New to home automation, looking for the right light switch

Hardware
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I am brand new to home automation, and I am looking to make the right purchase for smart switches. I have watched so many youtube videos, and looked at so much stuff on line that my head is spinning, and I feel less sure of what to get now than when I started.

Here is my situation and goals:

-I live in the USA, in a house built in the late 90s
-I have Home Assistant set up and working great with a single smart bulb and some smart plugs. Everything is ready for me to start installing some real devices to control
-My goals are as follows:
-control lights from HA
-All lights should simply work as expected with wall switches if HA were suddenly removed or broken
-light switches should feel good, and be intuitive to someone that is unaware that it is part of a smart home system
-Use mmWave sensors for presence detection to automate lights
-dimmable lights in many areas based on specific situations, but the switches should not be knobs like a dimmer, but look like a ā€œnormalā€ switch
-control ceiling fans
-avoid battery operated devices whenever possible

I feel like these are fairly basic requirements. After looking in to things, it seems like the best option to build a robust smart home is to get zigbee 3.0 enabled switches that can act as routers, and have some of them include presence detection. Its not completely clear to me how 3 way switching will work, particularly in a way that will allow all the switches to continue functioning as normal switches if the HA server was down.

The two switches that seem to be mentioned a fair amount are Lutron and Inovelli. Both are expensive, but if they are a solid one time purchase, that would be much cheaper and easier that buying new switches every time I get irritated with the poor functionality of cheap switches.

Its not clear to me if I can actually get Zigbee lutron switches. But maybe thats fine? Maybe I shouldnā€™t be limiting myself to zigbee 3.0 devices? And inovelli seems to be unavailable for some amount of time. Is there something going on right now that is making that true, or should I expect there to always be a supply issue with them?

Iā€™ve looked at many reviews of switches, and canā€™t seem to find a third, less expensive option that doesnā€™t have some significant drawback.

I plan to get 2-4 switches, and try them out before committing, but the nightmare scenario is spending $1,500+ and days of my time installing hardware, only to hate it. I keep looking for a great ā€œstart hereā€ video/page/post that has current suggestions on hardware, but I havenā€™t found it. Any advice on hardware, or just where to start to get the information I need would be appreciated, thanks!

As a side note, I have also looked at automating shades/blinds, and havenā€™t found a solution for less that about $350 per window, so thatā€™s just going to have to wait.

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I have zero issues with my Zooz Zen77 Z-Wave switches. They are smart, meaning they work whether HA is working or not.

This was a requirement for my WAF (Wife Approval Factor)! EVERYTHING I setup must work if she decides to hold a pillow over my face one night.

They do require a return (white) wire at the switch. Luckily, all of mine have that.

I have moved away from ā€˜smart bulbsā€™ as they are nothing near that :slight_smile:

I do use Zemismart Zigbee Smart Curtain Drivers (no blinds here) for about half of what you listed per window from AliExpress. I am sure they have blind stuff too.

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I just put Inovelli switches in my house (just over 30 of them). I got the Zigbee ones and have a combination of the dimmers, the on/off switches. the fan switches, and the presence ones. As you said, they are expensive, but they are great switches. You might have to wait a bit for the presence ones to come off back order (theyā€™re still working through filling the first batch of orders that came in during development and pre-order).

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Zooz, GE and a few others seem to share same maker but rebrand. This is guess since look is exact same

Iā€™ve used GE zwave switches in 2 homes and theyā€™ve been flawless

Neutral wire is required

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I have a couple of SONOFF 01MINIZB Zigbee switches which Iā€™ve been very satisfied with. These are just plain on/off switches, not sure if they sell any with presence detection.

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These are nice and cheap, which may be a great option for those places like my pantry that I just want a simple on/off. For these, they donā€™t appear to replace the switch, but instead you just wire them in between the sumb switch and the light, and jam them in the box behind the switch?

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There are similar zwave devices

These are great when ground wire unavailable. My first choice is the GE / zooz switch since the sonoff can be bypassed by physical switch causing ui not to work. GE/zooz works as normal switch(wall and ui anlways synced annd usable ) and are reliable enough not to need physical backup.

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This is good to hear. Right now, actually, the presence detection switches, and the on/off are the only zigbee switches in stock. What I would really like to play with for starters is a dimmer and fan switch. The estimate is like april for restocking on those.

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Iā€™m all z-wave here. My house came with a z-wave door lock, so I just built from there. Now 100 devices laterā€¦

Hereā€™s a (perhaps odd) tip which I assume applies to Zigbee devices, too. Take a look at the spec sheet and specifically the parameters. It will show the features available on the device.

The vast majority of my light switches are Zooz, but I have a few other brands, and on those I canā€™t set things like hold-down to turn the light on to a preset value (dim in my case) or double-tap for full brightness. Others in the house complain (rightly so) that those switches ā€œdonā€™t work rightā€ because they donā€™t have the same features.

Hereā€™s an example of the parameters for a light switch:

https://www.support.getzooz.com/kb/article/550-zen77-s2-dimmer-advanced-settings/

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Yes, this way the switch looks and works as normal for people who arenā€™t HA enthusiasts. Itā€™s also easy to remove (or just abandon in place) if you ever sell the house.

Mine work fine with the HA UI. The light can always be controlled from either HA or the switch.

I should add that for anyone with OCD, having the switch in the ā€œwrongā€ direction (for example, HA turns it on but the switch is still ā€œdownā€) can take some getting used to.

But thatā€™s no different from a normal three-way switch where you can turn a light on at one end of the room and off at the other, leaving one switch ā€œwrong.ā€ If youā€™re really bothered by it, Iā€™ve found you can flip the switch connected to the SONOFF on/off real quickly and set it back to the ā€œrightā€ way.

Having said all that, if you plan to go with PIR sensors and dimming switches, Iā€™d pick one protocol and one integration which will do everything you want, and where possible, one or a limited number of different brands. No sense creating a maintenance nightmare.

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