Touch is not intuitive or blind usable. It lacks basic physical feedback and it’s a productivity killer. In my studies you will need an average of minimum double the time doing something with touch wall switch than you will need with a ordinary latching or non latching wall switch with haptic feedback.
Not to be insensitive, but why would a blind person need a light switch?
I can see why it would slow one down because, for example on one of my touch switches, I hesitate to determine if the switch did what I want. With a tactile switch I don’t have to slow down as I exit a room to know that I toggled the switch. But you gave me an idea. Since I made the switch using an ESP8266-01, I have one more GPIO that could go to a haptic buzzer, like in the cell phone.
So I bought some DS102 switches (no touch, with physical buttons, EU) that @tyjtyj already mentioned above. Unfortunately, tuya-convert appears not to work, so I will have to try and flash them the old-fashioned-way. Here are some pictures:
As you can see, there is a small board on top with the ESP8266 (TYWE3S) on it. GND and 3.3V are easily accessible from the socket on the bottom. TX and RX are on the bottom-right of the chip on the pic above. No sockets, but should be easy enough to wire.
I will report back on my success (hopefully) when I find the time.
No surprises when flashing. Because I have no idea how to safely solder stuff directly on the chip, I just attached the 3V/GND on the back and held the TX/RX in place using my fingers. Worked without problems:
Ah sorry - I forgot. No, the button is connected to GPIO3. You have to connect GPIO0 manually to ground while plugging in (it’s the fifth pin from the right on the same side as RX/TX - for images see Sonoff Wiki or Hackster.io).
I used the same method: Just hold a jumper wire in place. You don’t need to keep it there, a few seconds during startup is enough.
You also have a esphome sketch for the 3-gang version by accident?
I wonder how they managed to add 3 relays, 3 buttons and 3 leds (in all it would need 9 gpios in my world)? Is there any limitation regarding the leds (forced binded to a relay for example?). My plans is to have leds independent from the relays but rather show the state from a other device from home assistant (and also to control it with the push button…). Any thoughts on this?
The 1-gang version (I can see in your sketch) has one gpio for each relay, button and led
I actually use some buttons on these for triggering devices not connected to any of the three relays (which are disabled in ESPHome) and update the LEDs accordingly from HA. When declaring the LEDs using the monochromatic platform, ESPHome by default even adds a nice fade effect, which works really well.
I think this is the device I waited for. Bundled with esphome this is a powerful thing!
Actually a shelly or sonoff mini get’s really dumb beside this one (no led’s, no easy way for triggering multiple actions with the button like to keep it pressed for 3 seconds…)
Beside that it can be programmed fail-safe (still works locally when no network available for example).
Also with the 3 leds there is nice things to do. If connection to home assistant is not present the leds could ‘walk’ from left to right or so to have a visible feedback
It’s actually 4 LEDs - 3 blue LEDs and an additional red LED (in the middle). If you look at my esphome config, the red LED is currently used as status LED, so the device will blink red on connectivity problems.
I really like these switches. Sure, the buttons feel like mouse buttons, not what you are expecting from “normal” wall mount switches at first. And installation was a bit fiddly for me - when you have barely enough room in the wall you can’t just tighten the screws - the case gets bent the tiniest bit and buttons start to malfunction. But once properly installed they seem to be reliable (for the few weeks I owned them anyway) and having actual buttons instead of touch surfaces means children can operate them easily and you can find them at night without problems.
For those still looking. I found zemismart eu/uk version work with tuya convert. #Aliexpress 40%OFF | Zemismart WiFi Wall Push Switch Alexa Google Home Tuya Light switches Three Gangs Two Gangs One Gang Physical Button
Install and flashed tasmota. Works for few week now.