How to replace classic wall switch to control Tradfri bulbs

[rohrbrecher]

Hi, so I’ve bought my first ever Tradfri bulbs after spending some time working only with zigbee/wifi wall plugs and shelly relays.

I’ve connected both the bulbs as well as the Styrbar remote to HA and it seems to work “ok-ish”, but my main concern is the wall switch. The kids and wife are used to turning on the light there, but of course it cuts the power to the bulbs completely.

Now I’m looking for solutions how to replace my wall switch with something which lets me turn the bulbs on/off but without cutting the power.

PS: I’m worried about “hard wiring” the power to the bulbs because then I have no chance of cutting the power, if needed to e.g. bring the bulbs into pairing mode, so if there is some way of achieving both (don’t cut power in usual use case but allow to cut power if needed), I’d be super happy.

[TH3xR34P3R (Robert Koganov)]

If I recall correctly the shelly relay’s should have an option to set the toggle state for the switch to be the opposite of the last state of the bulb… might be something to have a go with for your setup.

[zoogara (Daryl)]

Wire one of these behind your existing switch:

ZBMINI-L2 - SONOFF Official

Of course then your Zigbee bulbs are a bit of a waste…

[rohrbrecher]

I bought the bulbs mostly because I can change the color temperature and dim them down, so I’m still perfectly fine with such a setup.

I must say though, that I am currently using the ZBMINIL2 behind two other switches already and I haven’t found a way to tell them to NOT cut the power to the lamp if they are pressed. So is it possible to configure the ZBMINIL2 to only send the button press to zigbee but not actuate the relay? It should only switch the relay if I explicitly tell it to, e.g. via HA.

PS: The ZBMINIL2 sadly doesn’t act as router, only as endpoint. I haven’t yet found a zigbee switch that works without neutral wire AND acts as router though, so I guess this is something I have to accept.

[rohrbrecher]

After searching the forum a bit more I guess I have to possibilities:

1. Use a Shelly 1L because it supports “detached mode” and it works without neutral. This way I could use the existing switch to trigger HA to turn on/off the bulbs but leave the relay in always on. I just hope the light won’t flicker because this was the initial reason to switch from Shelly to Sonoff. Besides, the Shelly won’t “extend” my zigbee range but the Sonoff would neither so that’s not a problem either.

2. Use a Sonoff ZBMINI2L to control the power to the lamp but replace the wall switch with e.g. a battery powered zigbee switch. This way I could cut the power to the lamp via the Sonoff if necessary but pressing the wall switch will only turn on/off the bulbs.

[zoogara (Daryl)]

@rohrbrecher

currently using the ZBMINIL2 behind two other switches already and I haven’t found a way to tell them to NOT cut the power to the lamp

Yeah didn’t think of that.

If you can find cheap zigbee reed switches you can wire them to a standard light switch and use them to switch the lights using an automation. Battery powered and last for ages. Hide the existing switches.

I did something similar with 433Mhz door sensors:

Budget priced, wife friendly, wireless wall switch using 433Mhz and MQTT

NOTE to anyone coming here from Hackaday link - MQTT sensor definitions have changed considerably since this was posted. I will update later… I have got into home automation in a big way since I found Home Assistant, but my wife is less fond of the whole talk to Google or use your phone thing just to turn on a light bulb. Sure - she likes the automations, like the fact that our garden lights turn on every night at the end of dusk, and that we can turn on the low voltage lighting in our outdoo…

[rohrbrecher]

So I have now first used a Shelly 1L (which flickered) and then replaced it with a regular Shelly 1 in detached mode. The relay is always on and so I can now control the lights both via zigbee as well as via the button press (which is received in HA).

I still have some issues to fix (e.g. whenever I turn on the lamp it’s on a very low brightness and besides, the Styrbar remote seems to interfere with everything) but the wall switch solution is acceptable for me.