My SO bought two of these really nice looking, old-timey lamps that I would like to somehow modify so I can connect them to Home Assistant to remote-control them.
Some details about the lamps:
There are two halogen bulbs and the peak power draw is about 280W at max brightness.
Each bulb has a dimmer knob which “clicks” at the end to cut power to the bulb.
Considerations for “smartification”:
The aesthetics need to be maintained & the original dimmer knobs should be preserved - SO doesn’t want any (visible) jank.
It should be possible to control the lamp with the physical knobs without needing HomeAssistant - SO refuses to interact with HA in any capacity.
I am completely protocol agnostic - Zigbee, Zwave, WiFi, everything goes.
Preserving the “click” in the knobs is not essential.
If the knobs can have a start and end, that would be ideal - SO might tolerate infinite free spinning, but she won’t like it.
The knob housing has limited space, so the “smartification” hardware doesn’t HAVE to be inside the housing - as long as I can hide any excess wiring somewhere it’s fine.
Finally, I am not an electrical engineer and while I’ve wired a bunch of smart switches around the flat, I have no experience with designing / dealing with circuits and the like. That said, I am handy and if there is a kind of step-by-step guide I could use to learn, I am definitely willing to put the time and effort in to learning how to do this.
Here’s what the knobs operate like. The dimming is a bit hard to see because the camera keeps compensating for the change in brightness.
It’s not going to be easy task. How difficult, depends on how that dimmer is done.
Also, you really can’t put anything smart inside that metal housing.
What I would do if I would even attempt it, is to open it up and move all of the 230 volt from the knobs and make some way to low voltage read them.
Then build a new 230 volt outside or behind that also can be controlled from HA.
But there is one big issue. The reading of these knobs will probably not be completely fixed. The value will probably fluctuate, how will you differentiate from fluctuations and actual movement?
Let’s say the knob is at 50% then it fluctuate between 49 and 51. You go in to HA and set it to 100, then the reading will still fluctuate between 49 and 51 which HA will see as a new value to override the 100%.
That’s the only way to do it. Remove original triac circuit and use just original potentiometers wired to 3.3V and analog input of Esphome device. But you also need 2-ch smart dimmer. Fluctuation is not a problem, you just filter it out in esphome.
At the complexity and cost of this mod, I would transform the whole lamp to 12V led light. At the end it is easier, more reliable and safer.
I don’t think it’s rotary encoders since they have a defined start and end position.
But I believe your idea could work.
Probably the easiest solution since it doesn’t require as much building.
If it was me, I’d put a Z-Wave dimmer inside behind the two knobs, removing all the existing internals. Put two pushbuttons in where the knobs are and attach the knobs to the pushbuttons. Then you would have one button for dim up and one for dim down. You would probably need to run the antenna out through the casing given that it’s metal.
Use panel mount pushbuttons like this. Just get some that have the appropriately sized thread for the existing holes. Attach the existing dimmer knobs to the top of the new pushbutton (the black plastic in the below is push-fit so comes off easily).
That’s why I said to attach the existing knobs to the new pushbuttons… Guess you didn’t read my post properly. Sure, they will be pushbuttons instead of turn knobs, but visually it would look exactly the same.
You first need to get in the lamp, to see what you’re dealing with. These lamps normally have an enclosed dimmer inside, that looks like this:
Sorry, but not my picture, so can only post a link to it
Unfortunately, if you haven’t some better knowledge in electronics, these aren’t simple to be “smartified”. You’d need to change the complete electronics to some DIY solution, eg. something based on an ESP32.
Knowing these kind of lamps, I wouldn’t be surpised, if what you want to achieve costs more than double the value of the lamp…
I’m really sorry to say, but I think this is an impossible, or at least very difficult task in the way you want it.
Maybe you could think about some other solution, where you replace the electronics that the lamp has, with something completely different? Eg. you could insert touch buttons into the housing, where you removed the knobs? Or even a touchscreen would be easier to handle. But this depends on your DIY skillset.
No, the Aeotec dimmers can use one button for both up and down or a button for each function (can be changed in device settings), so to control the two lights separately would need two dimmers, but still only two buttons.
