I am trying to connect a light fixture in my house to SmartThings but I’m having trouble finding the right approach. I don’t want to use Philips Hue because, for one, it’s a bit expensive, and the fixture has GU24 sockets, so I would have to use an adapter. I can’t use a smart wall switch because it’s an old house with old wiring and there is only a hot wire running to the switch. The only other option I could think of was installing a smart relay switch in the light fixture box, but now even that looks like it may not work. There are only two wires, hot and neutral. The hot wire is coming from the switch so the only way I can wire up the relay is in line with the switch. This means that when the switch is flipped off, the relay will be turned off and completely disabled. The only way I can think to make it work is to remove the switch, but I can’t do that because other people in the house need access to it. The only solution I can think of is to remove the switch and install some kind of wireless remote switch, but I can’t find anything like that for sale. I’m sure there are smart remote controls, but I really need something I can place over the existing switch box. Does anyone know of anything or have any other solutions? (other than completely re-wiring the switch)
There are a number of battery operated buttons and switches that you could put on the wall. There are two which are specifically designed to fit over existing switches and are called “smart switch covers.” These are battery operated and have their own buttons. So they are very intuitive for guests and children. If your smart things hub goes off-line for maintenance, however, the switch on the wall won’t work because they work by having the smart switch cover talk to the hub and then hub would talk to the microswitch in the light fixture. You could remove the cover and get back to the switch underneath but it’s just something to be aware of. See the following thread for various options.
Just realized you said GU 24 – – by any chance are you in the UK? If so, the smart switch covers and mentioned are not available there, as they are shaped for typical US switches.
But there is a very nice battery operated wall switch made by both devolo and Popp and a community member has made a device type handler for them so they would work with smart things just like the one that I pictured previously.
And then a different community member has devised a frame for them that can fit over an existing UK style switch.
So same idea, just different devices are available in the US and the UK. They’re all listed in the remotes thread that I linked to above.
Here’s the link for the frame for the UK style.