Home Automation

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Home automation is the residential extension of building automation.

It is automation of the home, housework or household activity.

Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.

Warning: Working with electricity can result in injury, property damage, or even death if it is not done properly. Please keep this in mind while assisting others. If you are not sure about what you are doing, hire a licensed professional.

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3 way switched circuit: how to control the lights but keep the outlet hot? (alien.top)

submitted 10 months ago by koch5000@alien.top to c/homeautomation@selfhosted.forum

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So we've just bought a home and the basement switch is 3 way: one switch at the top of the stairs and there's another switch downstairs as you enter from the garage.

The problem: the basement is finished and the living room downstairs only has 2 receptacles and one of them is on that switched circuit along with two ceiling lights.

We have the AV system down there, which is currently wired to said switched receptacle and right now every time I go downstairs and turn everything on to watch something, I unscrew the bulbs to get the lighting set up. When the GF gets to the top of the stairs, she toggles the switches because it's dark and shuts everything down. Argh!

So what I'm looking for is the ability to control the lights from both the upstairs and downstairs switches, but without switching the power at the receptacle. It seems like some kind of smart switch maybe the way forward but been flailing around looking for the right combination.

Seems like replacing the existing switches are the first step, but anyone have any thoughts on the next?

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[–] rlowens@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You aren't renting, you bought this home. Run a new wire and get it powered how you want.

Or, replace the switches with smart switches, replace the bulbs with smart bulbs, and leave the circuit powered permanently and link the switches to command the bulbs over the network (without using the switches relays at all).

[–] squigish@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The best long term solution is to run wires in the wall. While you're at it, you could install more plugs in the living room.

But if you don't have the budget for that right now, I would get an inovelli blue series ZigBee smart switch and an aux switch, a ZigBee hub like Home Assistant, and some ZigBee smart bulbs.

Using ZigBee bulbs with the Inovelli ZigBee switch will give you really low latency between turning "on" the switch and the light actually turning on. It's almost instantaneous, unlike some cloud based solutions that can take a second or two, and occasionally just fail.

[–] koch5000@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Thanks. I want to explore some smart solutions before the power tools come out. At this stage, I'm trying to keep scope creep to a minimum as this is part of a much larger fix up project.

Once I install the new flooring downstairs, replace all the receptacles that need replacing, swap out all the ceiling lights that are now dangling because they're going to be replaced, redo the trap under the kitchen sink because the PO made a mess of it and we've got a negative slope, etc etc...I'll likely come back to the idea of running a new circuit, but for now getting always-on power to the outlet for movie night is really my only concern.

Thanks very much of the specific suggestions of the ZigBee hub and bulbs. That was exactly what I was looking for,