I picked up some Runlesswire switches for my Hue lights. They’re basically wall-mountable switches (fits under decora plates) with 2 mechanical rockers. The power is generated by force like the Hue tap so it doesn’t need any wires. You wire the circuit to be always on. With the recent Hue firmware allowing the lights to return to their previous state, this is a pretty nice solution for Hue with 2 exceptions… 1) if/when your hub is down your wall switches don’t work. 2) you can’t cycle between scenes.
The 2 rockers have 8 functions in the Hue app. You can press any of the 4 corners (on/off/specific scene) or you can hold them (for bright/dim/off)–you can’t trigger any scenes by holding. I was thinking it would be cool to bypass the Hue hub for this and let HA automation handle the events. In that case, I could get this to cycle between scenes & these would become pretty powerful 8 scene in-wall switches that can do pretty much anything (also I’m really close to maxing out the Hue bridge).
I’m new here and it’ll be a few days before my CC2531 arrives. I was thinking to try and get it working via zigbee2mqtt but I have no idea whether/how this mechanical/self-powered switch will pair. Has anyone tried this or know anything about the mechanical switch tech?
I decided to go another route → Mostly Zooz ZEN71 and ZEN72 for z-wave switches and the new Inovelli Blue 2-in-1 (Zigbee) where I want to control specific Hue bulbs and other scenes in smart bulb mode. The major benefit I found going this way was that I could easily build out my z-wave and ZigBee mesh networks with a device that’s always on by adding switches from either protocol. Unfortunately you wouldn’t be able get that with the Runlesswire devices since they aren’t wired in at all. Decided to just pivot in my direction instead of spending time coding the RunlessWire into Z2M.
Although this is a old topic, I recently migrated my Zigbee from Philips Hue Hub to Zigbee2MQTT, and I was able to migrate my old Runlesswire switches.
Specifically my Runlesswire device is:
“Touch for Hue” on the box but the instructions call it “Click for Hue”
Part No: FOH-DSWH (I think this means Friend of Hue, Double-Switch, White)
Purchased July 2019
This device reportedly uses an Enocean module as its Zigbee Green Power energy module.
Zigbee2 MQTT supports a few of these modules. These modules have 4 buttons. The Runlesswire device has two “paddle-like” switches, with the top or bottom of each switch, able to push one of the four buttons. So pushing a button corresponds to pushing the left/right-top/bottom of a paddle switch, meaning I did not have to take apart the Runlesswire to get to the buttons.
I took a guess that it uses the PTM 215Z, so I followed some of the z2m instructions and successfully paired it:
From Hue App, deleted the device
From z2m, permit joining
From Runless wire, press and hold B1 (for channel 25) for around 8 seconds. I watched z2m UI to see that it discovered the device, interviewed it and completed configuration. Note: The 4 buttons correspond to 1 of 4 different Zigbee channels the device is to use, so you may need to press another button instead of B1. z2m did indeed pick up the Zigbee device as an Enocean PTM-215Z
From Runlesswire, press A1 and B0 together at the same time to “confirm the channel”.
Then press each button one at a time, and z2m will see the events and inform HA (via MQTT discovery) of automation events such as “press_1”, “release_1”, etc. This will allow you to use the UI at the “Device” page for this device to create automations.
[Update] Note that from the Z2M documentation on the PTM 215Z, that this Green powered device may required Philips Hue devices nearby to do a required translation in order to understand it. In my case I have several Philips Hue devices nearby.