Hey, does anyone have a product they’d suggest that works in a stable way with HA that works as a switch for smart plugs, but does not connect to a wall?
I’ve got various dumb LED strips around and I’d like to put them all on smart plugs with a simple on/off control for all of them. I’m looking at TP-Link Kasa Wi-Fi Smart Plugs (HS103P4) for the plugs.
I’m seeing some products that look like what I need but I’m not sure about how well they integrate with HA.
Aqara Wireless Mini Switch T1
GoveeLife Smart Mini Double Button Switch
I tried this one but it only reacts quickly when permanently powered. Clicking it when on battery you need to wait for the action to happen and I found myself thinking waiting this 2, 3 seconds - did it actually work?
Switched to cheap ble buttons/itags together with esphome ble proxies and they trigger very quickly.
This cheap bluetooth buttons can be found for $1-2 and a esp32 (if not already present) acting as ble proxy doesn’t cost $5 anymore.
I very much advise to use hardware that is supported by esphome.
You also can check sellers which offer devices with esphome preinstalled like athom.tech or localbytes.
For me (had my mileage with zigbee…) nothing compares to the stability and flexibility like esphome devices together with home assistant (both actively developed thanks to nabu casa!)
Thank you all for your helpful suggestions. It turns out with some testing that my LED lights revert to demo-mode switching through all the colors over and over when the power is cut, so this did not end up working.
I went down a rabbit-hole reading about ESPHome here, realizing that it’s either buying very expensive replacements, or else having to flash devices at the circuit-board level. Honestly this is the kind of project I’d end up getting ovelry into and wasting a bunch of time on but I’m realizing I’m getting farther and farther from my goal.
I really just want to turn on my various LED strips and lights around a room with one button, instead of having to dance around to get them all to pickup my IR remote signal from all the various corners where their recievers are every time I want to turn them on or off. I don’t mind buying new strips for this purpose, but for such a simple goal I’d rather not get in into another hobby project that I’ll be spending hours troubleshooting every month or two.
I might need to post a new question, but at this point I’m not exactly sure what even to ask. I wish these various LED light fixtures just saved their specified settings when powered off.
It is true, but that is WiFi for you.
BLE, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter or RF is probably better, but also require that extra hardware in the form of a hub or USB stick.
My sonoff m5 wall switches support esphome so they can do their job (switching loads) and at the same time work as ble proxies. No need for a dedicated hub, usb stick or even a dedicated device!
Well, you can get the Shelly button 1 to be fast too, if you have to plugged in, but if it is not plugged in at all times, then it will drain a battery really fast in the mode and so would an ESPHome device.
The other device protocols can be both unplugged and fast responding.