Use standard wall switches for HA with permanent power on the wire

Hi there,

I search for a solution to use my standard old fashioned wall light switches with HA. I have a zigbee ceiling light, with needs constant power. I thought, that the sonoff bzminiL2 was the right thing, but yesterday at my test I determine I was wrong. It is possible to control it via zigbee but it also cut the power to the light, so it is not usefull for me.

I need a way to have constant power on the wire for the lamp and makes my switches smart. Is there any tool that can achieve this?
Was would be the best way, what is your solution for the problem?
Is the only way really to replace the old switch with a zigbee one? I need two switches about each other with a frame.

Hoping for your suggestions.

Thanks Micha

A dumb switch is a dumb switch. If you want smart control over your smart luminaire via a wall mounted controller, you’ll need to replace your dumb switch with a smart controller of some kind.

There are zigbee switches available that allow for ‘de-coupled’ mode whereby the switch will send eents to HA without actually switching the power off to the light. You’ll have to look for one in your country with this functionality.

If you can find a device that can be flashed with ESPHome, then you can often control the button function separately, like the Sonoff devices.
ESPHome is WiFi based though, but it proves that an ESP device can do what you want.
ESP also make Zigbee chips and Sonoff also use them to make devices, so you might just need a new firmware for that then and someone have probably already made it.

It also looks like Ubisys can provide devices that are already capable of decoupling the elements.
https://www.ubisys.de/en/products/
https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/C4.html#decoupling

A ZbMini, don’t connect the relay, only the switch. Then bind the ZbMini to the lamp. ZbMiniL2 probably can’t do it, because it needs to be powered through the lamp.

Use your smart switch as a button only, do not connect line out to light. Connect your light to live without a switch and manage the actions using automation on home assistant end

the C4 devices seems to be the best match, but they are really expensive.

I was hoping for a little cheaper solution. I will try to replace the switches with zigbee ones.

You need relays like sonoff mini extreme or shelly, both has decoupled mode in the stock firmware if you don’t plan to flash custom firmware on it