Hello. I want to know your opinion.
I want to automate the lights of my home with the home assistant.
I’ve been reading about the milight bulbs.
But I wanted to know if through the home assistant, I can tell if they are turned on or off.
But not only that, I also want to command them through a switch on my wall.
What is the cheapest way to do this setup?
thank you
turboc
I intend to replace the old switches in my house, with one that controls only one lamp.
Just in the dining room I want a switch that controls 3 lamps.
In the bedrooms, and in the bathroom only a switch and a lamp.
I like the GE smart switches. They work great with both single and multi switch configurations. The only concern is that the secondary / add-on switches in a multi-switch configuration has to have a neutral wire running to it. This is not the same as the bare wire that also runs to the boxes and connects the green connection on the switch.
As for lights, I would buy dimable LED lights and use those. These don’t have to be smart lights because the intelligence of whether the circuit is on or not is at the switch not at the bulb. IF you want to use color or change the hue/warmth of the bulb, then you will need to go with smart bulbs. But if all you want is on/off/dim, then I would not spend the money on “smart” bulbs, and stay with dimable LED bulbs. Note, not all LED bulbs are dimable so read carefully.
BTW, you can’t query the MiLights for their current state. Communication is one-way.
ih8gates milights is one way??? Which ones are the cheapest? I did not want to spend a lot of money on bulbs. Would spend at most the value of the milight more than that not.
turboc: whats dimable led light do you speak? can you show me a link?
Here is one from lowes.
turboc
OK thank you.
What do you think I can do with my own switches with a esp8266. Put a swich button, and it would send the information ON via mqtt, as well as the OFF information. Just could not use the dimmer. I think it would be a cheap solution since a esp8266 for besides being programmable and very cheap.
Personally I wouldn’t do it. To much voltage to play with like that for me. The esp8266 is only a 5V chip? So you have to have a power transformer in there as well. You will also need a 100-200 Watt solid state relay in there, and what are you going to use to control them? You will need some type of microcontroller won’t you? To put that in a breakout box somewhere would be one thing. To try and make it fit in a in-wall electrical box, I think might be a bit dangerous. When it comes to my house and family, I’m going to stay as close to standard products as I can. The risk is just to great.
Okay, maybe you’re right. One more question, about the lamps that you told me what serial the component in the home assistant to control the on / off as well as the dimmer?
Sorry I’m not sure I understand the question.
about that bulbs that you told me. how can use the dimmer with home assistant? What the component?
The light bulb is not smart. The dimmer switch is what is smart. I have a wink hub that I connect all my switches and outlets to. The HA synches in with wink to make them available to me there. They are just switches in HA.
I bought lot of Hue color bulbs (plus iris and so on) and I regret it. Beside the initial wow effect, colours do not look good in my opinion: to dim, and too much a “whore-house” effect (unless you are single and like that :D).
I really rarely use it, and just for new friends coming to the house, few seconds and that’s it.
I like better the difference in white , although also not a killing feature: at the end of the day a on/off/dim is the best solution for in house bulbs.
For the switches I think is good one switch control more lights (like a group), but more switches one light I don’t think is vital, maybe in few circumstances could be useful
Not sure if you got where we were going with this. The single switch one/more lights is like having a standard wall switch at the door that turns on ceiling lights in a long room or a single switch that turns on the overhead light in the kitchen. The multiple switch idea is where you have a switch at the front door and at the back door where both of them turn on the outside flood lights. Or where you have two exits from a room and have two switches that turn on/off the lights in that room. That type of capability is a must have for the industry, maybe not for specific houses, but the industry as a whole needs to and does handle 3 way switches like that.
Or did I miss something?
You are right. I was missing something 
Personally I wouldn’t do it. To much voltage to play with like that for me. The esp8266 is only a 5V chip? So you have to have a power transformer in there as well. You will also need a 100-200 Watt solid state relay in there, and what are you going to use to control them? You will need some type of microcontroller won’t you? To put that in a breakout box somewhere would be one thing. To try and make it fit in a in-wall electrical box, I think might be a bit dangerous. When it comes to my house and family, I’m going to stay as close to standard products as I can. The risk is just to great.
Everything can be done on the esp, out to a mechanical or solid state relay of choice. AC Electrical components in required safety box with the 3.3v lead into it from the esp to trigger the relay and your all good.
Been running this type of setup for a few years now controlling space heaters, lights, fans etc.
Putting it into a wall box, thats another story. It is being done. I’ve seen boards on tindie.com for esp wall box gadgets
I just saw these esp 4 channel relay pop up on ali. A suitable box with 2 duplex sockets and you’ve got a 4 way outlet box.
These are some of the esp gadgets around the house.
Like I said, “Personally, I wouldn’t do it”, it’s just me. If you feel it’s safe then by all means have a go at it. I’ve done plenty of things over the years that others probably wouldn’t do (mostly with my car and involving high speed), but you get my point.