I am fortunate enough to have a neutral cable for my lights.
Would any of these be compatible?
If not, what should i be searching for to ensure compatibility?
The Sonoff T1 Touch definitely work as that’s what I use.
I have them flashed with the Tasmota firmware so I am not reliant on the cloud to use them.
Be careful about buying the EU version of any of these switches as I believe they require a deeper back box than the UK spec ones. As the back on the EU ones are more round so probably need to extra depth to fit the electrics in?
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Thank you, I’ll probably go for the sonoff, does flashing the firmware require old school connecting to a pc or can it be done via WiFi after installation?
I suggest you follow Dr Zzs on YouTube mate, he is fast becoming the Tasmota/Sonoff king. Somewhere to start is here.
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This is all great information thank you.
Something that has always bothered me is that i have a non smart 2 gang switch downstairs for upstairs and downstairs hallways and a 1 gang upstairs for just the upstairs.
Can i install a 2 gang sonoff upstairs (in place of the non smart 1gang) and have it control the 2 gang sonoff downstairs.
What I am really asking is can I install a 2 gang sonoff in an existing 1 gang, and use both buttons?
I also use the Sonoff switches and they work well.
I have changed my 1 gang for 2 gangs and i have them control each other with a simple automation which works well
Hi, before you order anything, you have tested that the cable at the switch is a neutral and not a black/blue coloured switch wire ?
Unfortunately you are correct, some of downstairs has a neutral line (2 circuits downstairs) upstairs does not.
I found this, couldn’t find any information on whether it would be supported by HA though. I emailed the site and they said they don’t know.
http://www.wifi-smart-home.co.uk/one-gang-tempered-glass-wi-fi-light-switch.html
Can’t help with a touch switch, i chose the Xiaomi ones, work with HA either with the gateway, or a zigbee stick
And easiest way to test for a true neutral is using a volt meter, between the neutral wire and earth, with the switch turned on you should always measure zero volts
It’s not neutral.
Looks like I’m back to square one, no neutral means no sonoff.
This is a major headache. The Xiaomi didn’t pass the wife test
I have now found these, i have a spare RM pro (i replaced it with the harmony hub) HA has support for the RM pro, so maybe I’m on to something here?
But i think this does mean that I won’t be able to configure a button on the light switch to do something else?
Another option which I have, is the Energenie switches which appear to be very similar to the LumoS.
Link here: EnergenieMIH024
They also work over 433Mhz and say they require a hub which I do have and use, but I have detected the codes when the switch is with a Sonoff RF bridge and an RM Pro but that is after it’s already paired with the hub.
They work but as with any 433Mhz device you can’t detect the state, so if you turn on with the wall switch it doesn’t show in Home Assistant that it is on. If you control through Home Assistant then all would work correctly until the wife then presses the switch and state in Home Assistant is out of sync with reality.
Damn, i didn’t even think of that
Can RF send power off and power on signals or is it just power toggle?
Sonoff Basic in the Ceiling Rose?
Not tried it yet but it’s on my to-do list as none of my switches have neutral either and the Wife doesn’t like smart switches… “They look like tacky sci-fi props”
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They are 2 different RF codes, or they are on the Energenie ones. I am intending to move to Sonoff like @Coedy just mentioned. I already have 2 Sonoff basics programmed ready to install. Intending to test first in an outside light which is easily accessible and hopefully wont burn the house down if it goes wrong.
The biggest worry with the Sonoffs in the ceiling rose is accessibility, is there enough room and are you confident nothing is going to go wrong. I’m not sure why no one that I’ve seen are producing a UK light switch with the ESP8266 in the switch and not require a Neutral wire. If they can put an RF receiver and related circuitry in a switch then an ESP8266 should be doable, it could then report the status of the light in the same way the Sonoff Basic in the ceiling rose can. Maybe I am missing something obvious.
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I am not to worried about states at the moment, as I don’t intended to do anything fancy, yet, just turn on, turn off and turn all off. ("Alexa, Lights out")
And when I send turn on, if it’s already on, I don’t want it to turn off. According the website this is possible with RM Pro
But, I installed the I lumos last night and it looks really nice, but I can’t use any of the rf/wirless/rm pro stuff yet, because the battery with remote was flat and it’s the most stupid size battery in the world.
So I have to wait until Friday for the battery to be delivered before I can test and report back but all the information in the thread is gold, thank you.
I am struggling with the choice here as well.
It turns out, inside my light switches that I have 3x neutral (blue) cables terminating in a single terminal block. My house is a very recent new build in the UK (2017), so I think it is actually using the switch-based 3-cable wiring solution which means I have more choice for smart switches.
But choosing products is very hard! There aren’t many dedicated sites, particularly covering UK, or with reasonable shipping to the UK. I have concerns buying from Alibaba with lack of UK / EU industry standards.
Ideally, I want:
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physical switches in case there is an issue with HA for real-world / traditional use. Just because its “new age” tech, why do people insist it must look “futuristic”, i.e. Sonoff T1 and similar
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independent of HA running, in line with above.
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reasonable cost / good value, though I appreciate this is subjective. cheap units I have found look exactly that. is Z-wave reasonable given its higher price?
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avoid extra hubs or proprietary protocols (i.e. Den, Energenie which are 2 of the better designed units)
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no less on the switch unit itself to show state (I can just look up! and this will be annoying trying to sleep…)
Anyone able to assist with recommendations? Even just providing good sites with decent selection of products, with good reputations, if not actual products themselves.
Finally, wondering if I should just deploy hidden switches (Shelly 1 is the current preference given its mirrored capabilities to Sonoff Basic but smaller size and better quality/standards). Given my expectation that I now have natural in the switch itself (in the UK), can I cable this in either the switch or the ceiling rose (I ask because the next problem in the UK is the shallow depth of the switch box to be able to cram everything in!)
Wow, this industry (home automation) is making it hard for me to spend my money…
You could look at LightwaveRF Gen 1. No neutral required, but you’ll need a 433MHz transceiver. There are several options for that that don’t use the cloud-connected LightwaveRF WiFi Link like RFXtrx (what I use and supported with an HA component) or a Sonoff RF bridge. Or, there is now native support for the WiFi Link in HA.
LightwaveRF is pretty much set-up-and-forget. I haven’t had any problems in three years.
The drawback with Gen 1 is that there is no status feedback. If you care about that, I’ve overcome the issue with a fairly simple but initially somewhat tedious workaround: Light status. I’ve been using it for a few weeks with flawless performance so far.
LightwaveRF Gen 2 is not currently usable with HA directly and is considerably more expensive than Gen 1. It does have status feedback, but it only works with the cloud-connected hub. Lightwave had only just released API details in beta after promising it for nearly two years.
@stevenhorner is the energeniemih024 a dimmer switch? From its description normal gu10 leds cannot be used. Furthermore I see it doesn’t require a neutral whereas as in a dimmer neutral is required. So can it be used as a normal switch?
@ronschaeffer same question for you regarding the lightwaverf gen 1? No neutral required but is the switch only for dimmer leds?
Thanks.
@bachoo786 In my experience, you can use non-dimmable LEDs. They just don’t dim if you long press the on/off buttons. The switches are a bit picky about LEDs. Some may buzz slightly. It’s worth looking for recommendations in the forums or checking reviews on amazon.co.uuk.
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@ronschaeffer @stevenhorner
Looking at the small print on sites selling the UK version of the Sonoff T1 UK unit, it states it DOES require neutral wiring. So I’m not sure what this actually is. Buyer beware… at least until clarified.
https://www.itead.cc/sonoff-t1.html
Separate unit, but in case others consider the T1, thought it worth mentioning.