i’m just wondering if anyone here has experience with DIY or Off the shelf inline- or cable-dimmer solutions (so the ones that are built in to the cable of a movable lamp which is then plugged into a power socket)
I’ve tested the IDINIO Z-WAVE ones, they work. They actually work pretty good. But i’ve been having lots of issues with my z-wave network starting from really high latency to the z-wave stick (aeotec) crashing the usb driver of my ubuntu machine (which results in me having to set up everything from scratch again, glad i’m doing a weekly backup…)
i wanted to test the IDINIO WIFI ones (TUYA), but i don’t want to rely on some cloud service and the chip inside is a Realtek one, so no possibility to flash tasmota or so…
do you know any other brands that sell smart switches or dimmers that go in the cord? if no i’ll probably go back to using shellys in their rather ugly case…
I am looking for the same thing, a cable dimmer that is installed in the power cable leading to a lamp, controllable locally and via openHAB and connects via WiFi, so without the need to install controller hardware like for ZigBee or Z-Wave. The Idinio WiFi is also the only I can find, however, it seems to be discontinued.
I would not mind an ugly case - which Shelly devices would be suitable to build such an cable dimmer that can be controlled remotely and locally? I can see the Shelly Dimmer 2 has connection for physical switches, but does it support dimming via these physical switches?
But that wouldn’t give me the ability to switch and dim via a physical switch, or would it?
Basically I am talking about a lamp on my nightstand next to our bed. I want to be able to switch it on/off from the (smart) switches when entering the room, but I also want to be able to switch and dim it when lying in bed from a switch directly on the nightstand.
No, it does not control the outlet. I would program the switch to control whatever smart dimming actuator that would then control the lamp. So right now I am looking for that kind of actuator, to be installed in the cable, allowing physical and remote control of the switching and dimming. Actually for dimming the physical control would be sufficient, but for switching I’d like to be able to use both the smart switch at the door and the physical switch/dimmer in the cable.
I have a similar solution with a lamp without dimming using the Shelly 1PM Plus. I can control the lamp via openHAB, but also via the physical switch installed in the lamp. Basically I am looking for the same thing, but with dimming.
Yes, that would work with Shelly as well, use the Shelly Dimmer 2 and any kind of wall switch. But for best usability I was interested in a physical button, either rotary or a slider. Are you aware of any WLAN buttons with such a physical control? I’d prefer avoiding ZigBee and the gateway it would require to integrate with openHAB.
I’ve indeed switched to the Shelly dimmer and the case, albeit the case is not made for the dimmer so it doesn’t fit perfectly. There is a spacer ring inside the case which also provides rigidity that is too thick, so you either have to leave that out or print a thinner one. Didn’t do that myself, but that might me a good idea to do. There is a tutorial on YouTube on how to wire the Shelly dimmer inside the switch case hope that helps.
But as I mentioned, originally not intended for the dimmer, but it fits If you leave out the support plate. Might be able to print a new (thinner) support plate, for installation take a look at this video:
(In German, sorry)
I will probably have a look at the support plate today and see if I can make It thinner and mock up a printable model.
