Hello!
I’m wondering if you have to use special dimmer switches to dim light or if you can realize it with a normal switch and just holding button 1 to dim up and button 2 to dim down.
If possible, I would use a Zigbee wall switch with 2-4 buttons, connect it to HA via ZigbeeMQTT and control a LED strip which hangs on a Athom WLED controller.
Or do I have to have a special dimmer module in between somewhere?
Thanks for explaining, I’m still learning 
Dimmers have additional hardware that allows them to dim.
Woh there, you really need to do some more research before you jump in! Those products that are only marketed as “switches” and nothing more will work for what you want.
You do have to buy and use a product that is specifically designed to be a dimmer. Dimmer products available either come on the form factor as a “dimmer-switch” (a.k.a. smart dimmer switch) as a complete unit (those type of all-in-one dimmer-switchs are more common in North America and Asia as most use the same standard wall-switches) which as normally connected in-line light source, or a “dimmer-module” (a.k.a. smart dimmer module) which normally is hidden behind the old dumb-swtich (which need to be a momentary-switch) that then control the module by only sending command signals to the dimmer-module which is normall connected in-line to the light source (dimmer-modules are more common in Europe where we have many different standards of wall-switches, and you normally use those to convert most newer wall-switches into momentary-switch by simply adding a spring so you can then use it with a “dimmer-module”). You can also use either of those type of solutions in Home Assistant as a remote control “button” for any other light by setting up automation as then it is Home Assistant that handles the automations. But the benefit of using any of those in-line with light source is that the wall-swtich will still work as a normal dimmer switch even when Home Assistant is off-line and thus is more user friendly
Product examples:
Technically a dimmer will use totally different technologies from a switch, (as a switch is just a dumb relay which can only do ON or OFF (so they are always what is called a latching-switch), while dimmers use various trechnical methods and solutions to modulating the voltage that is passed on the connect source light). Also note that if you are not using old incandescent lightbulbs then you must specifically buy LED lights that are design to support dimming, (which most cheap LED lightbulbs are not, so personally I can recommend buyng Philips “warmglow” series of LED lights for use with dimmer modules and dimmer swtiches).
The alternative is to use a smart lightbulb instead but that is not generally recommended for Zigbee if you want them for any lights that have a wall-switch because most Zigbee lightbulbs acts as a Zigbee Router (Zigbee repeater/extender) and those always need to have power so you should not power them off via a wall switch. Thus only recommend using Zigbee lightbulbs for mood lights and accent lights that are not connected to a dumb switch so that no one can power them off.
Here is an old relevant article that mentions a few older products for Europe but the rest of the article itself is still a globally relevant article as better explains what to think about with smart dimmers and what you need to consider before buying smart dimmers and lightbulbs for use with such smart dimmers, (it is written in Swedish but you can use google translate to convert it to English):
Thanks for your help! Appreciated!
I believe I see now where I thought wrong.
A light switch sends one signal per touch of a button. So on is on and that’s it.
I thought it sends this signal continuously for as long as you hold the button, so I could take that repeatedly incoming signal and increase or decrease a counter to change brightness.
But obviously that’s not how a switch works. What a bummer. But correct me if I’m still wrong.
So now I’m searching for either a wireless dimmer with a knob or a wireless dimmer with two buttons - in a pleasant design. Whish me luck!
If you are going to control a athom wled then I assume this already have a dimmer installed?
I mean you can control it from HA UI? Dimming and all?
In that case you just need a remote.
You don’t need a dimmer, you do not want to dim the incoming wires to the athom wled because that will skew thing up.
You could buy a dimmer with a knob for instance but the wire from the dimmer has to be not dimmed.
So you essentially bypass the dimmer and just use the value of the dimmer and use this to control the wled.
Thank you Hellis81, exactly what I was wondering.
The Athom is functional in HA and no, I don’t want to dim the wires to the Athom.
I just want to use a wireless switch dimmer to control the Athom via HA.
And wireless because I would prefer not to have to pull a cable to the location from where the light shall be controlled.
Just to make sure I got it now, so basically I could buy any wireless dimmer that communicates with HA, right?
There are no such thing as a wireless dimmer.
There are wireless remotes, and there are wired dimmers.
I know Aqara says they have a wireless dimmer but that is just a remote if we should be strict.
So with that out of the way the list of options is a lot larger.
The only thing you really need to focus on is if the device has long hold.
Most of the time you can just search for the device there and you will get automations posted regarding the device and there you see what it has.
I have a few IKEA remotes at home.
The first one is the on/off small button remote. It has long hold and works ok.
IKEA Styrbar four button remote, not a great remote but it works. I wouldn’t recommend it.
IKEA Symfonisk rotary, it’s a good remote for a few months. Then it gets worn and the rotary part skips or goes the wrong way.
IKEA Symfonisk gen 2. This has been a great remote so far.
But this is more of a media remote. Perhaps not intuitive to use as a light remote
I think the right things have been said in the above posts, but there’s still room for wrong interpretation due to mixing up terms.
A “dumb” dimmable bulb requires a wired smart dimmer to integrate in HA. A wired dimmer may have buttons to control it, and/or it may rely on a (wireless) remote for dimming. It needs the wires to manipulate the power going to the bulb to dim it.
A smart dimmable bulb requires a remote for controlling it using buttons. It cannot be used with a wired (smart) dimmer, because then you’d have two dimming circuits, one in the bulb and one in the dimmer. It can be used with a wired smart switch, as long as the switch is used in what is called detached mode. The switch will then act as a remote and it will not cut power from the smart bulb. The wires will always deliver power.
So to summarize: if a dimmable bulb is “dumb”, you need a smart dimmer. If the bulb itself is already smart and dimmable, you just need a remote. A smart switch can act as a remote in detached mode (if it supports it. Technically speaking it will no longer switch).
Assuming the Athom wled controller is smart, you only need remote buttons. Those should support press and hold/release for dimming. You could use a smart switch (the advantage being it is powered through mains and not requiring a battery). It should support detached mode if it also supplies power to the Athom wled controller. It should support press and hold/release for dimming.
You can wire the switch to always send mains to the bulb.
But there are of course some safety issues with that.
True, but I did not want to make it more complex than it needed to be
@Mascarducky What country do you live in and what junction boxes do you have for wall-switches?
You can probably get product tips and advice here is you say which country you live in. The products you can and should use varies and depends on the mains-electricity as well as standard used for electrical junction box (also known as a “jbox”) for wall-switch which also varies and depend on both country and age of the house or when it was renovated, etc… so some junction boxes may be square or rectangular while others are round, and all can have different sizes in width and deep, all of which is important to know before you buy a product.
North America for example use 110v (volt) at 60Hz (hertz) for mains-electricity while Europe use 110v (volt) at 60Hz (hertz) for mains-electricity while in Europe 230v (volt) at 50Hz (hertz), so a mains-powered product that is specifically made for North America can not be used in Europe or vice versa. There are some universal products but they are rare and are more common in transformer products where they convert to a lower voltage (usually 12 to 48 volt depending on transformer product), also known as a “LED driver” if made for LED-light.
Good luck! Tip is to at least do some research on wikipedia at a minimun. Start by reading these:
Again, the Athom WLED controller does not qualify as a"dumb" lightbulb but as a smart light. It already contains dimming logic inside, and has wifi/bluetooth as well. So it is not suited to add a dimmer in front of it: that will probably destroy the controller. The OP needs something that can act as a remote.
Hey!
Thank you all for your support!!
So what I learned now is I need is a remote for my setup and it’s important that the remote supports long hold.
Using Trådfri on/off would be cute, as it’s small and I’ve had it at home some years ago - but it seems Ikea stopped selling them.
I’m actually located in Sweden and not even IKEA Sweden sells it.
Instead, they sell Styrbar. @Hellis81 why don’t you recommend it?
Are there other remotes that are more recommended?
@Hedda as mentioned, I’m located in Sweden
The installation of my project will actually happen on four wheels as I’m building a mobile home. I do have 12VDC, 24VDC and 230VAC available, but everything smart will be powered by 12/24VDC only.
Therefore, especially regarding dimming, I’d like to use some wireless device (remote, as I learned now ).
The next time time you ask for help I suggest to start by telling what you want to achieve and what your requirements are, it would have meant a lot to know from the beginning that 12-24 vilt DC power was a requirements (i.e. the goal). That is the smart way to ask, please do read this → How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
The original confusion comes from you specifically asking which Zigbee dimmer to use and how to use it. It is now clear that you do not want a dimmer but a remote, and that remote does not need to be Zigbee.
Personally I would not recommend using Zigbee in a
mobile home, in fact I would recommend not to use any wireless IoT devices in any four wheeled vehicle as would think it be better to to use wired devices then. Suggest that you also looks at wired solutions before settle to early on wireless solution that might not work as good in a mobile home such as yours.
When you use the left and right button they send an turn on command after you released the button.
So up button click is turn on, and the same is sent after a long press of right left.
If you use the up button click as turn on the light with 100% brightness then that is what will happen after a long press on right/left.
I have managed to create work around in node red where it captures that you’re using the side buttons and then ignores the turn on after.
But since some time ago an update (I believe) has rendered the remote crippled even worse.
Now right left buttons don’t work at all on one of the remotes.
I believe the on/off was replaced with Rodret, but I have no knowledge of that remote.
Careful there. You don’t just need long hold (technically, it’s either hold or long press - there’s no such thing as long hold). You also need a remote which sends a release event.
The release event will let your WLED controller when you want to stop dimming. Otherwise your only options with hold would be to go to some predefined brightness, which I assume is not what you want.
Unfortunately, this further narrows down your options. To make things worse, you can’t search in the Z2M page for this because it is a state and not directly exposed.
The Ikea Tradfri Remote has release states under action in case it helps. Even if it’s not physically what you were looking for, now you know what the device you end up buying needs to support.
