Hello, I have been a Home Assistant user for a while and really like the local speed and integrations like Zigbee.
I am happy with my thermostat situation, manual controllers with smart connectivity (not required) to run.
Which is my main question: With regards to smart lights, what is the best solution to ensure I can still turn on and off the lights when Home Assistant/Zigbee etc. is not working? Back to basics only electricity is on, no wifi.
Closest I’ve seen is IKEA Tradfri, as I can pair a switch directly with a bulb, but cannot connect to HA at the same time.
Configure your HA node as a Zigbee controller and pair all your smart devices (including switches) to this controller (it’s a direct replacement for the Trader controller).
Once it’s all configured, you can configure the switch to also control the lamp directly. If HA is down, then the switch will still control the lamp.
That all said: If the mains is on, I’m not sure why HA can’t also be running. It doesn’t need WiFi to function as a Zigbee controller.
I’m a little confused by your question. All smart bulbs/lights need to be powered all the time, usually you would replace the bulb/light and turn the wall switch ON. Job done. The bulb/light could then be connected to your preferred hub, be that a Hue bridge, Zigbee coordinator or whatever.
If HA goes offline for whatever reason, you can just operate the existing bulb/light with the wall switch. Nothing more complicated than that.
You’ll need to configure the bulb/light so that when power is lost and regained it switches on.
Zigbee bas a feature called binding, supported by some devices. Z-wave has a similar feature called direct association. It does not affect their pairing with the controller / HA.
I would rather the main power switch not be accessible for aesthetics, and only the smart ones. As anyone else would flick it off and then the smart functions no longer work.
You may want to reconsider that if you are looking for resilience. My mantra has always been to “augment” not “automate”. I purposely leave the manual controls there just in case.
This may not apply to you, but I have a technophobe for a spouse. She’s happy to let the house do its thing, but she has zero interest in learning how it works. That means that I am a single-point dependency if the house relies on smarts for normal operation.
If, for any reason, I am not available to fix something when it - inevitably - breaks, the house must be capable of manual operation until I am around to fix it. I used to travel a lot on business and could be away for weeks at a time (this was the initial driver to add smarts to the house). BUT, the smarts only augment what’s already there.
This is exactly the point. I would like as much smarts as possible, but basic function to remain and either to never interfere e.g. Someone turning off the power switch, causing a “smarts” to fail.
I have just tried out Zigbee binding and it is great! These devices now operate independently of HA, but can still be controlled by HA and therefore HomeKit by extention (for techno-phobe family members). Thank you @Guff666@peterxian
