I live in the US and my house is fairly old, so the electrical wiring for my lights typically has the “home run” to the light fixture Vs the switch (as in modern wiring). In order to automate such lights, I’ve solved for the most part by using e.g. a Philips Hue bulb or e.g.2 a smart outlet switch in the outlet the switch controls, and leaving the switch in the on position all the time. This isn’t ideal, but works if you know how to operate the system. The problem is that there is no longer a “dumb” / intuitive option for guests to easily turn lights on and off. What I’d really like is a battery operated switch to replace the existing switch (and hard wire the light to be always on), or less preferably, a stick on button that I can build an automation around to trigger the lights to toggle. I could use an AWS IOT developer button, but it seems like overkill. How have you solved this problem?
with no main power to the switch i don’t know that you have may options, hence the amount of replies you’ve received to the question. are you sure you have the power going directly to the fixture with the swsitch controlling the neutral and not the other way around?
i live in an older house too and i am running into similar issues. luckily i’ve been able to modify my wiring in several cases. the others i either use smart bulbs (not ideal) or haven’t figured out a solution yet.
maybe have a look at enocean devices. They provide betteryless switches which would be, considering a permenent setup in a house, my option.
The switches harvest the power to send a telegram to HA (USB transceiver) while you push the button.
You could then use those switches to control you smart sockets/bulbs/outlets.
Cons:
You need a bit more force to push it compared to common wall switches
They produce a comparatively loud clicking noise.
Expensive
I know people have modified Amazon Dash buttons to do this, either by flashing new code to the device…
Or by using additional systems to intercept the signal from the dash buttons…
Currently I use Ikea lights and have the battery powered switches than they provide blu-tacked above the light switch, and intend to 3D print some covers for the switches to prevent my muggle friends from using the wrong switch.
My eventual plan is to build my own dash equivalent using an ESP32 using deep sleep to preserve battery life, but I don’t have an example link to that solution on hand right now.
@finity Yes it’s common in older US houses for the home run to go to the fixture instead of the switch. It means only the switch wires coming to the switch, with no hot wire and neutral. Without a constant home-run, you can’t power a standard switch (no power to the switch to turn on z-wave / similar).
@snarfist Cheers for that, I didn’t realise Amazon had made ‘generic’ dash buttons - but it makes perfect sense.
Personally I will probably still roll my own to connect to a local MQTT server as I prefer to avoid cloud services where I can, but it’s good to know all the alternatives.
