if you wish to go down the over priced philips hue road id google “philips hue compatible downlights” there are heaps at half the price or less that can be controlled through there app as a hue light
LOL, I would prefer not to go down the Hue route TBH, will stick with the Shelly Dimmer
Awesome thank you!
We have pendant lights in our house so I bought some Zigbee bulbs from AliExpress. They have been working fairly well. I also have a few Phillips Hue bulbs and LED strips, but it was too expensive to do the whole house. The nice thing is that the Phillips Hue hub actually uses Zigbee, so you can pair lights from other vendors. You can find Zigbee RGB downlights on AliExpress too.
I like using the Adaptive Lighting component to control the color temperature for all our lights, so they are bright white during the day, and become much warmer and dimmer at night. Apparently it’s good for the circadian rhythms and helps you sleep better. It’s also fun to play with the colors during Christmas and Halloween light shows, etc.
I bought some cheap Zigbee buttons powered by coin cell batteries. I put those next to the light switches. We’re currently renting a strange Lockwood house with small architrave switches so I didn’t have too many options. I’m about to start 3D printing some covers to put on top of the original switches, and I’ll stick the buttons on top of those.
I was using Zigbee dimmer switch modules in our old house (also from AliExpress). These modules hook up to your existing light switches and control ordinary lights. So you can’t change the color or temperature but you can adjust the brightness.
The only problem with some of these AliExpress products is that they may not meet NZ regulations. I still use light bulbs and battery-powered stuff, but I’m probably not going to put any more cheap switches or modules in the walls. I definitely recommend getting stuff from a NZ supplier, and get a licensed electrician to install them. Then you don’t need to worry about insurance claims getting denied if something catches on fire.
Where do you buy your Shelly Dimmers? I’ve found a few online stores in NZ but they’re quite expensive, even more than Phillips Hue bulbs. But it looks like they do have SDOCs so they’re legal to use in NZ.
We went thru a large renovation last year, before that (and over a couple of years) we had slowly invested in Hue lighting as we were on Apple HomeKit and the hue hub just worked. Moving to HA, we now have all sorts of stuff, but like @ndbroadbent we are careful what we put in the walls and lights. We stuck with Hue for some final strip lights and things. Yes it’s expensive, but I still have the first original bulbs that I purchased and they still work every time. We have since removed the Hue hub and connect direct to ZHA - its rock solid and never have issues with them (looking at you Nanoleaf thread stuff!)
We also have shelly relays that we had professionally installed by our electrician (along with about 6 more hue ceiling downlights and some PDL iconic Zigbee switches). We purchased the Shelly stuff here locally at https://www.lykalyte.co.nz as they can supply you a NZ electrical certification (SDoC) for the devices - then you know that everything is sorted. Most electricians will require this before installing anything these days.
PS: Shout out to Luke from Lykalyte as well - great to deal with.
I’ve been getting my Shelly’s from https://www.smarthome.com.au/
Theyt are a lot cheaper than in NZ even with freight and TBH, sometimes faster delivery, NZ is slow, can get stuff from England faster sometimes, anywhooo…
I have also bought directly from Shelly but like smarthome.com.au also as AU has the same electrical standards as NZ we are pretty safe from insurance perspective.
I install myself, not difficult except the 3 way switch, kept blowing the fuse so will get an electrician for that one 
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I have used Shellys mostly, tried a few other light switches but have issues with Tuya so canning that crap. Installing myself, easy enough and not against the law.
otherwise I mostly use lightstrips from Aliexpress and my own homemade ESP32s with Mosfets for dimming or Athom ESPHome devices.
as these all run on 12v no issues with insurances, I have strips under cupboard in the kitchen and a crap one in the pantry, soon to be replaced and a 20m run around the retaining wall where we have plants, couple of power injectors , need a cpol more, cos the run is soo long but works quite well on lower dimmer settings, except when it pisss down liker the other night
Zigbee using ZHA with a HA SkyConnect isn’t great so I use all of the above on WiFi, looking at moving back to Z2M when I can find the time to see if that works better.
Hi, Living in Tauranga. Just getting started with Home Assistant. Thanks for the heads up. Installed and getting great info. Norwegians say cloudy MetService says sunny. It’s sunny!
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Sooo, I just bought a shelly Dimmer2 and a RGBW2, had no idea I could use the RGBW2 for 4 different dimmable white lights, will make my kitchen a lot cheaper to kit out now
I have also made some enquiries around the Shelly Minis to see if they have been certified for AU/NZ yet, I need those in my life, smaller is sometimes better
Welcome! I am also in Tauranga loving the MetService integration so far!
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We’re renovating. Told my Sparky I want everything “Smart” he admitted to not being an expert but has a client for whom he’d installed Shelly Relays who absolutely who loves them. I’ve been researching Shelly and learnt a lot but still a little baffled. Which to choose? For lights I’m now thinking just buy RGBW Zigbee lights, no relay required, but need a hub, which one? For straight switches easy. But should I go with Z-Wave (another hub) or just Wifi! Best price I can find so far is https://www.ozsmartthings.com.au/. I’m concerned buying outside NZ/Aus as they might not be NZ legal. And then today I discover there are different Z-Wave/Zigbee channels for different regions.
Interesting learning experience. Expecting to make mistakes but trying not to let them cost me too much.
Dont use Z-wave, the frequencies arent always compatible in NZ. I use shelly wifi.
Are the lighrs 12 or 24v? If not then dont use rgbw. Im going fir tge 1pms as i want to monitor power.
If its certed for AU i believe tgey are goid for NZ but if your not sure the certs sre free to search for. If tgey are sellingvtgem in AU then tgey will have slrwady git certs, i also check NZ stores, once again if they are being sold by acreputible store then they generally have certs for NZ
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@nononcents I’ve been doing various sorts of home automation for over 10 years now. I started with Z-Wave devices and I’ve got rid of most of them now. They’re expensive (because manufacturers have to pay Alliance and licensing fees), hard to get the correct frequency that is licensed for AU/NZ, and difficult to setup.
I’ve currently got a mix of WiFi and Zigbee devices for light switching but if I was doing it again I’d probably just roll with Shelly’s such as this.
I cant find the electrical cert for the minis so i wouldn’t install those yet, im reaching out to Shelly, they are usually pretty quick to answer
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We did a renovation a couple of years ago and did everything with Shelly. Very happy with them.
All rooms lights are Shelly Dimmers and the fixed high load wallout outlets having Shelly PM1’s or 2.5’s (washing, dishwasher, dryer, towel rails etc). Non dimmable lighting is on 2.5’s.
Cabinet/pantry/cupboard lighting is also Shelly Dimmers so changes based on time of day.
For bonus points get a Bosch 2000/3000 alarm and use the motion sensors to turn on/increase brightness of the lights as you walk around the house.
Doing it again now, i would get at least some of the Shelly Plus models as they can be bluetooth bridges. So they can give good coverage for low power bluetooth sensors like door sensors. I believe the Plus models can be upgraded to be matter compatible once they release that.
Also for led strips i would have used Shelly RGBW instead of Shelly Dimmers as that would remove the need for dimmable low voltage power adapters/transformers.
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I am using a wican to get the SOC from my Kia Niro. it works great.
Regarding Shelly SOTs, I did find this (have not used the website before and not affiliated with them in any way…) SDocs and Certificates – Smart Home Shop
Nice, I missed out on the plus model, something went wrong then i had to repair all of them, luckily there are only 5 in the house so far, but turning the power off then on to repair each one is a drag TBH, with BT, makes it soo much easier and yes it also makes them Matter upgradeable with firmware.
Question: With your dimmers, do you use any kind of a manual switch/slider/knob to be able to manually dim, needs to haveWAF which means she doesn’t want to use the phone…just yet, slowly getting her there.