So this is not completely Home Assistant related but might be interesting for others.
I own a couple of the new extreme L2.
They work fine. The problem is that my use case is not what they are officialy designed for.
I have some outdoor sockets with lights plugged in.
Inside my house i have a box were it all comes together.
When the lights outside are plugged into the socket, it works fine, cause there is a neutral.
When i pull the lights out of the socket, the Mini goes offline…
Is there a workaround for this? and if so, maybe a quide.
The best is obviously to buy new smart switches with neutral for those sockets where you pull the lights out of the socket like that and just repurpose the switches without neutral for some other lights.
But suggest do a search for “LED dimmer bypass load resistor” and similar keywords to find a possible solution. Just be sure to get a load resistor made for AC and correct voltage. Example; Shelly ByPass:
No-neutral products always require some load for them to work, so you can install a so-called “bypass” (also known as a “load by-pass” or “load resistor”, “bottom load”, “dummy load”, or “anti-flicker resistor”) to each light socket as then that will add minimal load switches without neutral needs. Technically is more or less just a resistor or capacitor that will always act as a small load and also pass on bypass some current/power. Bypasses are often sold as a solution for stopping dimmed LED lights from flickering when dimming and very low-power LED lights from not still being lit when powered off (a.k.a. ghosting).
Adding such a bypass is that they also enable you to use lights with a lower capacity load than the recommended minimum without a bypass, (which is why a bypass is often required when using LED lights with smart dimmer modules).
ITead/Sonoff does not sell a such “bypass” product but in theory you should be able to get away with buying a by-pass product that is made for a other product with similar specifications, such as for example the ByPass from Shelly, but I would recommend also adding a wire fuse element for the correct load to each switch (each light socket) just to a little more safe.
