Local control for lamps

[txNgineer]

What are folks using for local on/off for lamps? I do not want to have to rummage in the dark to find my phone and fumble with it just to turn the lamp on. Also my guests need to be able to turn their bed lamp on and off without loading an app on their phone.

This is the last reason that I still have a few X-10/Insteon controls around. With them you can just switch the lamp switch a couple of times and it will toggle. I REALLY want to get rid of them to go Z-wave like all my wall switches and dimmers. But I have not had any success with the Aeon Minimote (cannot seem to get it in the right or recognized mode). Is there a simple z-wave or MQTT button that I can set beside the lamps to switch and dim them?

[nickrout]

Xiaomi buttons. They are zigbee. They can have various presses detected so multifunctional. Press. Double press. Triple press. Long press etc

[zoogara (Daryl)]

I use these:

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…

They cost about $15 each plus assembly, but you can put them in whatever housing you like. In my case a standard Australian light switch.

[txNgineer]

@nickrout

re: Xiaomi buttons

Thanks for the suggestion. I am looking into them, but they represent yet another protocol to support as I have no other Zigbee devices. I am stretched pretty thin as is in juggling all the stuff I currently have: Z-wave, Insteon (phasing out), WiFi, MQTT, 318 MHz openers, wired ethernet, etc.

[txNgineer]

Excellent, thanks for the link zoogara. That is just the idea I needed to get the “little grey cells” working. For some reason I overlooked 433 MHz, but it is cheap and with the Sonoff-Tasmota bridge it will be simple.

[nickrout]

@txNgineer

Thanks for the suggestion. I am looking into them, but they represent yet another protocol to support as I have no other Zigbee devices.

I sympathise, but isn’t this home assistant’s strength, working with almost anything?

[devastator]

Same here, using the xiaomi buttons. Really love them, and they are dirt cheap. Currently got 4 of them, will be ordering 8 more on singles day next week.

I made a subflow in NodeRed, because i was a bit annoyed by the double press behavior. Double pressing too quickly, raises 2 single click events iso 1 double click

[chris14 (chris)]

433 is the way to go imo. You can find those alarm switches mentioned above for $2 or $3 ea. in the US.

btw, if you’re running on a pi, you can hook a receiver module to directly to the GPIO. Hass had built in support for rpi_rf and it may even still work

Look for a tutorial on etekcity remote outlets to get you started on how too. It works the same way, just use the switch instead of the remote button - or even use a garage door opener if you wanted too.