I have a fireplace with just a set of low-voltage wires attached to a dumb light switch. In the same box is the 110-volt fan switch for the fireplace - I could wire power into a smart wireless switch and use that - as long as the circuit it closes is on a separate, low-voltage circuit inside the switch.
Does something like this exist already? I’ve never messed with Raspberry Pi’s or Arduinos or anything - while I am an SRE in my RL job, I don’t really want to get in to soldering anything if I can avoid it at all.
Right now, I’ve got a Switchbot and a Switchbot Hub on the way from Amazon since it sort of does what I want, but I’d like to know if anyone knows about a more self-contained solution that doesn’t require me to upload YAML files to a device. It’s just a dumb on/off switch - I shouldn’t need to write a config or solder any wires to accomplish that I don’t think?
Oh my bad - I thought it was clear from the explanation, let me try again:
I’m looking for a smart wifi device that powers the wifi and “smart” components with 110v, but has a completely separate circuit for the Switch portion. This separate Switch circuit would not have house current on it when it is closed.
Wow that looks like it might be it! I ordered one - never ordered anything from Alliexpress before, or really done a project like this at all, so I guess we’ll see how it goes
Keep us posted! I never even knew such a thing existed, now I want one!
One big question I have is how well it will integrate with HA. I’ve used Ewelink stuff from AliExpress before, but that was Zigbee, not WiFi. So far they’ve been OK. They tend to go stupid if there’s a brief power interruption, like we get sometimes in a wind storm, but that’s true of a lot of small electronics.
My big concern with these would be if they can run totally locally, without the Ewelink cloud, and whether or not they “phone home” for firmware updates which might break that local integration.
Well it turned up today much quicker than expected and I have it working (Shown with case open). I also got a 2 channel relay with wireless remote as well.
They provided a printed manual that got it onto my network. I did my usual IP reservation steps on my router, The install instructions for Home Assistant are here
Installing the addon took a looong time, so need to be patient… You probably need to restart HASS.
I configured it so the switches in the app to toggle the others so only one is on at a time which suits my use. I deleted one of the switches as I only need 3.
So for me, the fun begins… Not sure on next steps. What I want to do is use my Air conditioners Demand Response mechanism which is designed for the Grid to throttle AC units on extreme demand events.
So the relay common terminals goes to C and relays 1,2,3 go to the marked terminals. So this will let me precool our room with free solar and throttle the AC current draw to 100%, 75%, 50% and OFF depending on the available solar… I think I’m crazy…
