What Wall Switch Options are there?

Any chance you can snap some pics/vid?

Does this help? far bulb is a hue colour and closer one is a Innr colour. As you can see it is quick. The Xiaomi hub is downstairs and the HA RPi is near it and the Hue hub is in another room downstairs.

well my great hope of it being a wife winner fell flat :expressionless: She said, yep great doesn’t match the chorme light fittings we have and can you tell I am getting sick of all of this now? so I can turn a light on via a none matching light switch, when I could press a switch 6 months ago… (she loves it when it suits, alarm, coloured lights, automation when away/home/security)

1 Like

Thanks but actually I mean the built in Xiaomi switch :smiley:

Nice lights though!

that is the wall switch ? just not on the wall yet.

1 Like

Do you mean the wired version?

Anyone found a reasonably priced switch that sends dimming commands to home assistant yet?

1 Like

I would also like this!

1 Like

Just a warning to anyone using the wireless switches from Xiaomi/Aqara they no longer work with HASS due to the latest firmware update of the Xiaomi Gateway.

Mine just arrived and updated during installation, they’re now totally useless to me. Glad I hadn’t stuck them to the wall yet!

Back to the drawing board for me, I’d always been against using wireless switches because of a fear of reliability but this just confirms it.

A real shame because they look and feel really nice.

More info here: https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/issues/8935

I would also like to know… Just had a dimmer switch that broke, need to replace with something…

It’s better to use a generic bridge for home-automation I suppose, like the Zigate for example.

The use of xiaomi implementation will always be sensitive to upgrade as it’s more a hack rather than the use of any official API.

Is that Zigate available?
Are you using it?

Not yet, it was a kickstarter campaign, delivery expected in September or October.

The first to be really compatible with Xiaomi, Ikea, Philips, … as far as I know.

1 Like

All of the switches I’ve seen seem to toggle power to the socket as well as being capable of sending/receiving events to/from hass.io. I don’t want to toggle the power as I’m using lifx bulbs, I would rather just tell hass.io when an action has occurred and let it control the light. However I would like the option to cut power to the light fitting if I want to change a bulb for example.

So I’m thinking about rolling my own solution. I’m hoping to use an existing light switch with a pi zero w (or similar) to send/receive events to/from hass.io. Ideally it would be a direct replacement for the existing light switch (I’m in the UK but the house we’re buying is old and in need of renovation so it will be rewired and the new standard includes the neutral at the switch).

I’m thinking I need:

  • pi zero w
  • light switch
  • additional small SPST switch mounted on the bottom edge of the light switch
  • stepdown from 240V AC to 5V DC 1.2A to power the pi
  • a relay to cut power to the socket

Then I just connect GPIO pins to the switches and the relay, Connect power to the pi through the stepdown and write a script to run on the pi. Beyond the dangers of mains electricity am I missing something? Has anyone else tried something similar?

This feels like a fairly easily solved problem so I’m surprised there are no commercial options. Is it because this is still seen as a somewhat niche market?

You could even go much simple by using a Wemos D1 Mini and a Relay shield,

They are available in wemos official store for 3,00€ and 1,03€ respectively.

They also offer a push button shield (0,52€) that you could use with the dual base (0,86€) for development.

You can then simply control the switch and receive your push button event or switch state over MQTT and handle the control in HASS.

2 Likes

Thank you for the excellent advice. I had come across an article that pointed me in a similar direction too: https://medium.com/@monkeytypewritr/amazon-echo-esp8266-iot-a42076daafa5

I’ve placed an order for a bunch of bits and some light switches and I’ll report back how I get on. Cheers!

1 Like

I am not sure I trust the power supply or the overall build of that @iandw

1 Like

The issue with Xiaomi wall switches seems fixed. I’m thinking of ordering one to test.

Also they are on sale now at Gearbest for 20 bucks

Which one ?

https://www.gearbest.com/alarm-systems/pp_610096.html?