Physical button?

I see there have been a few other threads with this topic in the distant past but I don’t see any resolution.

I’ve come pretty far with HA automating our house using a lot of wifi sonoff type outlets connected to SmartLife/Tuya and a lot of wireless tags from wirelesstag.net. The one big hole that I still have is that there are times it is convenient to have a physical button - for example at the top of the basement stairs, or for a doorbell, or for my son who hates talking to his lights (we use google home also) or using his phone.

There are $40 zwave buttons but I really would like to find something sub $20, preferably even cheaper than that. Seems like such a simple thing compared to the complex control in all of the existing platforms.

I do have an idea, there is now a SmartLife/Tuya link in HA and it works great but is missing the sensor category - I have a SmartLife magnetic door sensor and it does not show in HA when connecting to my SmartLife account. If this sensor category was included, I don’t think it’d be a big code change, then I could simply hack apart a few door sensors and wire a button in where the reed switch normally is.

I would love to be the one to go add the code, and I’m trying to get time to set up a dev environment, but unfortunately with everything else going on that’s gonna be a while.

Does anyone have any other cheap elegant solutions? I also have a smartthings hub that I intend to switch to an Aotec stick pretty soon so I could do z wave as well. I was able to get the Tuya door sensor to work via IFTT to HA but the delay is too high.

FYI I do not currently have my HA instance on a public facing URL, I just don’t have enough confidence in my Linux security skills to go that route - I’m a programmer but I’m 95% in the Windows world.

I recently installed a couple of xiaomi buttons. The work well and are about £8 each here in the UK.

You would obviously need the gateway for these to work, but that is only about £25.

Xiaomi also has lots of other products that are very inexpensive (door sensors, motion sensors etc).

I think I came across those last time I was searching but it seems like the only place I can get them is via Ali Express and it’s just not clear enough to me what I’m ordering there. Where do you buy them from in the UK?

I get them on ebay. I pay a premium for the ease of purchase, but they are still inexpensive!

Here is a link to the last button I bought, but if you look at the model options, there is also the gateway, and sensors etc.

They have all been working great and also easy to set up.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Xiaomi-MI-Mijia-Smart-WIFI-Switch-Gateway-Door-Window-Temperature-Body-Sensor-H1/253744852918?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=553018975289&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Thanks Martin I think I am going to order some from there and we’ll see how it goes! I may come back here if I need help with the setup

Hi Martin. This sounds exactly what I want to do as the Xiaomi kit is well priced. I’m slightly concerned about the range. If I put Xiaomi buttons at different sides/floors of the house I suspect I might have a problem with range. The quoted range is 15m but I live in a traditional UK brick house and i suspect they won’t reach. How have you found the range?
I figure I could get multiple hubs (overkill)
Or buy some smart sockets that act as repeaters (seems crazy to have to put chinese sockets around my house to extend the signal!)
Am i overthinking this?

You can control the xiaomi buttons with zigbee2mqtt, and use ikea outlets to extend the range.

I would genuinely recommend getting a ConbeeII.

I have one running many items such as dimmers & bulbs from both ikea and hue, sensors from xiaomi & Hue. Was the best thing that I have bought. Fairly simple setup.

Range wise, as the bulbs also act as extenders themselves, everything in my (UK, brick, 4 bed) house is picked up fine.

I just wanted to chime in and say that I wound up getting a Lutron Caseta advanced hub and a couple of pico remotes. Expensive solution for physical buttons but I did it at the recommendation of a friend, they are very very responsive and rock solid. If you do it though use the custom component interface.

Thanks for the advice. Does the Conbee replace the need for a Xiaomi gateway?

Yup - replaces the hue gateway and the Xiaomi.