Entirely disable switch for a period of time?

My toddler likes to get out of bed during her naptime and turn on the light in her room. I want to take away this ability.

The room is not currently smart. I am willing to install a smart switch, smart bulbs, or both. I would like to be able to, during certain hours, prevent any lights from being turned on in that room.

Are there any known setups and/or code that would allow this? I’m brand new to ST, but perfectly willing to write my own SmartApp or DeviceType.

1 Like

This app by @bravenel should take care of that for you and possibly a lot more :slight_smile:

I believe you would have to go with a smart bulb in this case. As far as I know manually operating a smart wall switch always over rides hub control.

Any physical switch, be it z-wave or zigbee (i.e., “smart”) is going to turn on its load when it is physically turned on. So having a smart switch won’t help you.

Two other choices: Smart bulbs are one, but they will fall off the network if power to them is turned off, and will come on if the power is restored. That creates problems.

The best choice is to bury an Aeon Microswitch in the electrical box behind a conventional switch. It then controls the load, and the original switch is just a signal to it. That would work.

See this link: http://aeotec.com/z-wave-in-wall-switches/187-z-wave-in-wall-lights-controller.html

On a quick read-through, that looks like a really cool app. I’ve bookmarked it and will come back to it when I have more of my smart devices installed!

Ahhhhh. That looks exceedingly interesting. Thanks for the heads-up! I’ve browsed through a few on Amazon, and I’ll probably pull the trigger the next time my smart-toys-budget resets!

Be aware that space in electrical boxes can be a problem. Depending on your situation, you may be able to place a microswitch in the light fixture instead. So you might want to open up that box, unscrew the switch from the box (without disconnecting it), to just see what you’ve got. The microswitch also must have a neutral wire (usually white).

This is a myth. I have over 20 GE link bulbs and 18 Hue bulbs. I turn their switches on and off every morning/night and they never fall off my network. When they are powered, I use them for dimming capabilities in places where I don’t have z-wave dimmers. One interesting trick that Rule Machine does, is that when the phisical switch is turned on, RM turns one of my two porch light bulbs off. Then when motion is detected, it turns it back on. When motion stops, dimms one bulb to 3% and the other off. Did I mention how much I love RM? I love RM…

I think what he meant is you can’t control them if the switch is off,

1 Like

For my toddler, I set up a time window where the switch does come on, but it goes right back off again after 8pm. “On Switch On, After 8pm and before 7AM, Turn Light Switch Off” It works! The kid gives up after 10 or so presses.

1 Like

Did you do this using CORE, or some other method?

I’m in the same boat. I should have read this before I bought a Z-Wave switch. Did you find any way to make it not even turn on? I have like 3 rules all fighting her even down to 30 seconds.
My problem is she jams it on and off which kind of confuses SmartThings, maybe the status gets misaligned. I find it on in the morning often still…
@tlrdstd @Ziggystar12