Does smartthings have lightswitches that are remotes?

[komobu (Patrick Curran)]

I have a shed about 60 feet from my house. It has an underground cable from the house supplying the shed with electricity. At night, I would like to turn the lights on from inside the house before I ever go out there so I dont need to fumble with a flashlight. My X10 system had these stick up light switches that looked like light switches but were actually remote controls. You just stuck them on the wall where ever you wanted a light switch. Does smart things have anything like that? I know I could turn it on from my phone, but if my wife goes out there or the kids, I just want them to be able to hit a light switch.

[keltymd (Matt)]

put a GE smart switch on the lights and get a button Iris buttons work well for this.

[diehllane (Brian Diehl)]

Battery Operated 3 Toggle Switch for wallmount or table top use (SmartenIT ZBWS3B) [DEPRECATED: STOPPED WORKING IN 2018]

This code stopped working with the 2018 version of the SmartThings app. The device should no longer be considered compatible. Yes, Virginia, there is a battery operated toggle switch that looks like a regular switch and can be used to change modes, run Hello Home Actions, or toggle one or more devices on and off! It does have 3 toggle “buttons” instead of just 1, which some people will see as a negative, but it’s a very nice device. It can be mounted on the wall anywhere, it does not require any wiring. Or it can just lie flat on a table. It’s zigbee, but because SmartThings supports both zigbee and zwave, that doesn’t matter, you can still use it to control any of the devices you control through SmartThings. You can also easily feel the separations between the three toggles, …

[komobu (Patrick Curran)]

Thanks diehllane…This looks like what I am looking for.

Keltymd…I looked at the iris website and it said something about having premium service to use the button for a light switch. Is that the case? I really dont want any monthly fees.

[diehllane (Brian Diehl)]

That would likely be only if you had Iris service.
Once you connect it to ST, you can use the button for whatever you want as long as ST is capable.

[JDRoberts]

There are several options. The smarten IT three toggle that was already mentioned is one of my own favorites, but there are some other choices as well.

Some of the iris devices will also work with smartthings. This includes the button. You don’t need to pay the $10/month fee because that’s a fee you pay to Iris for their rules engine. SmartThings does not have a monthly fee at present except for video storage for cameras. So when you use SmartThings as the controller for the button, there’s no monthly fee.

The following topic (this is a clickable link) lists the various remotes and battery operated wall switches that will work with SmartThings:

FAQ: Full list of buttons and remotes confirmed to work with SmartThings [Not all devices listed work with the 2020 Platform]

I’d like to know which buttons and remotes are currently supported or might be supported in the future. Ideally, I’d like to find something similar to the following: http://www.evolvecontrols.com/devices/control-devices/glass-series Though alternatively just a simple nice-looking button which actually works unlike this Aeon according to Amazon reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Touch-Panel-Button-Switch-AL-001/dp/B00GL6B4GG/ref=sr_1_3?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1421468320&sr=1-3&keywords=aeon+button There is an Aeon Key Fob as well, but it doesn’t seem to be very durable or stylish: What else is available?

[Kyse (Jared Fisher)]

Aeon minimote is cheap.

I’d actually pondered somehow editing the device type of my ge smart switch to do something different for double clicks up or down. Would be a cool option for toggling a different device. I think that kind of functionally needs to reside in the devices firmware to send different payloads to smartthings though so probably out of our control.

[JDRoberts]

@Kyse

Aeon minimote is cheap.

I’d actually pondered somehow editing the device type of my ge smart switch to do something different for double clicks up or down. Would be a cool option for toggling a different device. I think that kind of functionally needs to reside in the devices firmware to send different payloads to smartthings though so probably out of our control.

Search the forums for “double tap” and you will find several smart apps contributed by community members that do just that.

The problem is that all of them fail quite frequently because of the cloud aspect of SmartThings. It’s simply impossible to define an appropriate range for recognizing the second tap. There’s too much variability in the latency. Maybe we’ll eventually get local processing which allows for this. But right now, pretty much everybody thinks it’s really cool for the first couple of days and then over a month or two ends up not using it anymore because of the unreliability. But if you want to give it a try, there will be several options to choose from.

[JDRoberts]

BTW, for the switch in the shed I would look for something that is Z wave plus. That will give you the longest range.

[Kyse (Jared Fisher)]

Ahh double tap. Nice tip, thanks for that. Yea would be lovely if all devices had some kind of configure feature so additional functionality could be defined to send back to the hub.