling to reset it.
Maybe that’s true for an awkwardly positioned switch.
I also assumed, since it’s a vacation house, that you’ll be living with others. They’ll soon enough tell you whether it works for them. I think some part of it is also psychological.
I just found that keeping a physical switch to directly switch a light is highly beneficial. What if your HA is down for some reason?
In my case, all such lights actually have plugs that are plugged into wall sockets. Sometimes those sit in the roof. Same with isolators, e.g. for an AC.
Thanks Hellis81, that was helpful!
Unless you absolutely must have color control, then smart lights are completely unnecessary for the reasons I stated above. Except for color, there is nothing a smart light can do that dumb lights and a smart switch can’t. The initial expense and the potential for disappearing lights should be enough reason to not use smart lights.
Don’t automate the house to YOUR preferences. Consider the audience. Will they be tech savvy enough to understand that sometimes a PIR device may take up to a second or even more to respond to presence? Do they understand the “cool-down” period that many PIR modules incorporate? Override? What happens if someone walks into a room, turns the light switch off, then three minutes later, the PIR turns it back on? And, again, some people will not want the light turning on or off automatically and will resent your assumption of what they need.
The level of “convenience” you are designing into the system will greatly magnify the quality and quantity of user feedback. And not all positive (which could impact your marketing efforts). And likely at the most inconvenient time. While Home Assistant is generally quite reliable. In my home the weak point is my Ethernet network. Iver the years I’ve had router issues, switch failures, but never a Home Assistant failure. (Ironically, I have two ESP devices with the same MAC address- imagine the troubleshooting of that).
Automate your home the way you like it. Experiment- it’s fun. When things don’t work as expected, you are there to fix it, or ignore it until a more convenient time. Don’t burden your tenants with technology they don’t understand. That doesn’t mean that Home Assistant doesn’t have a purpose in a rental. It does. For example, when vacant you can reset the heating or cooling to unoccupied levels. Turn a couple of lights on at night to simulate occupancy. In my own home I have automations to prevent someone from setting the A/C below 65°F or the heat over 80°F. (They can, but the automations reset the temperatures to a more sane value after 15 minutes. No one who has tried to set the cooling to 55°F notices when 15 minutes later it gets reset to 77°F). All of our outdoor lights are timed- on at sunset -30 minutes, and off at a random time of sunset + 3 to 5 hours. My lawn sprinklers are controlled by Home Assistant.
I just thought of something.
Perhaps you could create a dashboard where the tenants can change between auto lights and manual control (per room or light) via the remotes.
It just needs a tablet on the wall.
This could also be used for other things like sharing wifi QR code.
Perhaps a Todo list with tick boxes before leaving.
This would make it more noticable there is more than what you see and if lights come on by themselves you would know why.
If [communication fail, HA goes down, interference, device fails, etc.] how will the lights turn on or off?
Replace wall switches with smart switches. Martin Jerry wall switches are glorious and right priced, and function as regular switches even when everything else is non-functional.
Rule #1 for my home automation - automated elements must function independently, even when all else fails.
Rule #2, see rule #1.
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