As part of our house renovation, we’re rewiring and I would love some opinions on a fundamental question: should I run cables for light switches?
I’ve been using Philips Hue Zigbee switches for a couple of years now and they’ve proven to be really flexible and reliable. I also have a bunch of other Zigbee switches and they’ve been OK as well. Add in motion sensors, presence sensors and a Home Assistant Voice PE in every room and I feel like we’re pretty well set up for controlling stuff!
I’m pretty happy using smart bulbs. Again, I’ve tried a bunch of different makes and they all seem to have worked pretty well for everything I want to do. There might be a couple of types of bulbs that aren’t smart, so I’d have to address that elsewhere.
So, with all that in mind, should I bother wiring in light switches? It seems like miles of extra cable that I don’t really want. I can just run the power straight to the bulb (or groups of bulbs) and leave it at that.
But what about in the future? Is there some reason why I might want them? If push came to shove, I suppose I could run the mains cables but not use them. Or I could have hidden mechanical switches beneath the Zigbee ones. Or I could go down the behind-the-switch module route… but I’m sure that would complicate things with automations when I have smart bulbs too.
Thank you so much in anticipation of any opinions you would be kind enough to share.
Yes.
Why?
Because you want your switches to be manually operated. Do not relay on smart bulbs because they are only good for lamps.
For anything else they are crap, litteraly.
You might want to sell your house tomorrow and the buyer might and probably will not like that you have set it like this. To run cables around the finished house cost a lot of money.
What you can do is to run ethernet cat6 or cat7 cables around the house with some spot where they will all come to it, as you can use routers or ap connected to switch or main router for the very fast local and internet connection.
In my opinion you shouldn’t be cheap on this.
Hey James, I concur with the 'go for the cable option ’ sentiment. as you will probably want to sell the house at one point, or want to power something at/near a light switch socket (eg a display with your HA dashboard).
To have a physical backup/workaround is something many people here have in place, ‘just in case’.
From personal experience: We live in an older house so everything we put into it was retrofitted. Initially we started with ZigBee bulbs and always had an issue with 'was it turned off manually or by the software’s which led to having to push the physical button multiple times to ensure it gets back on. We have now switched to mains powered ZigBee buttons and can at all times switch them off and on both via software and manually.
And ethernet to the corners of the house in case you ever want POE cameras and/or outdoor access points.
I replaced almost all of my wall switches with smart dimmers. Make sure you find (and test) smart dimmers with the lighting you are using. I have issues with flashing lights at some brightness.
I can think of two reasons.
Your local electrical code may require conventional switch wiring.
And
You will not own the house forever. The next owner will likely not want a smart home.
That said, it’s probably not a bad idea to run power to the bulb. Just use 3/14 Romex instead of 2/14. It is a slightly more expensive cable, but since money is no object (smart bulbs are expensive and unnecessary), the few cents per foot additional cost would be negligible. This way you can use the red and black (US colors) for two purposes. I would wire the black to the switched and the red to the unswitched. This way you can either put in a conventional light fixture to the black/white, or a $mart bulb to the red/white circuit.
This would also only confuse future electricians less than your description.
I recently went through a pretty extensive remodel (due to a burst water pipe taking out the bottom floor of the house). I had several walls opened up (replacing soggy drywall) and I took the opportunity to run all new kitchen electrical, some audio wiring, and some ethernet cable to all the locations I thought I might want them (tucked in behind the drywall in some cases… but it’s there).
I later installed six IP Cameras, running most of the ethernet behind the outdoor siding. But in hindsight, there were a few places I should have run them in advance… I just wasn’t thinking ‘cameras’ at the time.
Additionally, prewiring for some surround sound satellites would have been a good move, rather than depending on Bluetooth with its delays and drop outs.
I guess what I’m saying is, “Too much wiring, is better than not enough.” So think about all of it while you can. Oh, and after three decades of smart homes (I was there when X-10 was cutting edge) there is no way I would have a smart home, without manual switches as a backup.
Thanks Daniel, appreciate your input here. You say that the smart bulbs are only good for lamps – I’m not sure what you mean. Could you explain a bit more please? I’ve got a bunch of Zigbee GU10 LED lights in the ceiling, and they seem to work OK. And yes, lots of lamps, which is our preference!
Why do I want my switches manually operated? At the moment we have smart Zigbee switches and manual switches, which is obviously not great. Eliminating the manual switches would make everything easier. Plus they have lots of features that manual switches don’t have, like being able to choose scenes, brighten, dim, etc. along with double-clicks, triple-clicks and everything else.
I had thought about the manual switching for backup and was going to put in a bank of switches somewhere in a utility cupboard on each floor – for the eventuality that, say, the HA machine goes down.
Thanks for your comments afsy_d, much appreciated. Totally get what you say about the manual switches + Zigbee switches!
So, you have the mains powered switches now… how does that work with smart bulbs or is that precluded? We really like being able to dim and change colour on the bulbs for a bunch of reasons, not just scenes, but automations too, e.g. flashing the shower ceiling lights when the shower timer runs out.
Any insights on the above would be great, thanks!
Good point about the displays / dashboards – I will think about that too.
I guess there are two issues here: the electrical one and the user access one.
I’ve been talking to the electricians about this and one idea was to have a bank of switches in a utility cupboard on each floor, to provide backup function and electrical isolation for that floor’s lights.
As for the user access one, well, Zigbee switches can be mounted at any height to suit building regs.
Another option could be to put manual switches in a backbox that is hidden behind the Zigbee switch. If the manual switch is needed, then it would be there, hidden away.
Anytime!
The smart-bulbs are ‘toggled’ over zigbee by the simple press of a button. If you want to ensure that it still works if HA is down, you can also use direct binding to link the bulb(s) to the switch.
Then for more advanced stuff like scenes or rotating through colors you could specify that if the button is held longer or pressed twice, it triggers one of those scenes/colors.
Since the bulbs are technically always on, HA can at all times send commands to them and manage them. Using them in automations is then easy.
Thanks afsy_d. I don’t really see what I’m benefitting from over a battery-operated Zigbee switch in that case.
I think we might be in agreement about smart bulbs… I love them!
I did implement direct binding a while back, after I first setup HA, because I was experiencing fairly regular freezing of the HA instance. However, I resolved the HA problems and since then the HA has been rock solid. It’s been up for perhaps a year, doing a lot of work. So in truth, it’s more reliable than our electricity supply, which has had various outages over that period!
If for some reason we didn’t have HA for a couple of hours, it wouldn’t be any worse than not having electricity, or water (which also happens from time to time) – we just deal with it.
What I probably should do (perhaps when the family is away!) is test failing over to my backup HA machine.
As smart bulb needs constant power you can easily just turn lamp on, put smart bulb in it and that is it. You are controlling it like you wish, presence detention, low light, scenes, bed sensors you name it.
It is not simple like that with light switchs. Yes you can buy light switches with decoupled mode like some aquara models but what you are basically doing is over complicating things.
Light should be hardwired. Nothing else. You want to be able in anytime, smart home or not, turn on your light.
If you want play around you can use smart bulbs in lamps or install led stripes but this is just for fun.
You want light to be working regardless if your home assistant or any other smart home system is down, you don’t have internet or you just decide to drop everything and go with dumb house.
That why it is not good to use smart light bulbs as your main lights. It is much better to use smart switches as they add additional functionality to your lights but maintain basic manual operation if needed.
I have to guess that you are not in the US, because either of these options would violate the National Electric Code.
NEC 210.70(A)(1) says that you must be able to turn on the room’s light from the entry point and the control must be wall-mounted and listed. Also that control must be usable without removing covers or accessing hidden compartments.
Thanks Stephen. As a matter of interest, would a battery-powered Zigbee switch (Philips Dimmer, say) meet code if it were located at the room’s entry point?