Hi, I’m moving house soon, I’m currently using a smartthings hub and smart bulbs to control our lights but I don’t like to rely on the cloud so I’m looking to change to Home Assistant when we move. I also hate having to change batteries in the light switches (Ikea Tradfri) and having guests turn off the wired switches! So I figure smart switches and dumb bulbs are the way to go.
I will be using a Raspberry Pi to host HA. However I’m struggling to find any options for dimmable smart wall switches that will work without a hub. I will be rewiring the entire house so any special wiring needs can be met. Does anyone have any suggestions please?
Struggled to fine a reasonably priced UK solution. The only real option is Lightwave , but they are stupidly expensive. There is Energine , but their switches are dumb, and don’t give any feed back on their state , just like the mark 1 light-wave switches
The issue with using any wifi based hub-less solution , is you need a very good wifi mesh network if you are going to use them in the whole house.
I also struggled to find any thing that worked without a neutral wire in the light switch . If you are rewiring this may be a good option as it will give you greater choice.
In the end I used Xiaomi no neutral switches as they were good looking and very inexpensive. They do not have a dimmer option so I mixed them Ikea bulbs, This took some automation , as smart bulbs and smart switches don’t play well together . As soon as you kill the power the bulbs become un-available and you to wait util they are ready before you can set any dim settings. My home assistant setup is on github if you want to look at the code.
I tried using the Zigbee options in HA to control both the Ikea and Xiaomi in one Zigbee mesh , both ZHA and deCONZ proved less than reliable . The Xiaomi hub however has been rock solid, never crashed , always works. The really annoying thing is the ikea bulbs can be added to the Xiaomi hub and they work fine . However HA cannot see them ! So I have to use the Ikea hub as well
Thanks for the reply, the Lightwave kit looks ideal, but as you say the price is hard to swallow! I may have to go down your route and mix smart bulbs and non-dimmable switches, hopefully HA is more reliable than webcore for saving and retrieving the status of my bulbs.
If you are going to be rewiring the whole house , I recommend that all your switch boxes are as deep as you can get away with 35mm at least . All my switch boxes were only 25mm and I had to put risers in all the boxes.
Then you need to decide how to control them , wired, zigbee, zwave or wifi.
Would recommend Zigbee or Zwave , as this will create its own mesh network. Wifi solutions don’t scale very well , and could overwhelm simple wifi setups. Wired solutions will require professional installation and equipment that makes light wave cheap
Most Zwave solutions are US or European based so will require a neutral in the switch.
Smart bulbs and smart switches are tricky… I only used Ikea bulbs in the living room , the rest of the house standard led bulbs are fine and less expensive.
I didn’t think lightwave had feedback. So if you send an on command the hub has no idea of it worked ?
Or at least that’s why I sold my stuff many years ago.
Looking into it a bit further I believe you are correct. I also currently have lights change colour to notify me of bits and bobs which is handy. I’ve found these
which don’t require battery’s and look fairy nice. From what I can tell hue plays nicely with HA and has local polling so no need to worry about the dodgy internet around my area. I’m hoping to fit them over flat plate key switches so as to negate the guests flicking mains power power off, just waiting to hear back from their support about sizes. If that works, it’s all my boxes ticked.
Well the lightwave kit makes more sense now, thanks for the link, I just don’t know if I can swallow the price even if the boss can! Plus having mulled it over I really want to be able to control individual bulbs and colours still.
I’ve been using nest smoke detectors and they have motion activated night lights which would be enough to see to flick the senic cover off and flick the mains switch off/on I think. Worse comes to the worse I think with a nice looking key switch I could get away with having them side by side.
I don’t really use switches too often now, as I’ve got motion detection in most rooms and plan to have motion detection in all the rooms of the new place. I’ve only found it an issue when lay watching TV or sat on the PC, then I have an automation to pause the motion detection automation if the light switch is pressed. I just want it to look a bit nicer than my tradfri pucks stuck on the wall and to stop guests flicking the mains switch off when they leave the room
The lightwave integration works for me, when I lose Internet connections. All the comms are local.
The only exception is if you use the TRVs with “call for heat” mode, which pings the lightwave server.
Thanks for taking the time to help me out!
