I am looking to add a little panel of switches near my bed to control a few things in my house at night when I dont want an LCD screen generating light. I am currently using a couple of Xiaomi Smart Switches (the little, flat round ones) but they are quite awkward to use and sometimes finicky in their responses/performance.
Ideally it would be a little bank of perhaps 8 switches (or ideally buttons) that can be pressed and then link to other actions through CoRE or something similar (e.g. trigger a routine, or toggle a fan/light/…). Ideally it would be touch sensitive, but buttons are totally fine so long as they arent clicky switches, I would also love it if there was some kind of design customisation so you can change the icons on the buttons somehow, but that is a definite nice-to-have!
I could clearly build something with a simple case and ESP8266 accompanied by some night buttons, but I figured there must be something on the market already… Does anybody have any recommendations?
Ah great, I knew there must be something I just couldnt find it despite looking! It is a little pricey, but I guess its ZWave so AAA batteries will last a while at least! Will save several hours of ST_Anything coding and button assembly…etc…
Thanks!!
Another option to consider is Lutron Pico remotes. I use these via native integration on Hubitat, but it appears that there are a few options to use these on ST as well. Just something to consider as the Pico’s are relatively inexpensive (~$15), have a 10 year battery, and can be wall mounted in standard Decora style face-plates.
They would be good if they could integrate wth ZWave directly, but from what I can see, these cant be added to ST unless you go via something else… I wonder why? Or perhaps there is a way to port back from Hubitat, though from what I can tell this still need a Lutron bridge of sorts (and is very rare in the UK where I am…).
Lutron devices use a Lutron proprietary protocol called Clear Connect. I believe it operates at ~900MHz, which is why the Lutron SMart Bridge Pro is a requirement. Aesthetically, the Prico remotes are great in the US where Decora/Paddle style switches are commonplace and easy to source. Not sure how well suited they are to Europe, where the light switches are often more square shaped, correct? I know in my house my wife and family prefer the smart-switches to look and behave more like traditional switches.
It’s not the frequency that the devices run at it’s the “integration” options provided by the bridges. You can use Pico remotes with a Wink 2 because it has the radio built in and direct “Lutron” support.
The Pro bridge or RadioRA2 Select or full RadioRA2 system is required by pretty much all automation systems to utilize the telnet interface to interact with the bridge.
The “non-pro” bridges do not open the “integration” interfaces and the only access is through their secured cloud access which BTW actually uses an SSH connect with a key for interacting with the automation hub.
This is the “official” integration that SmartThings uses and does not require a Pro bridge. However with this integration comes the limitations of only getting to use what ST or Lutron say you can. There are hacks for this that the Home Assistant project uses to integrate a non-pro bridge but I still don’t think Pico’s work with this integration point as it is purposefully limited to promote their higher end systems.
Otherwise Pico’s are awesome. I use them for all sorts of things!
Yes, on the wall they would normally need to look like wall switches for approval factor! However for a bedside control panel the functionality is far more important than aesthetics! Thanks for the info on Lutron, there really is so much to know across so many areas!