[luma]

Not the fella you asked but let me offer some wisdom: smart switches are a lot easier to live with than smart lights. If you also want color control, HA can do a decent job of making smart switches work well with smart lights.

The core problem with a smart light is that it very likely has a switch somewhere. If someone turns that switch off, that smart light just lost power and became dumb. Turning it back on now involves a trip to the switch.

A smart switch is smart so long as utility power is running and you never find yourself in a position where the managed device is in an unknown and/or uncontrollable state.

[giobox]

Even better, get smart switches that don't use wifi or IP addresses. I'm personally of opinion my homes core features should not rely on needing IP addresses, working DHCP or DNS etc just to turn a light bulb on and off.

Home assistant works amazingly well with zigbee devices, and these are plentiful and cheap etc, and don't rely on working wifi/IP infrastructure. When I sell up, my zigbee switches will work just fine as plain-ole light switches even with all my Home Assistant infra ripped out, leaving no issues for next buyer.

You can add zigbee support to pretty much any Home Assistant setup with a 20 buck USB adapter, Home Assistant even make an official one:

https://www.home-assistant.io/connectzbt1/

The also sell Home Assistant servers with zigbee radios built in:

https://www.home-assistant.io/yellow/

The light switches are often cheaper than wifi equivalents too. Wifi bulbs should really only be considered by renters IMO - people who can't easily replace wall switches or similar.

[fmajid]

Except IP works far better than Zigbee's alleged mesh networking, and all the other home network technologies because somehow home automation is a special snowflake that can't use the same network technology everybody else uses.

[lolinder]

There are a few reasons why Wi-Fi is not my first choice:

* I don't trust any company to use my Wi-Fi and not attempt to access the broader internet. A Zigbee or Z-Wave device isn't going to be able to stealthily update itself in anti-user ways, nor is it going to be hijacked into serving as part of a Bitcoin botnet.

* There are way too many devices, which can cause issues if they're all using Wi-Fi at the same time. Smart homes take a router that would normally be dealing with 2-4 phones and 2-4 laptops and add N bulbs, M switches, P contact sensors, Q motion sensors, and assorted random sensors. Not a chance am I hooking that much up to my Wi-Fi.

Z-Wave LR has worked very well for me—no mesh to worry about, just a controller and devices. The only downside is that it's not as broadly supported as zigbee or Wi-Fi.

[XorNot]

Put your IoT on a separate wifi SSID and firewall it.

My devices can't reach the internet at all, but I have easy access to them the other way.

[lolinder]

It's easier and has better guarantees to just... not have them on a Wi-Fi at all.

[echoangle]

That's not an advantage of switches though. My smart bulbs are Zigbee, too.

[giobox]

The main drawback with keeping the switch "dumb" and only using smart bulbs is someone can turn off power to the bulb etc, which is why I and parent commenter focus on automating the switches. If someone turns wall switch off and its dumb, you can't turn the "smart" bulb on with home automation regardless of what tech is used inside it. Focusing on automating the switch generally has best returns on making most dependable system, as you will always be able to get the light back on. Again, I only recommend smart-bulb only if you are a renter or similar and can't mess with your switches.

Zigbee access to the bulb is great for stuff like changing whitebalance etc though. In my own home I have the bulbs and the switch on ZigBee so I can do this, but power on/off is solely preserve of the automated switch.

[edelans]

What zigbee switch do you recommend ? I was considering Sonoff zbmini.

[giobox]

I've had great results with the Aquara zigbee stuff - almost all of them work fine connecting to HomeAssistant via generic zigbee USB adapters, and can be found online pretty cheaply. I have >50 of their switches and sensors at the moment.

[ddeck]

Aqara is a bit of a mixed bag. A lot of their switches are not Zigbee certified and don't conform to the standard. Specifically, they won't bind directly with devices from other manufacturers.

This might not matter if you're pushing everything through a hub like HA, but if you want to connect directly with other devices and remotes then it likely won't work.

[hokumguru]

My solution was to add Shelly relays behind all of my “dumb” switches. They keep power always on and essentially turn the switch into a smart button to dim or brighten my Lifx lights. This way I get circadian & party lighting while still maintaining the convenience of physical light switches!

And to parent question: Lifx still has the best color/brightness of any smart bulb and they’re IMO the best. Just make sure your WiFi can handle it.

[wkat4242]

The problem with smart switches is they require 3 wires: live, neutral and the switched wire to the light. Where I live most switches have only two: live and the switched wire to the light. The neutral goes directly to the light and doesn't pass through the switch. Because of this I have no way to power the smart switch module. Unless I want to rewire half the house :(

[ianburrell]

There are some smart switches that work without neutral. They trickle some power through the load. This only works with some loads. I have one fixture with small LEDs where one of them glows slightly.

[gorgoiler]

Sonoff make modules that don’t need a neutral connection:

https://sonoff.tech/product-review/product-insight/zbmini-ex...

I assume they hack what little power they need from the AC wobble? How do they do that without triggering a current leakage cutout though? Perhaps they “charge” when current flows for the first time?

[XorNot]

Athom make ESPhome smart switches with no neutral wire, they work great.

The way it works is you put a bypass capacitor to neutral in the light fixture, and then it lets the switch be powered - no flicker or low energy requirements needed.

[wkat4242]

Ah I see, does require to modify the light though. But it's interesting to look at, thanks. I don't use Homey though, I use Home Assistant. So I'm not sure if it works with that.

[XorNot]

? They're ESPhome smart which is specifically Home Assistant? https://www.athom.tech/blank-1/no-neutral-wall-touch-switch-...

[wkat4242]

Ooh I see. Athom also has their own system called homey: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homey_(smart_hub)

They're not open source so I thought maybe their other stuff isn't either. I didn't even know they made switches in fact.

Several of my friends have the homey, they're very popular here because athom is a Dutch company and they market here a lot. But I prefer the openness of home assistant.

Edit: Aah I see the confusion. The athom that makes the esphome devices is a Chinese copycat company that has nothing to do with the real athom but is trying to get a free ride on their name.

They've just received an injunction banning their sales in the EU and have to take back all their products sold here. https://community.homey.app/t/athom-wins-lawsuit-against-chi...

I had never heard of the Chinese company before.

[willis936]

Returning current through ground is a bad idea in general. You should consider rewiring your house for the safety benefits rather than enabling some smart devices.

Putting significant return current through ground means anything in the environment can be part of the path of least resistance. You will see small voltages across your house depending on what loads are on and there will be load-dependent noise conducted and radiated everywhere. This also puts the system one open circuit away from making nearly every conductive part of your house a shock hazard (if the wrong place in the ground network goes open circuit).

What is done in modern times is to have the current return on a neutral wire then monitor the ground wire for current and open the circuit when current is flowing back through ground (a fault).

[wkat4242]

Huh? I never mentioned ground. I said neutral.

Returning current through ground is impossible in Europe anyway due to residual current breakers. More than 30mA and the whole system shuts down.

And none of the light switches have ground either by the way.

[willis936]

How does the current return? Do you have two phases running to every endpoint?

Try putting a 50 mA fault and see if the GFCI does anything. It won't if you don't have a second line for return current.

[wkat4242]

No, the current goes back through the neutral. This is the normal operating mode with single phase power.

This is different from ground. Neutral is the way the return is meant to go. Ground is a safety feature. Connected to the enclosure in some devices.

So sockets here have 3 wires: Live (Brown), Neutral (Blue) and Ground (Green with Yellow stripe). But the switches only have Live and the Switching wire (Black, the wire that goes to the light). The light then receives the switching wire and has Neutral. Because the power is consumed in the light and returns via neutral.

The switch doesn't need the neutral normally because it doesn't use any power. It just switches it on and off on the way to the light. But the wifi switchboxes do need it because they need to remain connected even when the switch is off.

[JoBrad]

Caseta dimmers don’t require a neutral wire.

[diffeomorphism]

Can you do that yourself or would you need an electrician to sign off? What about your landlord?

I agree in principle that this is much nicer in theory. Just like wired is more reliable than wireless. However, retrofitting all that is also much more difficult.

[luma]

Depends on where you live. In most jurisdictions in the US it's generally OK for a homeowner to perform "like for like" replacement work on their own residence without a license or inspection. This means you can replace an existing light switch, or an outlet, or a breaker. You generally cannot run new wire or new outlets without a permit.

If you own a property but don't live there (eg, you're a landlord), it's essentially never legal. The best answer is to contact the local AHJ.

[BrutalCoding]

Disagreed. To get the best of both worlds I run smart switches that control the smart lights. E.g. install the Philips Hue Wall Switch Module (Zigbee) and make an automation in HomeAssistant to turn off the corresponding light(s).

Now you benefit from both, like being able to make the lights fade off/on.

Also, in case it doesn’t always respond instantly, you should be able to bind the Zigbee devices directly to each other so that it doesn’t need to travel to the Zigbee coordinator (or mesh?) first. Haven’t had the need for this myself though.

[lolinder]

> Now you benefit from both, like being able to make the lights fade off/on.

Dimmable smart switch plus dimmable standard bulbs accomplish this. No color (though Phillips has a line that tints red when dimmed.)

[ethbr1]

Is there anything that does PWM data over powerline to control lights?

That seems like the best of all worlds.

Networked smart switch. Switch in absolute authority of light. Switch still able offer advanced light features (e.g. hue set).

[Semaphor]

Smart switches are a lot more annoying when renting, though. In addition, for us, all but the hallway bulbs make frequent use of color features, so I’d need both anyway.

Though I’ll admit, it might be worth the hassle if you have guests often or many people living at your place.

[BikiniPrince]

This is my next adventure because somewhere someone had left a light on! Those esp32 relays can fit right in a work box.

[sroussey]

I have Lutron switches. What ceiling lights can I get that change color based on time of day?

[giobox]

If the lights have adjustable white balance, you almost always can sync light color temp to time of day with home assistant's flux:

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/flux/

This works with almost any smart light you can get connected to HA (most smart lights have white balance adjust), it's brand agnostic etc. I have lights from several different vendors working together this way.

[sroussey]

So I need some smart light that can be dimmed from power source. Which are those?

[nucleardog]

This is the way. Especially if other people live in your house.

Look at this stuff as "progressive enhancement". Make the simple things work, then build on top of that. Don't replace the simple things with complicated, elaborate things. You don't want to live without lights for a week because a SD card died in a Raspberry Pi somewhere or something.

The overly complicated setup I'm using to run my smart home automation stuff shit the bed and I was too busy with work to really spend the time fixing it so... I just didn't. For six months. The only major complaint I heard was that the outside lighting was no longer turning itself on and off with the sun.

Even in the worst case scenario, all of the lights still have switches that can be turned on and off as long as there's power. It's all zwave, and I've made use of the scenes / direct associations / etc such that most of the stuff people actually care about happens without being mediated by Home Assistant. Or requiring any sort of network. When I move out of this house, I could leave it all behind and it would keep working as-is without my server, access point, active internet connection, or anything else. If there's power, it works.

All my living room lights (three dimmers) are controlled by a single dimmer.

The three way switches in our bedroom are now dimmers. One controls the lights, the other acts as a remote control for it.

The pantry light turns itself off after 20 minutes because people always forget it on.

Both the kitchen light switches turn on and off with the single, easily accessible switch.

The switch for the porch lights also turns the string lights on the gazebo a hundred feet from the house on and off.

My kid's too small to reach the regular switches, so there's a battery-powered remote switch mounted on the wall at her height in her bedroom and the bathroom. Those still work and are still able to dim the lights in her room.

Etc, etc. All without anything but electricity.

I said only _major_ complaint--my kid definitely had some complaints. We have one switch that has a couple of those RGB projector bulbs hooked up to it. When you turn that on, an automation turns off all the rest of the lights and starts playing some dance music. Her party lights still turned on, but it no longer made the music start.

If you want colour control then get smart bulbs to go downstream of your smart switches. Set them to always go to "on" when power's restored, and build that _on top_ with your automation. You'll always have a working light, your automation can always turn them on even when someone's turned the switch off like a normal person would, but when everything else is working you'll _also_ get colour control.