I am having my bathroom renovated and want to give instructions to the electrician to help me make it ‘smart’. Ive already asked him for his suggestions but he looked at me blankly when I mentioned HomeAssistant!
Ideally, I’d like to use HomeAssistant for automation, but make sure everything works ‘as normal’ for guests etc. using the existing switch.
How it works at the moment is when the light is turned on, the fan also comes on. When the light is turned off, the fan carries on running for 10 mins then switches off.
How can I maintain this behaviour, but also allow for automations, such as switch the light off after 30 mins of movement, or at night, turn the light on at 10% brightness and just run the fan for 1 minute and then turn off (or not at all)etc.
It depends how this is wired. Probably electrician knows how. Is this is “dumb” installation then fan is probably wired somehow to the light.
For better information your electrician should explain to you how this is wired now.
Basically the best option would be to use smart switch but that leaves the fan question. If the fan can be wired to some smart mini switch then to have power all the time then it is not the problem.
Just create autoamtion that will turn the fan on/off or leave it for some period of time.
Yes, the fan has a permanent live, and switched by the light switch. I just need to give him instructions how to wire it and he will make sure its safe etc. But I don’t have enough knowledge to explain it to him.
From what I understand I can use a smart relay for the light, but then does that relay also turn the fan on? What hardware do I need to turn it off with Home Assistant yet still allow it to work as normal with the switch? Is that even possible?
Well you can buy a smart light switch. Now days you have a lot of options and replace old light switch with a smart one. You have to decide what protocol will it use wifi, zigbee or something else.
For this fan you can use some mini switch for example like this one. This is on/off switch that is connected to the mains as input and to the device you want to control as the output.
And there is all to it. Just write some automations that will turn the fan on/off when the light is on or you can combine it will human presence sensor if the light is off and bathroom is occupied.
Get Shelly. Certified european device that works locally out of the box.
Yes you can make it work manually and from HA.
But you need to describe what features you are really looking for.
This is one wiring example where it was required full control to switch the fan off without 10min timer. If you don’t need that “feature”, wiring is more simple.
