Endpoint, Router. Not sure why I assumed every Zigbee device was a router, but now that I know where to find this information, my troubleshooting abilities just went to the next level. Thank you so much!
I use Shelly whenever I can, local control, use regular wall switches and regular bulbs. I have over 100 different wifi/zigbee devices around the house from all manufacturers and the only one that always works is the Shelly stuff. The relays are absolutely rock solid.
Also a big fan of the Candeo - it's the only smart switch I've found that doesn't look like a smart switch (at least for us in the UK), guests in our house don't even notice that it's any different!
There are relay modules you can get, like ones made by sonoff, that have this same attribute. Though you need to have a reasonable amount of room in the backbox. The other nice thing is if you don’t want to convert all the bulbs or switches to smart the ones that are smart don’t look out of place.
@@lawrencemanning I second this suggestion. I have added Sonoff zigbee relays which then allows dumb switches to become smart switches. The only downside is that I'm not convinced that the sonoff relays support dimming. Another caveat is that Sonoff makes the Zigbee Mini relay as well as the Mini-l which doesn't require a neutral wire. While the ZB mini acts as a router, the mini-l does not.
I understand your rationale for choosing the 2 types of controls (switches & dimmers) and I generally agree with your criteria - but I'd add one: the selected controls should look consistent throughout the house (not necessarily exactly the same - but thematically matching). To me the very different look of the selected controls would be a no-no. Especially when mounted side by side - they just look far too different (the nature of the controls, the plate style, the visible fixing screws on one but not the other, rounded corners vs square). They look to be from two quite different eras.
Indeed that's my issue with these kind of switches, and why I am using only zigbee relays that accept inputs directly from my normal switches and that sit inside the wall boxes. I've been upgrading my home switches this way without having to change the look or replacing them, especially because I have different switches and plaques styles in different rooms. The main goal I'm going after is "enhancing, not replacing". The switches and relays work even without a zigbee coordinator, so I'm not locked out of my lights just because my server is down or updating. Right now I had extremely good experiences both with NodON and Vimar relays.
Great to see more UK content on this sort of thing. I went with a Shelley relay at the light fitting when I first started, because it meant keeping the existing switches and 2 way functionality. It's been flawless, though it doesn't solve the dimming problem of course. The Candeo look to be a good solution, if costly. I know that Scolmore Click (A huge brand in the electricial industry) are getting into the market with zigbee options too, so there may be more good choices in the future finally.
You missed one important thing. Most cheap smart switches do not remember the last power state after a power cut. The default state is usually ON. Imagine in the middle of the night, all your lights are flashing after a power cut recovery. 😅 I have a couple of Mose switches. They don't remember the last state. I had to create manual power state reminders for each switch gang to prevent this issue. It was a pain. Now I always buy Aqara switches. They remember the last power state and are reliable.
I recently installed some ikuu inline switches and their default power on state is 'on' (surely violates some safety standards somewhere). The default state of these switches can be changed but apparently I would need the ikuu hub to do it. If I try to write to the relevant attribute in ZHA it asks for a vendor code. So I set up a simple power outage and return trigger in Home Assistant (monitors the discharging battery state of my iPad wall display on the same power circuit) to reset them to off.
Thanks so much for the analysis of these, your checklist is exactly what most of us will need. UK based person here, can’t wait to set switches up as the first thing in the new flat!
Thanks for this video, went with smart bulbs and quickly realised what a pain they are with regular re-pairing required. Now onto smart light switches and with so many options this video has cleared my confusion and now onto the implementation
Love the video and respect your choices of "must haves". But, I think the Shelly deserved a bit more love! Did you address the "must operate as a dumb switch" fully? My apologies if I missed it. That's just one of the (many) beauties of the Shelly. You don't have to use their fronts, you can use whatever faceplate you want. Having invested hugely in expensive brushed steel faceplates, it was a must for me. It ticks all the other boxes apart from the obvious inability to be a ZigBee router. You didn't mention voice integration potential? The Shelly will integrate to Alexa through HA and gives full dimming and switching capability by voice. In short, my missus didn't even know anything had changed. My old mum can come and use the switches, just as she has for the last 80+ years. Ironically, we now use the full functionality of the devices by voice. Never really having to touch the expensive, beautifully built faceplates! But they look good! And of course, if they décor ever changes, so can the faceplates. Finally, I'm no Shelly fanboy, just horses for courses. Their battery operated stuff has been desperately disappointing. Aqara and ZigBee rocks for that! With that in mind, I'd highly encourage people to watch the previous videos you've linked at the top BEFORE they watch this video. ATB.
This is the info I needed to hear - thank you so much for posting. My 'home automation eletrician' came over today who told me the shelly relays fitted in the ceiling don't allow for using the dumb switches as is, as when someone turns off the dumb switch it'll kill the power to the relay so you won't be able to turn it on remotely (and vice versa!) that definitely doesn't seem to be true from your reply. Which shelly units are you using?
@@twentytwo278 I'm afraid your spark is talking bollocks.... Mainly... The Shelly devices can work without a neutral, which is nearly always missing in UK light switches. But, they work far more reliably, especially the dimmers, if you can bring a neutral to the switch.
@@BerkeleyTowers I thought that must be the case...doesn't exactly fill me with confidence about them. I haven't actually opened up a switch yet but he seemed 100% sure I had neutrals at the switches given it's a 4yo new build. Any recommendation ? I was looking at the Plus 1M or mini depending on space in backbox
Btw… the Aqara D1 is also available as three-gang. Thank you for the amazing review! I was also skeptic about the Moes three-gang touch and you expressed exactly my concerns
After making the same journey into buying several different switches I decided to pick up Aqara D1 (with neutral and wireless) series switches even if they do not fit into round European boxes. I purchased square boxes and mounted them in place of round ones. I have mixture of three, two, one, and wireless switches. They created stable zigbee network across three floors. I use z2m and only gripe I have is that depending on number of channels some options are available and some not (disconnecting or reversing LED indicators, mains voltage reporting, energy usage [Wh], and instant power [W]). It may be limitation of firmware or z2m but, unfortunately, I did not have time to investigate. I have over 30 of those switches and none of them experienced any issue. Aqara D1 is in my opinion best choice so far in 2023. They work great and they have look&feel of good quality wall switch. I don't know why H1 do not have triple button. H1 are also more expensive and unavailable on Aliexpress for some reason ...
I had the same question and found myself buying devices from the Plejd assortment. They are good looking, really smart and very easy to use and control in any scenario. You should try’em out.
I have a couple of the Candeo switches. I like that they look and act like a traditional dimmer. But I do find them a bit "sticky" when turning them on and off. They're also not great at reporting their on/off state. Don't know why, but they're the only ZigBee devices I have with that issue. (Another issue with smart GU10 bulbs, is they're usually taller than standard GU10 bulbs - which can be a problem with many fixtures. I learnt this the hard way.)
Same situation as you. I bought a two way dimmable moes module and experienced the same inconsistency as you showed. Shame as they even have 4gang version, no dimming though, which could have been a an awesome thing. The aqara ones look great as long as you don't need to put two next to each other. They are slightly bigger than standard EU switches so you can't fit two together. As others have pouted out, sometimes a behind the plate module is better, as style of switches is important. Our house will have gray walls so dark switches with sharp corners would be prefered.
Shelly has 4-gang ”switches”. It’s called i4. It’s just a controller though so you need to complement them with actual switches too. The switches can be mounted at the light instead of behind the buttons. If you don’t like Shelly’s own buttons you can use any other of your liking. Shelly does not require the cloud to speak to Home Assistant or to each other. Loved the video, though.
I was just about to say the same. One of the biggest advantages is that you can use any non smart lightswitch, so you have thousands of options available. Using them in my new smart home.
I am very much enjoying the videos. I am construction my new retirement home and am facing all the same decisions. I did tell my electrician that there needs to be a neutral wire at every switch box so that will solve some of my possible issues. I am US based so my options are different. I too specifically want to avoid wifi switches. Perhaps those sonoff panels mighty be cool. thanks
I am a huge Candeo fan, and their support is the best I have come across. But I am pretty sure that to use them in a two way set up, a bit of re wiring is required.
I haven't tried them in Two Way mode personally, but the website says it works. Not sure if it's any different from "Normal Two-Way switching" as I'm not an electrician!
@@HomeAutomationGuy the Candeo smartdimmer (and its many clones) have a wired input for one or more momentary push buttons to use in the auxiliary locations. The wired push buttons then work much like you have seen elsewhere; a momentary press toggles on/off and a long press alternately raise or lowers brightness.
Thanks for the interesting video, which is not sponsored and therefore also guards against a "Fehlkauf", a misbuy. In an existing installation, Home automation is adding functionality while maintaining what everyone already knew, without causing surprises or problems they cannot solve themselves. I therefore use Shelly relays (decoupled) with Esphome - Home Assistant as a switch mounted behind the existing pushbuttons from the European suppliers so that the WAF remains guaranteed (Schneider, Legrand, Busch-Jaeger, Gira, Berker, BTicino, etc.). The switches all retain the appearance they always had and no one is surprised. What I have added is an NSPanel from Sonoff (integrated into HA) which I use more than my housemates who find that toy unnecessary despite the nice look.
You are most welcome! I like your setup, it is great to keep things how they are without surprises. I just really didn't want to keep my old light switches and I wanted a strong Zigbee mesh. The sensible person inside me agrees with your housemates that the NSPanel is a toy. But the smart home nerd inside me can't wait to set it up and play with it!
I lucked in on the Candeo as my first selection. It is exactly as described . Completely familiar to any member of the family or to guests. Really good tactile feel. No dropouts.
Very useful video. I have used aqara switches at my house. They have 3 gangs and can be bought on many online platforms. I am struggling with a 3 gang switch which needs to be two way. I have a workaround with aqara relay switch
Was asking the same thing a couple of months ago, I found out that Legrand/Bticino switches were the best option for me. They also meet all of your criteria except they don’t report the power consumption and don’t offer 3-4 gangs. I have mixed both wired (no neutral) and wireless switches. It offers look and feel consistency across my home. The dimming will probably never be as good as the candeo one! Good luck on your journey and thanks for sharing
I'm so glad I didn't have to go through this process myself. Based on your review I can confidently say Aquara is the best for my home. Thanks for making this video! I'd love to see more comparisons of various smart home devices.
Aqara H1 is also my switch of choice. Tried couple of them and this one has definitely the best build quality and feel. The click is super satisfying and reassuring. It also supports single, double or triple click as well as separate hold and release. I'm using the battery versions because of the shallow switch boxes but so far I can't really complain. Other really solid switch is the one from IKEA (small dimmer switch). Very nice click, good response and build quality. And for the scenes I'm using Aqara OPPLE switches. They cost 15EUR each for 6 gang version which has 30 possible actions configurable! Build quality is not that great as IKEA, but still very nice.
I've conducted tests on numerous smart switches and finally found the perfect fit for my home from a company called Bseed. Their Zigbee devices boast exceptional reliability and stability. While they may not be the most economical option, I prioritize quality above all else. In the Netherlands, it's been customary for quite some time to have sockets and switches with neutral wiring. Luckily, my house even had separate wiring for this purpose, with double boxes facilitating an easy setup. I believe the optimal approach is to utilize neutral wiring whenever possible; this ensures consistent performance from these devices. Bseed also offers models that don't require a neutral wire, but while they work fine, they lack routing capabilities. In such cases, using a bulb can serve as an alternative and even extend the signal range.😁😁😁
Thank you for your video. The Aqara were exactly the kind of switch I was looking for, with their ability to decouple from my hue lights, but also offer the ability to use the same kinds of switches for lights I don't want or need to be smart themselves. Thank you! 👍
Others have previously commented on "theme consistency", which personally I would also be bothered by. The Aqara H1 looks great in my opinion, but the Candeo dimmer looks nothing like it. Not even close. I'd like to know why you haven't covered Aqara's dimmable switch in this video. It would certainly match the H1 thematically. I love this video series so far and I'm currently ramping up to building my new house from the ground up. I've already learned that having neutral wires everywhere probably isn't a bad idea. But it bothered me that in this video one obvious switch wasn't covered: the Aqara H1 dimmable rotary switch. Would you please mind elaborating in a comment, or perhaps do a video on it in the future?
If you are managing the downlights as a Zigbee group and using them as one entity, then naming isn't such an issue. There are definitely situations where smart switches and dimmers are great. I've found I tend to like to change the colour temperature depending on the time of day. What I did to work around the "dumb switch" situation was to get some cheap zigbee wall switches and use them as a button instead of a switch. Programmed the wall switch so the relay was always on, effiectively hardwiring the lights, and then using the switch as a basic scene controller so it looks like a normal switch if a guest is here.
Thanks for another great comparison video! Please, do an NS panel video, it seems that the NS panel hardware and software have recently gone through some changes that make it simpler to get into HA.....?
Very thorough video. Just went through a similar process myself and found Aqara to be very versatile, even reporting room temperature to within 1°C. My only criticism would be the decoupled switches can't bind directly to lights.
Very thorough review! Still wrapping my head around a rack server for a smarthome, but ok. In the US, GE, Leveton, and Lutron are market leaders and readily available at big box stores.
Aweseome work ! I have a couple of Aqara H1 wireless 2-gang switches and they look and feel great. You can create automations in HA that will dim or bright the lights by double clicking or holding down the buttons but it's less intuitive that a dial for sure.
Great comparison! I have spent an extermely large time looking into smart dimmer switches to achieve 1 simple goal - to be able to have smart dimmer switch in a two way configuration. While Candeo can techinally do two way, one of those switches has to be a retractive switch which breaks the consitency across the house. The only switch that came close were the Aurora Aone smart dimmer (think the company has gone into adminstration) however even that will not work if you use it without their propriotory hub. While each dimmer can support native Z2M, theres no way to do 2 way without their hub (I bought it and tried!) Varilight also had 2 way dimmers with a master and slave dimmer however they did not work natively with HA and required the use of SUPLA. Ended up returning all the dimmers and currently just using dumb dimmers.
That's the problem with being on the forefront of a technology wave - we're limited for choices for smart home products right now and often have to make compromises. Hopefully the market and industry continues to innovate, and by the time I upgrade my tech we have a lot more things to choose from!
The hardest bit in this system for me is the one htat is hardest to test (without buying a ton of switches and trying them out) - how does the system work when the Home Assistant is unavailable? Unlike the approach that you went for (smart switches + dumb lights), I am still hoping of being able to cobble together a smart switch + smart light combination, that would give all the same benefits as you described (including turning lights on/off when Home Assistant/Zibgee/WiFi are down), but also allow control of brightness *and color* of the lights from external controll (like via HA scripts and automations). And here lies the problem - ideally, I'd like the wall switch to send signal to the smart bulb(s) to turn on/off/up/down when the system is working correctly, but also fall back to physically cutting the power when the system is down. And I am not sure if there actually exists a solution that can do this.
Would definitely like to see a more indepth video on the sonoff smart touch screen/switch. I'm using some sonoff mini r2s in my home now for my christmas lights and looking at adding more throughout the house
What I would love to see are some reviews on electrical sockets. Trying to find a UK ZigBee socket with power monitoring that didn't look rubbish (but was in black), or cost a small mortgage, has been difficult/impossible. There are WiFi versions, but that is not what I'm after, and I didn't want the plug-in plugs either.
Thanks for another awesome video. You have inspired a lot of my setup. I’m already set up with switches and yes I love the Candeo. I love that you can retrofit them to an existing plate. I replaced a 3 gang in the kitchen over a period of a few weeks and nobody noticed. For my non-dimmables I’m Shelly relays all the way leaving the standard light switches in place.
@@lawrencemanning they definitely click. I have put in deeper back boxes to accommodate the relay. Also the upstairs lights all have the relays in the ceiling space where the wiring is as for some reason my house has neutral wires at the switches downstairs but not upstairs.
Great video! I have been using lightwave smart switches and sockets for years now and they have been faultless, I know they aren’t Zigbee and they are a little expensive but when I compare them to all the others available these come out on top every time. Pick some up and give them your honest opinion, the other good thing is they’re a uk based firm from good old Birmingham!
I briefly lived in a fancy apartment a few years ago that had Lightwave switches and they were pretty good. But I read that they don't play that nicely with Home Assistant in a locally connected way, so I didn't look at them further for my new house. I may be wrong about that though, as I've not tested them personally with HA
Good video thank you. I got the Moes 3 gang.. and I totally agree with you about the cheapness of the build. I hate pressing them and have most scenes triggered elsewhere.. by a remote button pad, motion and presence sensors and voice controls. I'm still searching for a better switch
Fantastic video and perfectly timed as I’m hunting around for the perfect switch to couple with motion sensors. Good luck with the rest of your smart home
Interesting video. Thanks. Quite different to my experience. I started with some sonoff WiFi switches. They are glass touch panels. They do up to 3 gang. However, I've never installed their app. I flashed them with tasmota, so fully local., they now work very well with home assistant. They all continue to work if the WiFi is down. There are some very similar ones from athom that go up to 4 gang in a single box. I've now replaced almost all of the switches in my house. In older parts of my house I had to add neutral wires, but this was easy where I have loft access. One thing that would be useful to know is the depth of the box required. I've had to use box extenders in a couple of rooms as the back box was too shallow. Not sure what the power draw on these switches is. I should measure that. Thanks again.
This is one of the best videos I've seen about smart home - well done, I really appreciate the detail! I'm waiting for a retrofit module with Thread Router capabilities to be released so that I can add it to my existing switches.
@@HomeAutomationGuy Yep, makes sense. I just now ordered the Sonoff MINIR4M (the one with matter) to play around. Though I’ll not stick with it since it relies on Wifi and most of my devices are no Thread.
Great info, thank you! I use smart switches everywhere, *_except_* my home theater room. Any smart switch I've installed adds noticeable noise through my speakers, so I had to go with individual smart bulbs. Everytime someone turns off and on the dumb switch real fast, all my pairings get erased 😢.
I'm in the process of buying a new home and your new series for creating the perfect smart home is inspiring! Question about the candeo- can you pop off the plastic dimmable button caps and use a different cap from say a traditional dimmer? Looking for GF approval factor!
I use Aqara neutral switches throughout my home but my main difference was also Zigbee RGB downlights or GU10 bulbs throughout, about 75 in total. The main plus side of this is complete control of every bulb by not having the switches wired in as dumb switches, i.e. they don’t completely kill the power to the bulb. I have mini switches around the home that activate scenes or i can double tap the aqaras to do something else. Pairing is a real pain but that should be rare once initially setup
Hi, I hope you don't mind me replying to this old(ish) comment..... I'm just nearing the end of a full-home referb and I've come to the time to choose lighting options. Like you, we are going to have GU10 spotlights throughout, probably a similar number to you, and I am keen to have them all as smart bulbs so I can control different scenes/setups anywhere in the house. I've been pulling my hair out trying to find a tidy solution for the switches that keeps the hard- power on while allowing soft- switching of the relevant lights. Dimming would be nice but I can live without it - 90% of use will probably be by voice anyway. What I desperately don't want is battery powered switches sitting on faceplates over dumb switches though. It seems like such an inelegant solution and before finding the Aqara in this vid I couldn't believe there wasn't a better alternative. I am replying to ask if you woudn't mind answering a few Qs? a) Are you still happy with the Aqara solution? Which GU10s are you using and would you recommend them? Same question with the mini switches? Are you using this all with Home Assistant or native apps? (I am unfamiliar with HomeAssistant, but tech savvy so I will soon learn if it is the best way to go). Any other tips? Thanks so much in advance for your time!!!
Looking forward to seeing this, I installed several Zemismart ZigBee and their hub. They work quite well, but not sure I should have chosen the touch versions.
Awesome video! My wife told me I could make ours a smart home but her older parents must be able to come in and operate things without any extra effort. I finally found the leviton z wave dimmer switches, R51-DZ6HD-1RZ. Only drawback is it requires a neutral line in the switch box and some older houses use a switch loop in the US.
Great Video! I also have a candeo in my house and I had an issue with it at first not reporting its manually changed state via zigbee. Few emails with Candeo and I had a replacement on the way that has worked great for almost a year. I have just checked their website following this video and they have a 2 gang kit available now for £78. I've ordered it and will give it a shot!
I went with Sonoff, a combination of the NSPanel and the M5 (which is just a regular switch). I went 3 Gang everywhere on the M5s even though I don't need more than one gang anywhere (except I need two in the living room, but there's an NSPanel there, so two gangs was a given there). They're wifi and they do not dim. I plan to do my dimming through smart bulbs anyway (yeah, I'm doing both smart switches and bulbs). I'm also expecting that one to three presets and maybe some automations will be more useful than a dimmer switch that sets the light level manually. However, the main benefit is that I'm running ESPHome on the switches. That's a lot of effort to set up, but competely guaranteed to be local and giving me insane levels of control. I set up things like long presses and double clicks, and I set it to blink the blue "status led" to give feedback when doing those things. And the level of control that ESPHome combined with nspanel-lovelace-ui gives met over the (matching!) NSPanels is absolutely insane.
I agree that ESPHome is awesome and I love that you can flash those devices with it. But I agree that it's an effort! I've done it with a few things though that I think are worth the time investment. Stay tuned for future videos showing you what!
Only just found this. Many thanks for creating it. I have been looking for a decent zigbee switch to use in my HA setup. Been using shelly for a while but now have a Candeo and Aqara will be the next one to add.
Great video. A few folks have mentioned but there is the option of using Localtuya or the newer Tuya Local integrations to control your Tuya wifi devices locally. They are still connected and sending updates to the cloud, so this is by no means a security measure, rather a way to improve the responsiveness of devices. I have several Treadlife wifi switches and several lights bulbs that I connect using Localtuya and it works great.
I've been using Candeo - definitely the best I've tried (albeit from a limited pool!) You can also fit the Candeo modules into a fancier faceplate - I've got some fancy looking smart light switches now!
I'm using the Home Assistant Sky Connect zigbee coordinator. I tested the Sonoff relays in a previous video and didn't like the clicking noise that they made, and they don't fit too well in a standard UK back box.
Thank you so much for this. Your requirements are more or less the same as mine. I was considering the Moes but you've opened my eyes to the Candeo. I think I'll end up getting those for the dimmable rooms.
Hopefully Plejd will be getting better support for home assistant soon. I use it at home and am very happy about the build quality and how it works, not ZigBee though (think it is Bluetooth)
Just moving in to my first house. I wanted Aqara H1 switches installing, but the price put me off. I went for the Aqara E1 instead. I don't like them. They feel cheap and they're slow to react via home assistant (they seem ok when pressed). I should've bought the H1 version, even though they are double the price.
Hi Alan. I enjoyed that video. I have 7 candeo units, i have them paired with momentary/ retractive switches which makes it super easy for manual control. A couple of the candeo units are the back box version sat in the ceiling rose and only taking input from the momentary switches. I also fitted the candeo units into chrome casing like the momentary so it all looks more premium.
I found that it had 1 to 2 second delay when I try to turn it on. Works almost instantly if I try to turn it on through Philips hue but the physical toggle has a delay. Have you found this to be the case as well?
I am just getting into smartening up my home and had some what similar requirements particularly for the minimum use of wifi in order to keep things local ( I expect us all to be disconnected from The grid for various reasons in the future) and I agree about the zigbee focus, one of the things you didn’t try and I am waiting on the delivery of some units to test are kinetic based rf switches from in my case Quinetic. As they can connect to the quinetic hub to give WiFi and therefore home assistant integration they serve for me the purpose of not having to channel out walls in areas where I want new two and three gang switches, the ability to not have anyone mess up the automated side of things by using a wall switch but giving Luddites the ability to seek out the familiar wall boxes to make light is a very nice to have conceptually, infact if this works I will put all the main power cut protected lights on to kinetic switches to ensure safe passage around the property in black out periods. Interested in any feedback from anyone already tried the quinetic also
At a guess the idle load from the candeo is because it needs to send a small amount of power through the bulb in order to have a small amount of power for itself. Probably the bulb is what's actually consuming the power. It would be interesting to see what the load is when a dimmable led is used. Really wish candeo would release a neutral required version, it would be the perfect switch.
I was just researching yesterday and found "Friends of Hue" switched quite appealing. They are available in many designs and can even work on kinetic energy like EnOcean. They are expensive though. If there is enough space and wiring, I think I'll go with old-style switches and flush-mounted relais/dimmers.
Home Assistant has a pretty solid 3rd party SonOff module (installable using HACS) that allows you to use most SonOff devices in local & internet mode. I've been using it for a couple of years. Sadly I have only used it with WiFi devices, but will be trying out their Zigbee products later this year. On that note (and I understand this video is almost a year old), is there a reason you didn't evaluate any SonOff products? I have both SonOff and Tuya, and I've been gifting the Tuyas to people I don't like particularly much...
I have Aqara switches myself, my idea for dimming was decouple the switch from the lightbulb (has to be smart $$$) and connect them to Circadian Lighting to automatically set the temperature and brightness though the day. Only option i see for now
very useful video thank you. any of these particularly future proof with possible support for matter in the future? got a new house I'm planning to add in smart lights and automation, some wall switches are not where I want them to be so was thinking of how to sort individual scenarios out with smart devices. thank you doe any help!
I really hope big companies like Jung and such are gonna start producing these kind of switches. You are right that most of them either don't work well enough or don't look good enough.
The Aqara H1 switch is available in a 3 gang version, but it seems to only be sold in China and other Asian countries for now. It's also not yet been supported by Z2M, but if you manage to get one shipped over it shouldn't be too hard to support.
This video could have saved me a lot of time. All Saturday, my wife and I were looking at light switches and comparing everything you had shown (excluding Candeo). Literally, after hours of searching online and ordering stuff, we saw this the next day >_< The one thing I will say that annoyed us was that they all talk about Lutron and inovelli which we actually like but they don't make "Rest of World" models. Great and detailed reviews. P.S. at the time of writing this comment your comparison spreadsheet is down.
I agree with the Lutron and Inovelli comments - they're great looking devices but they just don't seem to be very UK/EU friendly! Thanks for the heads up about the link! I've updated it in the description now. Really appreciate it!
@@HomeAutomationGuy Lutron do have their Ra2 Select system available in the UK. It uses a different approach to smart lighting; the switching or dimming is performed by a smart module wired inline with the lights (so uses Neutral), not in the wall, and controlled by battery powered wall mounted Pico wireless switches. Integrates with Lutron smartblinds for single button control of scenes with natural and electric lighting. Lutron use their own proprietary RF system "Clear Connect" which works well. Oddly, I think the Ra2 system integrates with SmartThings in the USA but not the UK. I don't know about HA integration.
For my four gangs I run two Shelly PM2.5 devices behind the dumb switch. This means I don't have to worry about the quality of the switch (since we have some nice ones) but still get the value of smart home stuff. Obviously the loss is they don't do ZigBee so no mesh improvements
Thank you for making this video, I have the same problem and I need four gang switch but they also need to be too way because I have a switch on either side of the room, I'm struggling to find a solution, maybe have to do the same as you and have two lots of a aqara switches.
Thanks for the video intrested to see, dissapointing what the candeo is the only REAL option for dimming lights, we know need candeo to make the same one in a £60 variant that looks and feels nice (metally)
Do you know of any smart switches that control wall receptacles and won’t fry when I accidentally turn them on with a 1150 W vacuum cleaner plugged in?
This is beyond useful. I'm so happy you are doing these kind of videos. I'm planning to try out building a smart home using home assistant, and I just don't know where to start. Your videos are helping me understand many things as I'm completely new to this thing. If you would do a similar video to light bulbs and bands, sensors, power sockets would be awesome! Ty! Also does the 2 gang candeo consume 0.8 W of power?
What you dont mention is that you need to check your amps on your switches..not every smart switch is compatible with every house.Most homes do have neutral wire bundles in the wall! Dont confuse people on here!
@@AngeloR674 i just assumed that if the 1 gang switch consumes 0.4 W, than the 2 gang consumes 0.8. I have no electrical background. I see no harm in asking. I thought this was a friendly environment. If people get easily confused by what I said they are also probably not familiar with electrical stuff, and my question will do more good than harm, if it gets a reasonal answer.
Thanks for great video, but there are couple of questions. Why do you attached to smart swithces, don't you consider to use traditional switches with smart relays behind? It would bring you a much wider variety of smart devices (not only swithces, but dimmers as well). And you would be able to choose really high quality switches correspondong to your room design. And do you know about LocalTuya integration for HA, that allows to connect Tuya WiFi devices locally without any clouds? As for me, I'm using Aqara battery wireless switches connected to my Yeelight smart ceiling lights. And in some places I use Sonoff Zigbee relays and Moes Zigbee dimmers under traditional switches.
This was precisely what I was looking for. It's a great detail - thanks. It's a shame we don't have the Aqara triple rocker in the EU; I need a 3-gang solution.
FINALLY! someone reviewing EU style switches
Endpoint, Router. Not sure why I assumed every Zigbee device was a router, but now that I know where to find this information, my troubleshooting abilities just went to the next level. Thank you so much!
You are most welcome! Glad to hear you learned something, that's why I make these videos!
I use Shelly whenever I can, local control, use regular wall switches and regular bulbs. I have over 100 different wifi/zigbee devices around the house from all manufacturers and the only one that always works is the Shelly stuff. The relays are absolutely rock solid.
Do they do ZigBee & if so are they endpoints or mesh routers?
Also a big fan of the Candeo - it's the only smart switch I've found that doesn't look like a smart switch (at least for us in the UK), guests in our house don't even notice that it's any different!
There are relay modules you can get, like ones made by sonoff, that have this same attribute. Though you need to have a reasonable amount of room in the backbox. The other nice thing is if you don’t want to convert all the bulbs or switches to smart the ones that are smart don’t look out of place.
@@lawrencemanning I second this suggestion. I have added Sonoff zigbee relays which then allows dumb switches to become smart switches. The only downside is that I'm not convinced that the sonoff relays support dimming. Another caveat is that Sonoff makes the Zigbee Mini relay as well as the Mini-l which doesn't require a neutral wire. While the ZB mini acts as a router, the mini-l does not.
I understand your rationale for choosing the 2 types of controls (switches & dimmers) and I generally agree with your criteria - but I'd add one: the selected controls should look consistent throughout the house (not necessarily exactly the same - but thematically matching). To me the very different look of the selected controls would be a no-no. Especially when mounted side by side - they just look far too different (the nature of the controls, the plate style, the visible fixing screws on one but not the other, rounded corners vs square). They look to be from two quite different eras.
Indeed that's my issue with these kind of switches, and why I am using only zigbee relays that accept inputs directly from my normal switches and that sit inside the wall boxes. I've been upgrading my home switches this way without having to change the look or replacing them, especially because I have different switches and plaques styles in different rooms.
The main goal I'm going after is "enhancing, not replacing". The switches and relays work even without a zigbee coordinator, so I'm not locked out of my lights just because my server is down or updating. Right now I had extremely good experiences both with NodON and Vimar relays.
Yeh, that's a fair criticism.
@@stefa168 For switching yes - but unfortunately that doesn't get you dimming functionality.
@Alan Moore yeah you're absolutely right
@@stefa168 , yeah, diy smart switch can make your normal switches into smart switches as well😀
Great to see more UK content on this sort of thing. I went with a Shelley relay at the light fitting when I first started, because it meant keeping the existing switches and 2 way functionality. It's been flawless, though it doesn't solve the dimming problem of course. The Candeo look to be a good solution, if costly. I know that Scolmore Click (A huge brand in the electricial industry) are getting into the market with zigbee options too, so there may be more good choices in the future finally.
iolloi make a good quality dimmable module but you will need a retractive switch to control it.
You missed one important thing. Most cheap smart switches do not remember the last power state after a power cut. The default state is usually ON. Imagine in the middle of the night, all your lights are flashing after a power cut recovery. 😅 I have a couple of Mose switches. They don't remember the last state. I had to create manual power state reminders for each switch gang to prevent this issue. It was a pain. Now I always buy Aqara switches. They remember the last power state and are reliable.
Does anyone know if the Candeo C202 remembers power state?
Did you get an answer to this ?
Been using Zigbee Moes switches for years through Z2M - they literally have a setting in HA what to do after a drop out and never blink lights. 🤔
I recently installed some ikuu inline switches and their default power on state is 'on' (surely violates some safety standards somewhere). The default state of these switches can be changed but apparently I would need the ikuu hub to do it. If I try to write to the relevant attribute in ZHA it asks for a vendor code. So I set up a simple power outage and return trigger in Home Assistant (monitors the discharging battery state of my iPad wall display on the same power circuit) to reset them to off.
Thanks so much for the analysis of these, your checklist is exactly what most of us will need. UK based person here, can’t wait to set switches up as the first thing in the new flat!
Over 1 year on and I still am happy with my choices!
Thanks for this video, went with smart bulbs and quickly realised what a pain they are with regular re-pairing required. Now onto smart light switches and with so many options this video has cleared my confusion and now onto the implementation
Man!!!! I wish my office / cave / own room looked organized like this. It's all over the place.
Love the video and respect your choices of "must haves". But, I think the Shelly deserved a bit more love! Did you address the "must operate as a dumb switch" fully? My apologies if I missed it.
That's just one of the (many) beauties of the Shelly. You don't have to use their fronts, you can use whatever faceplate you want. Having invested hugely in expensive brushed steel faceplates, it was a must for me. It ticks all the other boxes apart from the obvious inability to be a ZigBee router.
You didn't mention voice integration potential? The Shelly will integrate to Alexa through HA and gives full dimming and switching capability by voice.
In short, my missus didn't even know anything had changed. My old mum can come and use the switches, just as she has for the last 80+ years. Ironically, we now use the full functionality of the devices by voice. Never really having to touch the expensive, beautifully built faceplates! But they look good!
And of course, if they décor ever changes, so can the faceplates.
Finally, I'm no Shelly fanboy, just horses for courses. Their battery operated stuff has been desperately disappointing. Aqara and ZigBee rocks for that!
With that in mind, I'd highly encourage people to watch the previous videos you've linked at the top BEFORE they watch this video. ATB.
bump
This is the info I needed to hear - thank you so much for posting. My 'home automation eletrician' came over today who told me the shelly relays fitted in the ceiling don't allow for using the dumb switches as is, as when someone turns off the dumb switch it'll kill the power to the relay so you won't be able to turn it on remotely (and vice versa!) that definitely doesn't seem to be true from your reply. Which shelly units are you using?
@@twentytwo278 I'm afraid your spark is talking bollocks.... Mainly... The Shelly devices can work without a neutral, which is nearly always missing in UK light switches. But, they work far more reliably, especially the dimmers, if you can bring a neutral to the switch.
@@twentytwo278 I'm using most of them. Relays.. dimmers.... RGBW..... PM's... Light bulbs. I don't bother with their battery stuff anymore...
@@BerkeleyTowers I thought that must be the case...doesn't exactly fill me with confidence about them. I haven't actually opened up a switch yet but he seemed 100% sure I had neutrals at the switches given it's a 4yo new build. Any recommendation ? I was looking at the Plus 1M or mini depending on space in backbox
Btw… the Aqara D1 is also available as three-gang. Thank you for the amazing review! I was also skeptic about the Moes three-gang touch and you expressed exactly my concerns
After making the same journey into buying several different switches I decided to pick up Aqara D1 (with neutral and wireless) series switches even if they do not fit into round European boxes. I purchased square boxes and mounted them in place of round ones. I have mixture of three, two, one, and wireless switches. They created stable zigbee network across three floors. I use z2m and only gripe I have is that depending on number of channels some options are available and some not (disconnecting or reversing LED indicators, mains voltage reporting, energy usage [Wh], and instant power [W]). It may be limitation of firmware or z2m but, unfortunately, I did not have time to investigate. I have over 30 of those switches and none of them experienced any issue.
Aqara D1 is in my opinion best choice so far in 2023. They work great and they have look&feel of good quality wall switch. I don't know why H1 do not have triple button. H1 are also more expensive and unavailable on Aliexpress for some reason ...
@@pllevi thank you for all this info. Yes, the H1 doesn’t have three buttons, but you can look for Aqara Opple with 6 buttons
I had the same question and found myself buying devices from the Plejd assortment. They are good looking, really smart and very easy to use and control in any scenario. You should try’em out.
Great video, I'm loving this series. I suggest in the end a video with your partner talking about the smart home and how improved both your lives. 😊
I have a couple of the Candeo switches. I like that they look and act like a traditional dimmer. But I do find them a bit "sticky" when turning them on and off. They're also not great at reporting their on/off state. Don't know why, but they're the only ZigBee devices I have with that issue.
(Another issue with smart GU10 bulbs, is they're usually taller than standard GU10 bulbs - which can be a problem with many fixtures. I learnt this the hard way.)
That's some good work, you covered all the bases
Thanks blakadder! My smart home wouldn't be anywhere near as smart without all the amazing foundational work you do for us and the community!
Same situation as you.
I bought a two way dimmable moes module and experienced the same inconsistency as you showed. Shame as they even have 4gang version, no dimming though, which could have been a an awesome thing.
The aqara ones look great as long as you don't need to put two next to each other. They are slightly bigger than standard EU switches so you can't fit two together.
As others have pouted out, sometimes a behind the plate module is better, as style of switches is important. Our house will have gray walls so dark switches with sharp corners would be prefered.
Shelly has 4-gang ”switches”. It’s called i4. It’s just a controller though so you need to complement them with actual switches too. The switches can be mounted at the light instead of behind the buttons. If you don’t like Shelly’s own buttons you can use any other of your liking.
Shelly does not require the cloud to speak to Home Assistant or to each other.
Loved the video, though.
I agree, and the main benefit is that you can just use regular switches which make your house more attractive once your want to sell it.
I was just about to say the same. One of the biggest advantages is that you can use any non smart lightswitch, so you have thousands of options available. Using them in my new smart home.
SInce when shelly have Zigbee stuff? wifi stuff is STUPID
I am very much enjoying the videos. I am construction my new retirement home and am facing all the same decisions. I did tell my electrician that there needs to be a neutral wire at every switch box so that will solve some of my possible issues. I am US based so my options are different. I too specifically want to avoid wifi switches. Perhaps those sonoff panels mighty be cool. thanks
I am a huge Candeo fan, and their support is the best I have come across. But I am pretty sure that to use them in a two way set up, a bit of re wiring is required.
I haven't tried them in Two Way mode personally, but the website says it works. Not sure if it's any different from "Normal Two-Way switching" as I'm not an electrician!
@@HomeAutomationGuy the Candeo smartdimmer (and its many clones) have a wired input for one or more momentary push buttons to use in the auxiliary locations. The wired push buttons then work much like you have seen elsewhere; a momentary press toggles on/off and a long press alternately raise or lowers brightness.
Thanks for the interesting video, which is not sponsored and therefore also guards against a "Fehlkauf", a misbuy.
In an existing installation, Home automation is adding functionality while maintaining what everyone already knew, without causing surprises or problems they cannot solve themselves.
I therefore use Shelly relays (decoupled) with Esphome - Home Assistant as a switch mounted behind the existing pushbuttons from the European suppliers so that the WAF remains guaranteed (Schneider, Legrand, Busch-Jaeger, Gira, Berker, BTicino, etc.).
The switches all retain the appearance they always had and no one is surprised.
What I have added is an NSPanel from Sonoff (integrated into HA) which I use more than my housemates who find that toy unnecessary despite the nice look.
You are most welcome! I like your setup, it is great to keep things how they are without surprises. I just really didn't want to keep my old light switches and I wanted a strong Zigbee mesh.
The sensible person inside me agrees with your housemates that the NSPanel is a toy. But the smart home nerd inside me can't wait to set it up and play with it!
I lucked in on the Candeo as my first selection. It is exactly as described . Completely familiar to any member of the family or to guests. Really good tactile feel. No dropouts.
Very useful video. I have used aqara switches at my house. They have 3 gangs and can be bought on many online platforms. I am struggling with a 3 gang switch which needs to be two way. I have a workaround with aqara relay switch
Was asking the same thing a couple of months ago, I found out that Legrand/Bticino switches were the best option for me.
They also meet all of your criteria except they don’t report the power consumption and don’t offer 3-4 gangs.
I have mixed both wired (no neutral) and wireless switches. It offers look and feel consistency across my home. The dimming will probably never be as good as the candeo one!
Good luck on your journey and thanks for sharing
I'm so glad I didn't have to go through this process myself. Based on your review I can confidently say Aquara is the best for my home. Thanks for making this video! I'd love to see more comparisons of various smart home devices.
Aqara H1 is also my switch of choice. Tried couple of them and this one has definitely the best build quality and feel. The click is super satisfying and reassuring. It also supports single, double or triple click as well as separate hold and release. I'm using the battery versions because of the shallow switch boxes but so far I can't really complain. Other really solid switch is the one from IKEA (small dimmer switch). Very nice click, good response and build quality. And for the scenes I'm using Aqara OPPLE switches. They cost 15EUR each for 6 gang version which has 30 possible actions configurable! Build quality is not that great as IKEA, but still very nice.
F c
I've conducted tests on numerous smart switches and finally found the perfect fit for my home from a company called Bseed. Their Zigbee devices boast exceptional reliability and stability. While they may not be the most economical option, I prioritize quality above all else.
In the Netherlands, it's been customary for quite some time to have sockets and switches with neutral wiring. Luckily, my house even had separate wiring for this purpose, with double boxes facilitating an easy setup. I believe the optimal approach is to utilize neutral wiring whenever possible; this ensures consistent performance from these devices. Bseed also offers models that don't require a neutral wire, but while they work fine, they lack routing capabilities. In such cases, using a bulb can serve as an alternative and even extend the signal range.😁😁😁
Thank you for your video. The Aqara were exactly the kind of switch I was looking for, with their ability to decouple from my hue lights, but also offer the ability to use the same kinds of switches for lights I don't want or need to be smart themselves. Thank you! 👍
You are welcome!
Very useful video. Anyone considering using automated lighting should see this first.
Great job.
Others have previously commented on "theme consistency", which personally I would also be bothered by. The Aqara H1 looks great in my opinion, but the Candeo dimmer looks nothing like it. Not even close. I'd like to know why you haven't covered Aqara's dimmable switch in this video. It would certainly match the H1 thematically. I love this video series so far and I'm currently ramping up to building my new house from the ground up. I've already learned that having neutral wires everywhere probably isn't a bad idea. But it bothered me that in this video one obvious switch wasn't covered: the Aqara H1 dimmable rotary switch. Would you please mind elaborating in a comment, or perhaps do a video on it in the future?
I'd love to see your take on the NS Panel!! I want to use them in my house for lighting, heating and blind control
Thank you so much for this. I've been struggling to find smart switches with my requirements. The aqara looks like what I need.
If you are managing the downlights as a Zigbee group and using them as one entity, then naming isn't such an issue.
There are definitely situations where smart switches and dimmers are great. I've found I tend to like to change the colour temperature depending on the time of day. What I did to work around the "dumb switch" situation was to get some cheap zigbee wall switches and use them as a button instead of a switch. Programmed the wall switch so the relay was always on, effiectively hardwiring the lights, and then using the switch as a basic scene controller so it looks like a normal switch if a guest is here.
does this work if your home assistant/nodered/etc. is down? I'd hate for that to quit working at 2am on my way to the bathroom.
I'm so glad I found this channel. We're currently building and I want easy smooth automation. I may be binging these videos
Thanks for another great comparison video! Please, do an NS panel video, it seems that the NS panel hardware and software have recently gone through some changes that make it simpler to get into HA.....?
Very thorough video. Just went through a similar process myself and found Aqara to be very versatile, even reporting room temperature to within 1°C. My only criticism would be the decoupled switches can't bind directly to lights.
Actually, it shows the device/switch temperature.
Very thorough review! Still wrapping my head around a rack server for a smarthome, but ok.
In the US, GE, Leveton, and Lutron are market leaders and readily available at big box stores.
Aweseome work !
I have a couple of Aqara H1 wireless 2-gang switches and they look and feel great.
You can create automations in HA that will dim or bright the lights by double clicking or holding down the buttons but it's less intuitive that a dial for sure.
Great comparison!
I have spent an extermely large time looking into smart dimmer switches to achieve 1 simple goal - to be able to have smart dimmer switch in a two way configuration. While Candeo can techinally do two way, one of those switches has to be a retractive switch which breaks the consitency across the house.
The only switch that came close were the Aurora Aone smart dimmer (think the company has gone into adminstration) however even that will not work if you use it without their propriotory hub. While each dimmer can support native Z2M, theres no way to do 2 way without their hub (I bought it and tried!)
Varilight also had 2 way dimmers with a master and slave dimmer however they did not work natively with HA and required the use of SUPLA.
Ended up returning all the dimmers and currently just using dumb dimmers.
That's the problem with being on the forefront of a technology wave - we're limited for choices for smart home products right now and often have to make compromises. Hopefully the market and industry continues to innovate, and by the time I upgrade my tech we have a lot more things to choose from!
The hardest bit in this system for me is the one htat is hardest to test (without buying a ton of switches and trying them out) - how does the system work when the Home Assistant is unavailable?
Unlike the approach that you went for (smart switches + dumb lights), I am still hoping of being able to cobble together a smart switch + smart light combination, that would give all the same benefits as you described (including turning lights on/off when Home Assistant/Zibgee/WiFi are down), but also allow control of brightness *and color* of the lights from external controll (like via HA scripts and automations).
And here lies the problem - ideally, I'd like the wall switch to send signal to the smart bulb(s) to turn on/off/up/down when the system is working correctly, but also fall back to physically cutting the power when the system is down. And I am not sure if there actually exists a solution that can do this.
I went with a H1 for a front outside light - great bit of kit, only ballache was replacing the back box
Yeh, that is definitely a ballache. But now they're big for ever - FUTURE PROOFING!
Would definitely like to see a more indepth video on the sonoff smart touch screen/switch. I'm using some sonoff mini r2s in my home now for my christmas lights and looking at adding more throughout the house
What I would love to see are some reviews on electrical sockets. Trying to find a UK ZigBee socket with power monitoring that didn't look rubbish (but was in black), or cost a small mortgage, has been difficult/impossible. There are WiFi versions, but that is not what I'm after, and I didn't want the plug-in plugs either.
Thanks for another awesome video. You have inspired a lot of my setup. I’m already set up with switches and yes I love the Candeo. I love that you can retrofit them to an existing plate. I replaced a 3 gang in the kitchen over a period of a few weeks and nobody noticed.
For my non-dimmables I’m Shelly relays all the way leaving the standard light switches in place.
Do the Shelley’s click? I have a sonoff that has a pretty audible click; it’s surprisingly annoying. Also it just barely fits in the backbox.
@@lawrencemanning they definitely click. I have put in deeper back boxes to accommodate the relay. Also the upstairs lights all have the relays in the ceiling space where the wiring is as for some reason my house has neutral wires at the switches downstairs but not upstairs.
Great video! I have been using lightwave smart switches and sockets for years now and they have been faultless, I know they aren’t Zigbee and they are a little expensive but when I compare them to all the others available these come out on top every time. Pick some up and give them your honest opinion, the other good thing is they’re a uk based firm from good old Birmingham!
I briefly lived in a fancy apartment a few years ago that had Lightwave switches and they were pretty good. But I read that they don't play that nicely with Home Assistant in a locally connected way, so I didn't look at them further for my new house. I may be wrong about that though, as I've not tested them personally with HA
Great job checking out smart dimmers! Just a heads up though, Candeo is basically just an expensive knockoff of the original Samotech dimmer
It could well be, they look very similar!
Honestly, smart switches has been my worst nightmare trying to set things up at home due to incompatibility issues, thanks for this.
Thank you for making this video. It’ll be an incredible resource for someone starting out.
Glad it was helpful!
I can highly recommend the Aqara D1. WBKG26LM is the 3 gang version with all the features of the others you mention.
Good video thank you.
I got the Moes 3 gang.. and I totally agree with you about the cheapness of the build. I hate pressing them and have most scenes triggered elsewhere.. by a remote button pad, motion and presence sensors and voice controls.
I'm still searching for a better switch
Fantastic video and perfectly timed as I’m hunting around for the perfect switch to couple with motion sensors. Good luck with the rest of your smart home
Interesting video. Thanks.
Quite different to my experience. I started with some sonoff WiFi switches. They are glass touch panels. They do up to 3 gang. However, I've never installed their app. I flashed them with tasmota, so fully local., they now work very well with home assistant. They all continue to work if the WiFi is down.
There are some very similar ones from athom that go up to 4 gang in a single box.
I've now replaced almost all of the switches in my house.
In older parts of my house I had to add neutral wires, but this was easy where I have loft access.
One thing that would be useful to know is the depth of the box required. I've had to use box extenders in a couple of rooms as the back box was too shallow.
Not sure what the power draw on these switches is. I should measure that.
Thanks again.
Nice one! I love Tasmota! But I wanted to avoid flashing anything in my house if I could though.
This is one of the best videos I've seen about smart home - well done, I really appreciate the detail! I'm waiting for a retrofit module with Thread Router capabilities to be released so that I can add it to my existing switches.
Thank you! I really appreciate the kind words. I would love a Thread retrofit model too, but I didn't want to wait!
@@HomeAutomationGuy Yep, makes sense. I just now ordered the Sonoff MINIR4M (the one with matter) to play around. Though I’ll not stick with it since it relies on Wifi and most of my devices are no Thread.
Great comparison. Does some video of this kind exist for ZigBee wall sockets with power monitoring?
Thanks for the grate info we are redoing the kitchen and living room and I now have a good understanding what switches to use
Great info, thank you! I use smart switches everywhere, *_except_* my home theater room. Any smart switch I've installed adds noticeable noise through my speakers, so I had to go with individual smart bulbs. Everytime someone turns off and on the dumb switch real fast, all my pairings get erased 😢.
I'm in the process of buying a new home and your new series for creating the perfect smart home is inspiring! Question about the candeo- can you pop off the plastic dimmable button caps and use a different cap from say a traditional dimmer? Looking for GF approval factor!
I use Aqara neutral switches throughout my home but my main difference was also Zigbee RGB downlights or GU10 bulbs throughout, about 75 in total. The main plus side of this is complete control of every bulb by not having the switches wired in as dumb switches, i.e. they don’t completely kill the power to the bulb. I have mini switches around the home that activate scenes or i can double tap the aqaras to do something else. Pairing is a real pain but that should be rare once initially setup
Hi, I hope you don't mind me replying to this old(ish) comment..... I'm just nearing the end of a full-home referb and I've come to the time to choose lighting options. Like you, we are going to have GU10 spotlights throughout, probably a similar number to you, and I am keen to have them all as smart bulbs so I can control different scenes/setups anywhere in the house. I've been pulling my hair out trying to find a tidy solution for the switches that keeps the hard- power on while allowing soft- switching of the relevant lights. Dimming would be nice but I can live without it - 90% of use will probably be by voice anyway. What I desperately don't want is battery powered switches sitting on faceplates over dumb switches though. It seems like such an inelegant solution and before finding the Aqara in this vid I couldn't believe there wasn't a better alternative.
I am replying to ask if you woudn't mind answering a few Qs? a) Are you still happy with the Aqara solution? Which GU10s are you using and would you recommend them? Same question with the mini switches? Are you using this all with Home Assistant or native apps? (I am unfamiliar with HomeAssistant, but tech savvy so I will soon learn if it is the best way to go). Any other tips? Thanks so much in advance for your time!!!
Looking forward to seeing this, I installed several Zemismart ZigBee and their hub. They work quite well, but not sure I should have chosen the touch versions.
Awesome video!
My wife told me I could make ours a smart home but her older parents must be able to come in and operate things without any extra effort. I finally found the leviton z wave dimmer switches, R51-DZ6HD-1RZ. Only drawback is it requires a neutral line in the switch box and some older houses use a switch loop in the US.
Great to hear! A lot of houses in the UK also don't have a Neutral wire - we feel your pain!
Great Video! I also have a candeo in my house and I had an issue with it at first not reporting its manually changed state via zigbee. Few emails with Candeo and I had a replacement on the way that has worked great for almost a year. I have just checked their website following this video and they have a 2 gang kit available now for £78. I've ordered it and will give it a shot!
I went with Sonoff, a combination of the NSPanel and the M5 (which is just a regular switch). I went 3 Gang everywhere on the M5s even though I don't need more than one gang anywhere (except I need two in the living room, but there's an NSPanel there, so two gangs was a given there).
They're wifi and they do not dim. I plan to do my dimming through smart bulbs anyway (yeah, I'm doing both smart switches and bulbs). I'm also expecting that one to three presets and maybe some automations will be more useful than a dimmer switch that sets the light level manually.
However, the main benefit is that I'm running ESPHome on the switches. That's a lot of effort to set up, but competely guaranteed to be local and giving me insane levels of control. I set up things like long presses and double clicks, and I set it to blink the blue "status led" to give feedback when doing those things. And the level of control that ESPHome combined with nspanel-lovelace-ui gives met over the (matching!) NSPanels is absolutely insane.
I agree that ESPHome is awesome and I love that you can flash those devices with it. But I agree that it's an effort!
I've done it with a few things though that I think are worth the time investment. Stay tuned for future videos showing you what!
can you make a video on how to use sonos amp with home assistant and with tv in a smart home
Great video. What is your recommendation for the smart curtain motors? Ones which can move heavy curtains
Great video, very informative, as always! Thanks!
Only just found this. Many thanks for creating it. I have been looking for a decent zigbee switch to use in my HA setup. Been using shelly for a while but now have a Candeo and Aqara will be the next one to add.
Great video. A few folks have mentioned but there is the option of using Localtuya or the newer Tuya Local integrations to control your Tuya wifi devices locally. They are still connected and sending updates to the cloud, so this is by no means a security measure, rather a way to improve the responsiveness of devices. I have several Treadlife wifi switches and several lights bulbs that I connect using Localtuya and it works great.
Thanks for sharing!
I'd personally avoid wifi switches since Zigbee exists and is better suited for this use case.
Did you look at the broadlink switches too? Also, doesn't tuya have a local integration for home assistant?
that's a pretty decent review, thanks for making this, given me quite a head start on some of the decisions I need to make for myself
I've been using Candeo - definitely the best I've tried (albeit from a limited pool!)
You can also fit the Candeo modules into a fancier faceplate - I've got some fancy looking smart light switches now!
I'm using the Home Assistant Sky Connect zigbee coordinator. I tested the Sonoff relays in a previous video and didn't like the clicking noise that they made, and they don't fit too well in a standard UK back box.
Thank you so much for this. Your requirements are more or less the same as mine. I was considering the Moes but you've opened my eyes to the Candeo. I think I'll end up getting those for the dimmable rooms.
6min in and subscribed. Great no BS delivery 😊
Glad you like it!
Hopefully Plejd will be getting better support for home assistant soon. I use it at home and am very happy about the build quality and how it works, not ZigBee though (think it is Bluetooth)
Just moving in to my first house. I wanted Aqara H1 switches installing, but the price put me off. I went for the Aqara E1 instead. I don't like them. They feel cheap and they're slow to react via home assistant (they seem ok when pressed). I should've bought the H1 version, even though they are double the price.
Have you seen the SONOFF TX Ultimate T5 switch? Just wondering what you would make of it compared to the other options.
Hi Alan. I enjoyed that video. I have 7 candeo units, i have them paired with momentary/ retractive switches which makes it super easy for manual control. A couple of the candeo units are the back box version sat in the ceiling rose and only taking input from the momentary switches. I also fitted the candeo units into chrome casing like the momentary so it all looks more premium.
I found that it had 1 to 2 second delay when I try to turn it on. Works almost instantly if I try to turn it on through Philips hue but the physical toggle has a delay. Have you found this to be the case as well?
I am just getting into smartening up my home and had some what similar requirements particularly for the minimum use of wifi in order to keep things local ( I expect us all to be disconnected from
The grid for various reasons in the future) and I agree about the zigbee focus, one of the things you didn’t try and I am waiting on the delivery of some units to test are kinetic based rf switches from in my case Quinetic. As they can connect to the quinetic hub to give WiFi and therefore home assistant integration they serve for me the purpose of not having to channel out walls in areas where I want new two and three gang switches, the ability to not have anyone mess up the automated side of things by using a wall switch but giving Luddites the ability to seek out the familiar wall boxes to make light is a very nice to have conceptually, infact if this works I will put all the main power cut protected lights on to kinetic switches to ensure safe passage around the property in black out periods.
Interested in any feedback from anyone already tried the quinetic also
At a guess the idle load from the candeo is because it needs to send a small amount of power through the bulb in order to have a small amount of power for itself. Probably the bulb is what's actually consuming the power. It would be interesting to see what the load is when a dimmable led is used. Really wish candeo would release a neutral required version, it would be the perfect switch.
Really liked the video an the detail you put into it. Thumbs up, good work!
Really a great video. Also what a mesh network!! Chapeau!
I was just researching yesterday and found "Friends of Hue" switched quite appealing. They are available in many designs and can even work on kinetic energy like EnOcean. They are expensive though.
If there is enough space and wiring, I think I'll go with old-style switches and flush-mounted relais/dimmers.
I've not personally used them, will give them a go if I come across them! Thanks for sharing
Best light switch around is lightwave nothing comes close. I've used soo many and by far lightwave was the best not cheep but well worth the money
Fully agree after trying loads I was told to try lightwave and I'll never go back to using anything else again
Home Assistant has a pretty solid 3rd party SonOff module (installable using HACS) that allows you to use most SonOff devices in local & internet mode. I've been using it for a couple of years. Sadly I have only used it with WiFi devices, but will be trying out their Zigbee products later this year.
On that note (and I understand this video is almost a year old), is there a reason you didn't evaluate any SonOff products? I have both SonOff and Tuya, and I've been gifting the Tuyas to people I don't like particularly much...
I have Aqara switches myself, my idea for dimming was decouple the switch from the lightbulb (has to be smart $$$) and connect them to Circadian Lighting to automatically set the temperature and brightness though the day. Only option i see for now
very useful video thank you. any of these particularly future proof with possible support for matter in the future? got a new house I'm planning to add in smart lights and automation, some wall switches are not where I want them to be so was thinking of how to sort individual scenarios out with smart devices. thank you doe any help!
I really hope big companies like Jung and such are gonna start producing these kind of switches. You are right that most of them either don't work well enough or don't look good enough.
The Aqara H1 switch is available in a 3 gang version, but it seems to only be sold in China and other Asian countries for now. It's also not yet been supported by Z2M, but if you manage to get one shipped over it shouldn't be too hard to support.
I have the exact same issue. I was hoping you had nice reviews from moes 3 gang ZigBee switchs
This video could have saved me a lot of time. All Saturday, my wife and I were looking at light switches and comparing everything you had shown (excluding Candeo). Literally, after hours of searching online and ordering stuff, we saw this the next day >_<
The one thing I will say that annoyed us was that they all talk about Lutron and inovelli which we actually like but they don't make "Rest of World" models.
Great and detailed reviews. P.S. at the time of writing this comment your comparison spreadsheet is down.
I agree with the Lutron and Inovelli comments - they're great looking devices but they just don't seem to be very UK/EU friendly!
Thanks for the heads up about the link! I've updated it in the description now. Really appreciate it!
@@HomeAutomationGuy Lutron do have their Ra2 Select system available in the UK. It uses a different approach to smart lighting; the switching or dimming is performed by a smart module wired inline with the lights (so uses Neutral), not in the wall, and controlled by battery powered wall mounted Pico wireless switches. Integrates with Lutron smartblinds for single button control of scenes with natural and electric lighting.
Lutron use their own proprietary RF system "Clear Connect" which works well.
Oddly, I think the Ra2 system integrates with SmartThings in the USA but not the UK. I don't know about HA integration.
I have a couple of sets of 4 gang light switches, but I use Z-wave as ZigBee has to much interference.
For my four gangs I run two Shelly PM2.5 devices behind the dumb switch. This means I don't have to worry about the quality of the switch (since we have some nice ones) but still get the value of smart home stuff.
Obviously the loss is they don't do ZigBee so no mesh improvements
Thank you for making this video, I have the same problem and I need four gang switch but they also need to be too way because I have a switch on either side of the room, I'm struggling to find a solution, maybe have to do the same as you and have two lots of a aqara switches.
Thanks for the video intrested to see, dissapointing what the candeo is the only REAL option for dimming lights, we know need candeo to make the same one in a £60 variant that looks and feels nice (metally)
The good thing about the Candeo is that you can add whatever faceplate and knob that you want. It fits into most dimmer housings (even metal ones)
Do you know of any smart switches that control wall receptacles and won’t fry when I accidentally turn them on with a 1150 W vacuum cleaner plugged in?
This review is awesome. Analyses all that really matters.
Excellent video - look forward to the next one!
This is beyond useful. I'm so happy you are doing these kind of videos. I'm planning to try out building a smart home using home assistant, and I just don't know where to start. Your videos are helping me understand many things as I'm completely new to this thing. If you would do a similar video to light bulbs and bands, sensors, power sockets would be awesome! Ty! Also does the 2 gang candeo consume 0.8 W of power?
What you dont mention is that you need to check your amps on your switches..not every smart switch is compatible with every house.Most homes do have neutral wire bundles in the wall! Dont confuse people on here!
@@AngeloR674 i just assumed that if the 1 gang switch consumes 0.4 W, than the 2 gang consumes 0.8. I have no electrical background. I see no harm in asking. I thought this was a friendly environment. If people get easily confused by what I said they are also probably not familiar with electrical stuff, and my question will do more good than harm, if it gets a reasonal answer.
Amazing video. Aqara had a version of 3 gang is D1 but i'm not sure they fit in the UK
Thanks for great video, but there are couple of questions.
Why do you attached to smart swithces, don't you consider to use traditional switches with smart relays behind? It would bring you a much wider variety of smart devices (not only swithces, but dimmers as well). And you would be able to choose really high quality switches correspondong to your room design.
And do you know about LocalTuya integration for HA, that allows to connect Tuya WiFi devices locally without any clouds?
As for me, I'm using Aqara battery wireless switches connected to my Yeelight smart ceiling lights. And in some places I use Sonoff Zigbee relays and Moes Zigbee dimmers under traditional switches.
Do you know any smart relay that supports 3way?
This was precisely what I was looking for. It's a great detail - thanks. It's a shame we don't have the Aqara triple rocker in the EU; I need a 3-gang solution.