Just a little bit clarification. Neutral is of course not the earth line. But with aqara switches it is lost in translation. They sell it with the name “zero line” and on the packaging of the actual switch there is an N. It is connected to a spare neutral line. The actual power needed for the switch is used from the live in to the spare neutral. The ones with no N on the packaging use the power between the live line “L” and “L1”. Thats why there is always a small current going through the switch even when it is off. And that’s why if you are using a led lamp sometimes the light flickers even if it is off. And finally that’s why they use a small capacitor to fix that issue too.
To sum up, the “zero line” version of the aqara switches has an “N” on the connection and that is connected a spare neutral. Cheers.
Now makes sense because the way switches are wired, you don’t have neutral (blue or old colour black). But I am out of luck as there isn’t ground (earth/cpc green yellow), old installation.
Wasted money on 2 switches and gearbest only has that version.
Unbelievable rubbish, you never put power down the earth line, are you trying to get someone hurt or just stupid?
If anyone tries this I hope they have RCDs so they immediately trip and avoid any harm.
I have also included the instructions from their site. Care to explain what you understand from them?
I have the switches and using them. I also have RCDs. Maybe I am missing something here.
Sendorm said there is a smal current going from L to L1 not L to Earth . That’s what I understand from it, otherwise yes the RCD would trip.
“Zero line” isn’t ground, it’s neutral. Ground is connected to most of your large devices cases. Guess what happens if you touch one of those if your switch sends back power to ground.
Nope, he said this…
The N on the device itself never gets live voltage. I checked this while connecting the switch. The power from the device is taken from “L” to “N”. I also checked this with only these connections.
I just use my regular light switches (1 gang to 4 gang) and have each flick of switch flick the state of my lights on or off. My lights are controlled using esp8266 wemos d1 mini’s and I allocate 4 pins to 4 relays and another 4 pins to light switches. I run ESPEasy firmware and with rules you can say “on switch, if GPIO is 0, set GPIO to 1, else set GPIO to 0” which just tells it to flip the state. I am planing to change these to push button switches but will still be sticking with regular type light switches as they are nice and cheap and if I move I can take my home automation stuff out and re-connect the regular switches.
DIY Hacked together 4 light, 4 switch circuit
Finished 4 Relay, 4 Light Switch Box
2 x ESP 8 Relay, 8 Light Switch
The switch does not send “ac” power to the ground. The “N” on the switch is never live.
So don’t connect ground to it! If it doesn’t send any power the switch will still work without it.
As I have expained before the switch needs a connection to the “N” port. The “N” never goes live. The switching of ac power occurs between the “L” and “L1”.
If the N port never takes any power it doesn’t do anything so doesn’t need connecting, if it does it obviously does, it’s a really simple concept!
some really scary advice being given on this thread…
some people should read
or US based
If in any doubt, call a professional!
If everyone is so annoyed with the advice. I will update it accordingly.
Keeping a battery that close to mains voltage inside a wall is not a very safe set up.
Curious, why?
Emergency lights fitted in like every industrial building I’ve ever been in all work off a battery that charges off the mains. Then the light comes on when the power is cut. Couldn’t be much more complicated to add a switching system in to the mix.
@Paulio this looks like a great approach, one I have thought about before (but my thinking never seems to turn into a finished project lol).
Question though, where do you put those quite large boxes?
Hey @nickrout, For me it was the only way. I didn’t want to have to spend a fortune changing my light switches or changing my house wiring and one of my main focuses is to be able to remove my home automation if I sell my house. I also was not keen to put in a transformer and chip behind each light switch.
I have a single story home with fairly easily accessible ceiling space so that is where these boxes sit. From each light switch location, I run 2x the same gauge wire as the light switch and 2 lite gauge wires. The 2 electrical wires connect directly with the wires out of the switch using insulated connectors up to one of the relays in my box and the 2 light gauge wires connect from my light switch up to the switch side of my box. This way if I want to take things out or I have problems I can just take off a Switchplate and connect my switches back up how they were in a few min. I also have a few 2-way switches in my house. For these, you just run the 1 wire from each switch to each side of the relay.
Everything has worked perfectly so far, the little wemos d1 mini ESP8266 chips have been great and never missed a beat the last couple of months since setting up.
Hi,
I have been reeding different things on the internet regarding wall switches that work with home assistant, but I’m new to this so i get a little bit confused.
So far I found two promising wall switches (I live on the EU so I need round switch not square):
-Broadlink TC2-1 + BroadLink RM2 PRO
-Sonoff Wall Touch Switch T1
My questions are:
I read somewhere that Broadlink TC2-1 are not yet supported on HA. Is this true ?
I like Sonoff more because since its via wifi I can get the state of the switch and with the broadlink I can only send commands. But the setup seems more complicated, since I have two flash the firmware (I don’t know who to that without a usb port ) and then I have to setup a MQTT server (which is ok).
So what’s your advice ?