Automating push button for dimmer compact fluorescent lights

Hardware DIY
1

Hi,

At home i have a Niko 05-711 dimmer (https://www.niko.eu/en/article/05-711) for my dimmable compact fluorescent lights. Around the living room i have several push buttons to control them. Short press: on/off, long press: dimming up or down.

Now i would like to integrate those lights in my home automation setup. Being able to turn them on and off and if possible control the brightness.

What would be the best/easiest/cheapest way to simulate this push button?

Can create my ‘virtual’ push button in parallel on top of all the physical wall buttons with a relais (connected to my openhabian or a nodeMCU)? Or should i go for one of the fibaro zwave devices ?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

2

That’s certainly possible.

However … your big problem will be that openHAB will have no idea what initial state the lights are in. Want to turn them on? Just got to simulate a button press. But if they’re already on …

There’s probably a way to also make some kind of ADC sensing and reporting so that openHAB could “read” the dimmer output to see what it’s doing.
But it’s likely to be easier to find a replacement unit that works in similar fashion and has communication built in to begin with.

Have a look at Shelly Dimmer, think it will work with existing push switches.

3

Thanks for your reply.

Indeed i was thinking about the issue and i should be able to follow the ‘output’ 1-10V with a voltage divider to a ADC

Thanks. I will have a look at the Shelly Dimmer.

4

The Shelly Dimmer has an output of full/dimmed voltage. I need a 1-10V output.

This might be an option:

5

You could also use an ESP8266 device (a dev board comes with all several I/O’s) with a photocell that reports to OH and gives the light level. Then a few rules to do something when a button is pressed based on light level.

I use this setup in my garage to alert me if the garage door is shut and the light has been left on.