I got what you wanna build, no worries.
I’m just saying … if someone will switch OFF your “old manual” switch , you will not be able to turn light ON again without physically switching that old manual switch ON again, because old switches switchning main A/C line to the light.
if you’ll use smart switch instead of old one in the wall, you will be able to control ON/OFF manually or via OH/wifi whatever.
Maybe I’m not explaining myself … it happends 
No The old switch is rewired to control the smart relay that controls the light.
where is room maybe, he is living in Europe and we are building houses not from cardboard where you have hollow spaces in between walls.
That’s why Sonoff designed switches which replace old ones completely, simply because there is no room behind old switch to put there another device for rewiring.
It depends in which building you are trying to make this instalation, indeed
Use Shelly devices and there should be rarely an issue. The builders of my house used the switch boxes for connecting several circuits, so there are many cables coming in, but still could fit a shelly into it.
If there would be Sonoff switches for use in standard frames like Gira System 55, that would be great, but never found such, just the „standalone“ versions.
Hi all,
I am new to the forum and I have been reading a lot of threads. I found out that you can hack a sonoff with the tasmota firmware, connect the GPIO 14 pin and gnd pin to the physical switch in the wall and then you have the best of both world. Doesn’t matter the phisical position of the switch, a push will send a “change status” command to the sonoff. Here is where I found (better explained) this hack:
One of the nice things is there are devices (Zwave, Shelly1, Sonoff) that you can wire in behind your existing switches to make them smart. You don’t have to replace them.
But don’t let a desire not to replace dumb switches drive choosing smart bulbs if smart bulbs do not fit with your overall requirements (see the build escalators discussion above).
I can report the same is the case with Shelly1s.
That is not how they are wired. The switch doesn’t control the AC. A relay in the device controls the AC. The switch is wired to the device and toggling the switch causes the device to switch it’s relay.
That is true, that part has nothing to do with OH. But it does allow OH to know the state of the switch and to control it whether it’s ON or OFF because the switch doesn’t actually control the power.
This is true of smart bulbs. This is not true of devices like Shelly1s or Zwave modules that you put between the light and the “dumb” switch to make that “dumb” switch “smart”.
what you are saying is not wrong, but in regular world is not that easy to do.
Houses are usualy build in the way that mains going from main cable wiring box to secondary boxes which then continue to each switch boxes where is main switched for given light.
In standard wiring schema 2005+ there is no room behind actual switch to have another device, simple as that. And as much as you can add small devices into the existing secondary wiring boxes together with other wires, i do not recommend it to do so, as it might cause shortage from nearby mains, not saying that in some countries this is forbidden and you are loosing your house insurance by doing so.
Not saying you can’t, do whatever is safe and you are comfortable with.
Changing whole switch is way cleaner solution than adding shelly somewhere inbetween.
Based on my personal experiences and the experiences of those on this forum, we all must not live in the regular world. People from North America, Germany, UK, Saudi Arabia, India, and China have all successfully deployed and are happy with these devices.
not arguing, I said you can.
You sound like a German electrician whose main interest is to force people into buying their service … that’s the typical FUD you get to hear from them.
Usually there IS enough room for a Shelly-Fibaro-Qubino-sized device. Agree, it’s fiddle work sometimes but it’s also dead simple to exchange the switch box for a larger one if needed.
Not saying you should do the electrics on your own - to clearly state this: pay a (licensed) electrician to do it for you.
But don’t let him do the HW design of your smarthome, they are not the experts and approach the task from the conservative side (which is wrong here IMHO). That often results in systemic disadvantages and restrictions like this one that you have to find a switch/actuator combo that you also like the looks of and that is more expensive although it does not have all the functionality you want (all of which are aspects the electrician does not care about but you do).
PS: my electrician even refused to attach the devices to wires because he didn’t know them but claimed he would then have been liable of things to go wrong. So I had to do that under his supervision. Sick, eh ?
not familiar with german socket sizes, but when there are 2mm wires behind and sometimes they are clamped with another wiring, there is simply not enough room or wires get really squeezed -> which to be completely honest is not something which “smart” devices are designed for (as theirs terminals are really not that solid as normal “old” switches have).
anyway as I stated, it depends on exact situation, just sometimes is solution simplier than trying to figure out where to put something inbetween
howgh
p.s: I might sound like german electrician, but I’ve seen many stupid ideas people were able to do with their electrical wirings … thankfully noone I know about get killed, yet.
FYI, I did have enough room in my Swiss switch boxes for a Shelly2.5. But I went with IKEA tradfri bulbs / remotes anyway, as I consider the direct remote-to-bulb connection as enough of a failsafe.
Considering Sonoff switches (I tested the 2-gang EU version and others), they seem to be a good deal and work but flashing Tasmota is a bit fiddly, and there is an audible click when the relay switches.
Go forth and test ;-).
All the switches I know of have the same “click” noise, from the old school manual ones, to the Sonoff and also Ikea trådfri smartplugs… It has to phisically close / open a circuit
there are some switches which are using Solid State Relays instead of normal clicking ones, which then does not produce any sound/clicks at all.
I love this forum, every day I learn something new!
I am using Zwave for light switches, rollershutters, sensors. The lightning is Zigbee and I stick to Philips Hue. Although openhab enables you to use all different kinds of technology limiting yourself to two key technologies simplifies the setup and maintenance significantly.
I have three Hue panels and I really like them. Same for light strip and GU10 spots. Color temperature and colors are extremely close. For my third party stuff (dresden-electronic / Neuhaus Q-Flag) I had to code color-mixing in jscript myself.
If you buy Neuhaus - the zigbee controller is not worth a single penny. I replaced it with a dresden-electronic RGBW controller. Same applies to the power supply.
You will also need a knowledgeable resource (paid or not paid) to support you in case something breaks which needs physical abilities to fix, e.g. replacing an actor or replacing sensor batteries. As others pointed out electricians may not be the first choice for that. But I don’t have a real proposal either. HCL24.de may be an option - they are located in Erkrath and thus within hopefully 200 km distance.
Hi Chris, I’ve written a companion app for openHAB that gets you started with a lot of featues and simplifies maintenance. This should help you minimze the effort you need to get started. If you have a pi already you will just need a spare micro sd card to try it out. You can get started here https://rpi-ha.com/getting-started/. Let me know how it goes and good luck with everything.
Any reason not to recommend Zooz switches? If tou have 3-way & 4-way switches they would be much more economical. I have one that broke in less than a day and they were quick to test & ship a replacement that has functioned well for quite some time.
If you mean the Zooz sensors… From my experience, I think it depends on the application. For general use, I think they work great… the new version of them is much imporved. But, I could never get them to to be stable enough for use with the alarm system. They tend to trigger when no one is there, every once in a while. I’ve read this is due to the the fact they are passive IR and will trigger on light and temp changes - and changing the sensitivity didn’t ever help. So, for general use I love them because of all the built-in sensors. But, I don’t recommend them for use with an alarm system. I would go with ones made more specifically for that.
If you mean Zooz wall switches, I haven’t personally tried them yet. So, not sure.