Smart Light Switches etc
2We have not “modernized” at our house to the point of “smart” enabled light switches (or anything else) beyond having Alexa (spot, firetv) and Google Home (~5 devices in various rooms). I’d be interested in knowing how to proceed with light switches that can be controlled…but I don’t know where to start!
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z-wave switches can be installed easily in most modern houses, but you’re going to need a controller to run the z-wave network.
Not really a cheap (hi, @tightwad) proposition, unfortunately. If you want to go there, though, make sure your switch boxes have hot, ground AND neutral wires. Some older houses just have hot (black) and ground (usu. bare copper).
Pick a Z-Wave controller with Alexa integration and you should be good to go. I can’t offer any suggestions there, unfortunately. My setup is custom (and even works sometimes, ha!)
~$30 / switch if you go to Lowe’s… you may be able to find them cheaper or in bulk, but stick to newer ZWave+ (Plus) stuff. Plus has better networking and better state feedback when switches are operated manually.
Link to Lowe’s for the lazy:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/GE-Z-Wave-Plus-15-amp-3-way-White-Almond-Rocker-Residential-Commercial-Light-Switch/1000533427
@meverett I’d be interested in hearing more about your custom setup…sounds up my alley (why choose easy when you can spend more to do it yourself)
@tightwad Probably TMI, but here goes:
I’ve got an Intel NUC running some Docker containers for HomeAssistant (the home control brains) and MQTT (lightweight messaging protocol you can subscribe to from an ESP8266/ESP32).
HomeAssistant is python-based and open source. Quite a lot of stuff works “out of the box”, but if it doesn’t you get to code it yourself! Also, heavy YAML configuration. The docs are decent, forums and chats are active and mostly helpful.
I’ve replaced most of the downstairs switches with ZWave boxes. Unfortunately, mine are pre-Plus (they don’t broadast when you change them manually so I have to poll them). Outside lights are on their own zwave plug/switches to do dusk/dawn lights. HomeAssistant watches the alarm sensors passively, so I’ve set it up to do things like:
Presence detection is the hardest bit, if you ask me. Unless every home occupant wants to carry around a widget that broadcasts (and has to be recharged), it is very difficult to tell who is home. Phones work, but even then if you leave your phone on the table and leave it’s tough to convince your presence detection system that you aren’t there… you could be resting or watching TV, so no movement etc.
Combining door open/close, motion sensors, sound sensors (is the TV on? someone banging around the house?), active trackers (phone wifi and BT) you can get pretty darn close, but see the above “left my phone at home” scenario for a major failure mode. Pets also really screw up motion detectors and sound sensors… just sayin’.
It took me a while, but I got the “User Acceptance” approval from my spouse after making some stability and usability improvements. A huge selling point for the in-wall zwave stuff is that the dimmers still work just like regular dimmers/switches. In addition to that, you can control them via zwave radio
That makes for a good failure mode… Zwave/homeassistant down? Switches still operate just like dumb switches.
I’m certain if I billed out my time futzing with HA configs and setups it would eclipse any custom, professional installation I could ask for, but it’s just too fun to play with for me to go that route.
If you want to integrate microcontrollers into the setup, checkout Homie (https://homieiot.github.io/homie-esp8266/docs/2.0.0/quickstart/what-is-it/). Drop that on a cheap esp8266 (<$10) and you’ve got a wireless node, sensor or light/actuator that HomeAssistant can auto-discover. Fun!
@meverett @tightwad FWIW current electrical code allows single (hot) wire switches with ground. The key is where in circuit the switch is positioned. There is also the issue with additional wires requiring larger boxes due to the way they are ‘sized’ in the NFPA code.
With the uptick in ‘smart’ switches etc. I expect that having your wiring include a neutral in the switch boxes will become more commonplace.
@meverett
Tell me how to mimic your wizardry, please!
@meverett Yup, I read it 3 times and understood about 1/2 of it. The words were in english at least, which I appreciate!
Cost wise it makes sense:
Intel NUC (does it matter which?): ~$300
Zwave Switches (20?): $32
Zwave Plugs(5): $32
Zwave Mains Monitor (heavily variable): $95
Various ESP8266 widgets: $10
Looks like the hardware would run somewhere in the $1300 range to complete. Then you have to hire someone smarter than you to actually make it work (I can modify code, but creating from scratch is out of my pay grade)
@tightwad while it’s very nice, you certainly don’t need a NUC to run HomeAssistant. Some people run it on a raspberry pi. Others on a VM on their existing computer, which you can do completely for free if you already leave a computer on 24/7. Or redo an old PC of you have one laying around, this doesn’t take a ton of horsepower.
While that’s the biggest single item cost, your switches are the bulk of the budget. You may be able to find someplace with case pricing on switches. Decide where you need dimmers and where regular switches will do as well, I believe regular switches are a few bucks cheaper. Keep an eye out on forums, set alerts on Slickdeals and camel^3 for deals. And also maybe just start with a couple switches and the hub and build out as you go.
I have the sameish GE z-wave switches several places in my home. I have the toggle style instead of the decora rockers. For a controller, I backed the wrong horse. I got a Wink Hub a few years ago and that company is all but dead now. The hub is still working for the time being, but no telling how long it will be viable. The Relay smart switch/home interface in the kitchen has been stuck saying it’s 36 degrees outside for almost a year now with no way to fix it, and I imagine the rest of their stuff is going to peter out in a similar fashion.
Samsung Smarthings is probably the biggest other off the shelf controller, but I’m probably going to go the direction @meverett did and build out a HomeAssistant setup when I decide to take the plunge. I will probably look at moving to having a separate dedicated IoT network when I do that. It will make some things harder like checking phone presence on the network or streaming media from plex, but as the internet becomes a scarier place I can have one less thing to really worry about.
@tightwad also, congratulations on thinking long term and going for smart switches rather than smart bulbs. Unless you’re doing the color changing thing, I think this is the better plan for controlling standard lighting.
I do have some hue bulbs in lamps here and there. They are a good gateway drug for smart lighting. But once you start getting into multi light fixtures or whole rooms, I think it’s better to put the smart in once rather than in a bulb that will fail.
@djslack good feedback,thanks!
The easiest entry into the smart home arena is via Samsung Smartthings. As of my writing this, the starter kit is only $80 (which is crazy cheap). I started with this and I immediately got hooked. The community support is awesome and it offers customization for pretty much whatever you need. It has z-wave as well as zigbee and wifi support. Integration with Nest, Google Home, and Amazon Echo was damn near seamless and adds voice support. Smartthings sensors and lights are dirt cheap compared to most generic z-wave devices.
BUT, one thing that made life difficult was not having a neutral wire at my light switches. I was either forced to pull new wires through my house or find an alternate route. I wired in Micro Switch relays like these inside the fixture or ceiling fan. It’s not a perfect work around, but it gets the job done.
I’ve recently acquired a second home and I decided to go the Home Assistant route for that one. One downfall of Smartthings or other platforms is that it relies on the internet to work. When you tell the hub to turn on a light, the hub communicates with the company’s server and it tells your hub how to act. With HA, all of the thinking is done locally. That means if someone takes out a telephone pole and you lose the interwebs, your automated routines will still work. You can still gain remote access and it takes a bit of computer knowledge to get everything running but I’m loving the flexibility.
@Willijs3 Makes me think the HomeAssistant is the way to go for sure, since 3 have suggested it as the path they went or would go. Now to figure out how to do it for less than the $1300 I calculate above.
I can remember when a huge percentage of VCR owners could not set the clock or stop the damn thing from blinking 12:00. Now we have smart phones, Z waves, and 5G. I am thinking if I bought smart switches, my lights in the house would blink like a demented Christmas tree.
/giphy VCR 12:00 blink
Z-wave, Zigbee, SmartThings… all the hubs. Personally I’m using the hubless strategy. Wemo (Belkin) and Kasa (TP-Link) are wifi-direct devices which don’t require a hub. They connect directly to your wifi router and are app controlled. Or, in my case, Google Assistant controlled via custom “routines”.
I started with a Wemo Mini smart plug to dip my toe into the IoT waters. Now I have about a dozen assorted plugs from those two makers. I recently added some Kasa in-the-wall outlets (replaces your old wall outlet with a smart outlet, eliminating the wall wart external smart plug; two outlets independently controlled). I also recently added my first smart light switch as an experiment. So far so good.
Why have I shunned the hub-based devices?
It’s ok @djslack, I owned a Betamax once.
@ruouttaurmind the good news is that when Wink does die, the only things that it takes with it are the hub and possibly the relay (banning hacks for it, it’s just an Android tablet, two buttons, and two relays at its core). Everything else is either z-wave based or the couple of Philips Hue lamp bulbs.
@djslack @ruouttaurmind Let’s see, I also bought an HD DVD player, subscribe to PS Vue, and have a Skybell. (I haven’t heard any bad news about the Skybell yet, but I think it’s only a matter of time.)
Dang it @walarney! I think you might have just cursed our Skybells!
I also embraced X10 Home in the early days. I’m pretty sure I still have the hubs and a dozen or so outlets, switches and cameras in the garage somewhere. The best part about early X10? Absolute 70% reliability! I’m pretty sure the X10 slogan was “It just works (much of the time).”
@ruouttaurmind @walarney I, too, rock the skybell. Don’t jinx it!
@ruouttaurmind @walarney I have a friend who also embraced the X10 stuff. I almost went that route, glad I didn’t.
@ruouttaurmind Seem’s the “hub” is best used when you want to control stuff remotely or automatically based on feedback. If it’s just turning an outlet or switch on or off it seems a google or amazon routine would be sufficient. I hate choices…
@tightwad if the stuff you buy is z-wave based, you need a hub to the the interface between your WiFi network and the z-wave universe.
If you get switches, etc that are Alexa or Google Assistant compatible then they will be on your WiFi and you won’t need a hub.
For switches, etc the z-wave stuff is more standard. Bulbs go both ways. The biggest player there is Philips Hue and their stuff is like z-wave in that you have to have that hub.
I use Lutron Caseta and have loved the set up. Simple installation and have had zero problems. I’m sure the setup is similar to what others have mentioned here. They’re a little pricey though, but can be found cheaper on ebay.
Since we have some of our smart home experts in here… It’s getting to be time to replace the smoke detectors in my house. I have a set of hardwired 120v units but there’s also three or four more places I’d like to add some.
Connected detectors would be a plus to get notifications to my phone, etc., and smoke plus carbon monoxide would be good, at least in the bedroom side of the house. But I don’t know much about what’s out there. I know about Nest Protect but as far as I know they are battery only, and I have nothing in the nest ecosystem unless you count a Google home and mini. Is there a good product on the market I should be looking at?
I know, I know, I could Google this but I thought I’d ask you fine folks and see if anyone has experience here.