"Ordinary switches" coexisting with HA?

Hi,

A total newbie question: Since my wife is not an early adopter when it comes to home automation or change in general, how can I make her world and mine coexist? For example, we have outdoor lights that I have automated with HA so they turn on half an hour before sunset and goes of in the morning.
For different reasons she tend to turn one of those ligths off using the “old switch” resulting in that light not getting the automated off-signal in the morning. I want her to be able to do that. At the same time I dont want to replace our existing Schneider Renova switches.
Is there some (zigbee?) switch that I can install behind the old switch and let HA control the light?
Then she will feel that she have the same functionality with some automation on top.

Shelly’s are an option. They have mutliple versions for single double, double switch, etc.
These are installed in the box behind the switch - allowing HA to control, but also the old physical switch as well.

https://shelly.cloud/shelly1-open-source/

Depending on the size of your box, you could also put in a Sonoff basic.

Lastly thought - if you like DIY, you could do something with an ESP8266… would take a little work, but I am sure it is possible.

Cheers!
DeadEnd

Thanks for swift reply. Is there a way to do it “the other way around”? Since my lightbulbs allready are “smart lights” (Trådfri from Ikea) I would rather have the light switch only comunicating with HA and have HA turn on/off the light via the Trådfri Gateway.

If not, I will go with your solution.

Regards, Mårten

I would use a Fibaro Dimmer2 / switch 2, then connect the light on S2 to give the module power load. Then you can program it as a remote control, using regular switches

That is a good way, having a relay on the back with switch input you can control the smart light without taking the mains off, i have several yeelights and zigbee that way. Take a look here i posted some time ago.

The relay will sense change in the switch (flic up/down) and command via api the zigbee light without powering on/off the light

Thanks alot!

Hmm. So you’re using the REST-component in HA…?
How low have you set the scan_interval to not have to long a delay before the lights goes on/off?

No. I am using esphome fw in the shelly devices (and sonoff touch) which has a dedicated api to communicate directly to ha.

Unfortunately I don’t have my shelly device demo which I have it attached to non installed switch plate to show how it works and do testings. I’ll see if I can reassemble it this week.

Ok.Thanks. Also saw that Shelly now supports MQTT. Guess that’s better to use than REST.