Hey all! I'm looking for a mythical local-only (Wifi, Z-Wave, or Zigbee) smart light switch that has a good feel and user experience when manually switching on/off. What I mean by that: I think my ideal UX is some sort of hard rocker switch like the very much not smart Leviton Decora switches. You hit the top of the rocker for on or hit the bottom of it for off, and it has a good, solid feel with each state change.
The problem comes when making one of these switches "smart," e.g. stuffing a Shelly or something behind it. The up/down directions won't correspond to on/off anymore, because the smart switch can turn the light on/off without affecting the rocker direction. Maybe this is okay and I just need to deal with it? Does anyone with a similar setup find this annoying? I guess it's no different than a traditional three-way switch.
Another option is to take out the dumb switches and replaces them entirely with smart ones. Almost all smart switches are single on/off toggle buttons (some have two buttons), sidestepping the up/down state problem described above. But I'm not sure I'd like the feel of a squishing a button into the wall instead of a tilting a rocker. I do have a few of an older model of this Eva Logik switch, which has two buttons and kinda sorta mimics the look of the Decoras—but it doesn't actually rock like traditional switches. The up/down buttons are more like clicky mouse buttons, and not the best tactile experience IMO. Plus, newer models apparently are no longer Tuya-convertible to Tasmota...
So am I just being too picky here? Does anyone else experience similar issues?
EDIT: Here's a TL;DR of the suggestions below, for anyone also looking to solve a similar probem:
- Use a Jasco/GE Enbrighten series smart switch (Z-Wave, Zigbee, or Wifi)
- Use a TPLink Kasa switch (Wifi via HA
tplinkintegration) - Try an Innovelli Blue switch (Zigbee; there's also a Z-Wave variant)
- Just deal with your OCD and put a Shelly behind a dumb switch
You might look into the Jasco/GE Enbrighten series smart switches. I have the ZW3010, a 3-pole Decora style rocker dimmer switch on Z-Wave. Tap up/down takes the lights to full on/off, while long press up/down increases or decreases the dimming function. They come in Z-wave, Zigbee and WiFi flavors, so you have options there. Note: The main switch needs a neutral wire. They also come in 2-pole varieties, and I believe some variants can forego the neutral wire.
Like others, I drive the switch mainly through automations based on presence and schedules, but having the manual override is nice when you need the lights on at the odd time, or you need them full on to find a lost contact or whatever.
I mentioned the ZW3010 is a 3-pole. It side-cars with a rocker switch (or a chain of them) that are RF passive, but can be used to remotely control the main switch with the same tap and press gestures.
I picked mine up through Amazon. They are a little on the expensive side, but they've been rock solid in my setup since I installed them.
Mind sharing what you use for presence detection? Is that part of the switches you recommend?
This is a bit embarrassingly long-winded, but by way of disclaimer: all of the players are willing participants so it's not like this is a police state up in here.
Presence in my HASS scheme is based on the Unifi controller integration, some camera motion detection and Passive Infrared (PIR) presence detectors. I intend to get into some ESP32-based 1mm radar sensors because they have better human presence detection, and are better at sensing micro-motions that indicate that 'blob' is still actually a human.
For the living room where I do have the switch on a conditional sensor, I have a Zoos 4-in-1 PIR, and a camera on the front door. Given a Human present from a PIR ping or a camera motion detect, and if the sun is below 2.5°, the lights trip on for 30 minutes. They are also on a time schedule of 6:23pm to 11:32pm localtime, because we have pets and it feels like they get depressed if the people aren't around. That same schedule turns on the radio for 45 minutes if nobody is home (based on the Unifi integration).
...
You did ask.