Switch Panel Design

Hardware
1

Hi,

I have been prototyping my new HA deployment, and am using a lot of ESPHome driven hardware. The topic here is about the Sonoff switches, and using them to turn loads on from HA.
I am planning a new build, and therefore have full flexibility to do what I want to do.

I have an AV and electrical room, which is where my Dell server resides, with all of the electrical, connectivity, Unifi setup, etc.
I am running all loads to that room. So all lights are going back to the room into an electrical box. In the electrical box, I will put the Sonoff switches.

Now I need to control those switches to turn lights on and off.
I can use my phone, a tablet, etc. but I need to have controls for the light where you would expect them. By the doors, etc so if someone is walking into a room, they have a switch to turn the light on. The “old” way. Some areas have 3-6 circuits. Large garage…
I am a hardware designer, so here is the diagram I am thinking about using. I have prototyped it already and got it working. Now I am thinking about making a custom PCB.
Here is the block diagram:

Sketches for home assistant _210801_123450_1
Sketches for home assistant _210801_123450_11440×2036 189 KB

Some more details:

  1. There will be 8 touch. I need to optimize the connections a bit to get more touch sensors. In my POC, I have 7 now. The number of touches will change (up to the 8 ESP32 supports), but exact number will be driven by the IOs available.
  2. eInk, 2.90in display. The intent for that is to display the function of each button. So it is customizable. The button can turn on and off a light, an automation, or anything in between.
  3. I want to have a LED for each button for status. I thought about a single on/off LED. That would be the simplest as they make them bottom mount on the PCB. But to get fancy, I can add a WS2812b LED to each of the buttons, and control the color based on what i want, or could be as simple as on/off with a specified color. That makes the hardware a bit more challenging as it will be manual to mount the LEDs through the PCBs when they are not designed for that. Other alternative is to make a second PCB to solder the LEDs on, and put it behind the main one. I will decide on the mechanical design later. I will focus on function for now, so the intent is WS2812b for each button. Controlled as segments of 1 LED each.
  4. A PIR so I have presence in the room where the switch is, and I will use it to lower the dimming or turn the LEDs off

Questions…Is this thing even useful? Or is there an off the shelf one I can use. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel.
what am I missing?
Anything else you think I would need?
Anyone interested? My intent is to make it open source anyways.

Thoughts welcome!
H

2

Something similar has been designed:

3

Hi,
I’ve got a bank of standard switches in 2 locations in my house and it’s not useful at all.
Double switches are fine - I make the “near” one control the nearest light, and the “far” one control the next nearest one. If you need to add a third one to do something else, that’s already questionnable but can work.
In my experience, anything more than this just confuses everyone.

Does labeling / other fancy stuff help? Not for me, because I want to be able to use these switches in the evening when the eyes are tired and I forgot the glasses, or use my elbow without looking at all as I carry some stuff.

Keep it simple. 2 switches at most, assign most useful scenes to them, and remember that no matter what was switched on, the next click should turn everything off.