Home Automation

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Discussion about general home automation ideas and projects, home automation protocols like Z-wave, Zigbee, Matter, etc, and home automation software and hubs like HomeSeer, Home Assistant, OpenHAB, Homey.

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Smart light switch default behaviour (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by howrar@lemmy.ca to c/homeautomation@lemmy.world

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I'm looking to get some smart light switches/dimmers (zigbee or matter if that's relevant), and one of the requirements for me is that if the switches aren't connected to the network, they would behave like regular dumb switches/dimmers. No one ever advertises anything except the "ideal" behaviour when it's connected with a hub and their proprietary app and everything, so I haven't been able to find any information on this.

So my question: is this the default behaviour for most switches? Are there any that don't do this? What should I look out for given this requirement?

Edit: Thanks for the responses. Considering that no one has experienced switches that didn't behave this way nor heard of any, I'm proceeding with the assumption that any switch should be fine. I got myself some TP Link Kasa KS220 dimmers and it works pretty well. Installation was tough due to its size. Took me about an hour of wrangling the wires so that it would fit in the box. Dimming also isn't as smooth as I'd like, but it works. I haven't had a chance to set it up with Home Assistant yet since the OS keeps breaking every time I run an update and I haven't had time to fix it after the last one. Hopefully it integrates smoothly when I do get to it.

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[–] pbbananaman@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I believe the Inovelli Blue Series dimmer switch does exactly this. I have it networked through some zigbee usb controller I bought and is entirely managed via Home Assistant. I haven’t tested it non-networked but I don’t think there would be any issue using the functionality directly from the switch.

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

Thanks! I made an update to the OP if you want to see what I ended up doing.

[–] Wxfisch@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The Enbrighten Zigbee switches I installed in some rooms work exactly as you note, if the zigbee network collapses for some reason, they still control the outlet or light they are hard wired to like any other dumb switch. I think for hardwired switches this is the normal behavior. For anything like Hue or Ikea Tradfri switches that are battery powered I think it highly depends on what they are connected to.

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

Thanks! I made an update to the OP if you want to see what I ended up doing.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Wemo switches work like normal switches when the network is out. They even run any schedules they knew about before the outage.

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thanks! I made an update to the OP if you want to see what I ended up doing.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Cool!

Yeah, the Wemos also were a right fit. And whoever built my house seems like they actually spent extra time doing the job poorly.

[–] ChapulinColorado@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Shelly dimmers behave like that. I might have changed a setting here and there in stock firmware but they also integrated into home assistant with an import script someone posted on the HA forums, no need for some app. The ones I have are WiFi though.

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

Thanks! I made an update to the OP if you want to see what I ended up doing.