Help with new hardware

Hardware
1

Hi, for some time now I have been using Alexa to control smart plugs (via tuya ) in my house and my Logitech hub.

I have recently installed home assistant as I’m looking at improving the control of my Logitech hub. With this working well so far I will soon be looking at adding Alexa intergation with this.

Also may be worth noting I live in the UK.

I now have a requirement to replace our bedroom light switch with a smart light switch. Smart bulbs for this light out not possible.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a UK type switch that will fit as a direct replacement to the current switch?

I’m mindful of the fact my smart plugs, used a particular sercice that stopped support, luckily tuya would import them. So I’m considering using matter devices in future but open to suggestions.

2

This is just my personal opinion. Others here disagree with me with emphasis.
Unless you absolutely, positively must have color control, smart bulbs are dumb.

You don’t need to limit yourself to Tuya, and you don’t need to use a manufacturer’s hub. Anything that branded hubs can do, you can do in Home Assistant much cheaper with the right dongle. I don’t even know what protocol Tuya switches use.

WiFi switches work with Home Assistant without any dongles.
Zigbee and Z-Wave also work well with the appropriate dongles.

Since you are in the UK, do you have a neutral wire in the switch box? If not, your options are greatly reduced.

Lately, I have been buying Zigbee switches at Moes, and Z-Wave at Zooz. WiFi, I usually buy from AliExpress.

3

I wouldn’t use smart bulb, neither smart switch, but smart relay anywhere between your existing switch and bulb. I can recommend Shelly plus 1.

4

I’m pretty sure I have a switch with neutral but it’s something I’m checking this morning.

The tuya things are legacy. The smart plugs were cheap and nasty things we got a few years ago and worked with efamily and when that stopped tuya app had support for them.

I also don’t like the idea of having some form of proprietary additional hub.

I do have other projects in the future but this will be a year or so down the line.

it does look like I will continue to use WiFi as I recently upgraded my WiFi and network. tTese smart plugs will be replaced as and when they fail,or cause me any additional pairing issues when I change SSID’s as they are a nightmare.

5

In this case it a ceiling fan with a light.

While we have an RF control for it which is kept by the bed, several times we have forgot to switch the wall switch on.

Yup completely lazy reason :rofl:.

I also want to retain the option of a physical switch.

Currently I’m looking at two types of plugs. Both support matter or their own apps. They alsosupport Alexa through either method but I would like to try to get them working with home assistant.

I have to check if I have a neutral on my current wall switch, and if so it may be either of these.

6

Setup of my suggestion (smart relay) is connected to existing physical switch.
It’s working manually even if home assistant or wifi is down. They are more reliable than some “touch button switches” and doesn’t change aesthetic of your house.

7

Ahh, now I understand. I will have a look at them.

Thanks

8

You don’t have to change the SSID if you install a new router- just assign your current SSID to any new router. The clients won’t know any difference.

This works, and I have a few in my house, but they can be a pain in the arse installing them. Mostly from making it fit inside the switch box. (Sonoff makes a micro version of the Sonoff Switch which is even smaller than the Shelly). For someone like me who is comfortable working with line-power switches and outlets, (I was an electrician in a former life) installing a smart relay (Shelly, Sonoff) is pretty easy. But I like smart switches (and dumb bulbs). I can change a mechanical switch for a smart switch in 5 minutes. The Shelly would take a bit longer.

You never need a proprietary hub with Home Assistant and a dongle for the protocol. I have one for Z-Wave and one for Zigbee. They are both a few years old and no longer available, so you will have to research what’s available today. You don’t need them unless you want to install devices using their protocol.

With WiFi switches, you have more options. I am an early adopter and started with WiFi relays (because they were really cheap). To integrate them into my network I had two choices. 1) connect them through the manufacturers cloud, or 2) Flash the ESP processor inside with ESPHome. Since many manufacturers are moving to a cheaper processor, option 2 is becoming less optimal. For Sonoff devices, there is a custom component called SonoffLan. You still need their proprietary app to set the WiFi credentials, but after that, everything is local. I haven’t added any other WiFi new devices.

My preference now is Zigbee or Z-Wave. Just pair the device to Home Assistant, and you’re done.

FORGET connecting any smart switch directly to Alexa. This always requires you to use their proprietary cloud and could restrict your integration with Home Assistant. When you integrate any device to Home Assistant, it is known internally as an entity. (Or a group of entities). You can do practically anything in home assistant with that entity, including automations and control by Alexa. For example, when I tell Alexa to “turn on theater”, an automation in Home Assistant turns on my TV, tunes the cable STB to our favorite channel, turns on my family room lights at 25% and turns off other downstairs lights. You will never accomplish this kind of automation using proprietary cloud software. The main limitation to Home Assistant is your own imagination.

Matter.
Disclaimer- I have not installed any Matter devices.
(Yet)

I have mixed feelings about Matter. On paper it sounds nice: “Matter aims to improve interoperability, security, and reliability among smart home devices.” Home Assistant developers are adding Matter integration into Home Assistant. As such, it is still new to Home Assistant.

I am not convinced because the goals of Matter sound too good to be true. Particularly in the concept of interoperability. I would be willing to bet that every manufacturer who are working on integrating Matter to their products are also looking for opportunities to lock customers to their product line. Depending on the integration into Home Assistant this may well be mute.

Summary:
“Compatible with Alexa” is meaningless. This means that their proprietary app is compatible with Alexa. Not the device.
Matter is new. If you are a first adopter, then go for it. But don’t expect a lot of assistance from forum users.

BTW- Have you seen this list of Home Assistant integrations? And these are just the official (supported) integrations. There’s more Custom Integrations that are also available from individual contributors.

At any rate, using Home Assistant- you are not locked into any protocol, platform or hardware.

Hope this helps.

9

Thanks that’s some good advice.

The WIFI SSID thing is due to be now creating new vlans to segregate IOT traffic. And the smart plugs I have are just a pain in the backside to get into pairing mode.

I started with Alexa just because it was easier, and agree controlling devices it limited. Mostly it has been trouble free, which as the house IT dogsbody and a wife who will flip if something fails to switch on has been good.

Currently im running Home Assistant on my unraid system as a VM. But once i can justify the cost of a new Toy (raspberry PI booting from M2 and powered via PoE) i will move it over to that.

Actually spent the afternoon looking at the sonoff MINIR4M, im lucky and have a 40mm backbox, so i have ordered this and new switch that only requires a 16mm backbox. I know im going to regret this when it comes time to getting it all to fit.

10

General Rule when setting up new gear: make sure it works even if the internet goes down/the company that provides the product and its services blows up or just vanishes from existence and or HA is not available for automation’s.

This is why I personally suggest any device that meets that needs that is zigbee and matter/thread based so that the only cloud based reliant items are those that are using say a weather integration for pulling in data from.

This video is one of the best examples of how you want to manage your setup the best you can:

11

Take a picture so I can poke you with “told `ya”.
Not a bad choice for a first device. Please keep us informed of the progress.

12

If it only works through their cloud and device-specific app, then it won’t work without the Internet. If you use a proprietary hub, then it likely won’t work without the Internet. I am sure that many of us on the forums have a couple of bricks in the junk drawer that are useless because the company that made them is history.

As I said before, the Sonoff EWElink is needed only to set the WiFi credentials in the device. Then the integration in Home Assistant replaces the EWElink cloud.

13

Which is why even though I don’t use some of it I am thankful that folks are willing to hack into those and see if they can convert them to local mode either via a change in a chip or two or via just a firmware reflash.

Should the integration for my fujitsu AC unit go belly up I plan to just convert over to IR control to keep things simple for example unless someone out there was able to make it work without the need for fglair credentials; same goes for my vesync air purifier the S200… it will give me reason to try the esp hack that I was told works on the larger model lol.

It’s also another reason why I keep saying, after my experience with them so far and learning more since getting into HA, to avoid Tuya Wifi based devices like the plague as they are the versions that need that smartlife/tuya integration with a constant internet connection to work and or faffing about with local-tuya/tuya-local (pain in the ass from what I last looked up due to how hard they make it to get device IDs and what not from them in the first place), where as if its labeled as Tuya Zigbee its actually working as any other Zigbee based device without all the hoops to dive through.

I"m just glad the only things other than what I have listed that needs a connection in my setup for automation’s is World Air Quality Index, Electricity Maps, BOM intergration and Blitzortung for Lighting tracking in my area.

coffee and insomnia makes me make somewhat long replies to make sure I have it all covered

14

I know it’s going to be very tight, there will be a lot of new swear word I will learn :rofl:.

In this instance the relay ticks all the boxes, downstairs will be a dimmer solution once this one is done.

15

It’s better to invest the cost in some refurbished Dell/HP Tiny boxes with i3 CPU of Gen 8 or Gen 9. I am not against the PIs but the cost of addon modules and custom cooling case, etc will shoot up the budget. In the end you will find it’s under powered. RasPIs got other interesting solutions like PI-KVm etc which will be most useful. HA will be the backbone of your automation, reliable and robust system is required is for your Automations.