Light switch woes.

Hi all,

So, this sounds like it should be a simple task to accomplish, but so far I've failed in finding an acceptable solution.

My house has every lighting circuit returning to a bank of DIN rail mounted dimmers. (X10 at the moment, but planning to upgrade to the new z-wave ones when funds allow.)
I have no wired lightswitches anywhere in the house, and no wiring for them.

I've experimented with various switches, but have not yet managed to find anything that visitors to the house are able to use successfully, or that works reliably.

I've tried:

• Various X10 Wireless switches
• Zwave.Me switch

None of them seem to be any quality, or reliability.

The Zwave.me one is probably the most frustrating. It's about 10 feet from the z-wave controller/indigo. It's not always reliable at sending a signal. I believe it might actually be a physical problem, rather than electrical. It seems that you need to press the buttons for exactly the right amount of time. Too short and nothing happens, too long and it sends a dim command instead. Now after only a few months of occasional usage, the third battery has run out, leaving the device useless again. Battery level last reported to Indigo was 22%, so my warning scripts didn't fire.
Anyway, I don't see any point in trying to get that working again, as nobody seems to be able to send an on or off command on the first press of the button, it's just poorly designed!

I'm going to make a custom mount for some cheap tablets for some areas of the house, but the mother in law won't touch that.

All I need is a simple button, which works reliably, preferably without running mains voltage.
I don't mind what standard it uses so long as it talks to Indigo wirelessly.
To a certain degree I don't care what it looks like (Although the prettier, or more "UK Standard", the better).

I'm in the UK, if that matters.

Any help gratefully received.
Ed.

You could try a combo of a rfxtrx433 and lightwaverf master switches. HOWEVER YMMV. I personally have this setup in my home for a few lights but reliability hasn't been perfect. Others have use the same system and found it very reliable, so environmental factors to make a difference.


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I'm also watching the nodon switches and their friends; not yet supported in indigo but seem to good as devices.


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Thanks,
I'm not a fan of the lightwaveRF switches to be honest, they look a bit plastic and I'm not sure about the buttons, rather than switch. I also live in a very old house with very thick walls, so straightforward RF is unlikely to reach things.

Has anybody tried something like: http://www.vesternet.com/z-wave-fibaro-universal-sensor with a traditional looking momentary switch?

I realise it needs some power, but I've got cat5 nearby, so I could manage that.

Anything I've not thought of?

Ed.

I use the regular Fibaro relays in various places, as both the switch input and the relay, and yes they work well.

The issue is space in/behind the backbox.


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ES8266 wireless modules can be battery operated, are compact, and combined with conventional switches and the excellent Arduino plugin maybe worthy of consideration?

Also consider the Fibaro/Aeon door/window sensors that can have a conventional wall switch wired in place of the reed switch.

I have successfully used the zwave.me switches located about 10 - 15 meters from Indigo. I note that these have appeared as Popp products (Popp.eu) with a range of face plates

mclass


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ES8266 wireless modules can be battery operated, are compact, and combined with conventional switches and the excellent Arduino plugin maybe worthy of consideration?

You must have overheard the conversation in the office today! I'll have a think about that, it seems an inexpensive and neat solution.

The Zwave.me switch seems to work "electrically", it's just the buttons seem to be overly agressively debounced. A quick press of the button gets ignored, a long press sends a dim/bright.

I'll look at the door modules too, hadn't thought about that.

Cheers,
Ed.

Enocean swiches from mk or similar would be great as no power is required. However no support directly to indigo. You could bridge the relay to a pi or Vera but not ideal.


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