State of the physical switch

[mainali]

I am trying to control the switches in my house I am building my own controller to have all the flexibility that I desire. I am able to control the devices attached to the switches.

The problem is I want the control to be parallel, from app as well as the normal switch which are already present. I have replaced the switch with Two Way switch to achieve this, but I am not able to figure out the state of the physical switch. Is there a way I can know if someone activated a device from physical switch so that I can update the status of that device in my app. Someone can either switch ON/OFF the device using physical switch and corresponding state has to reflect on the app.

what are the ways in which I can achieve this feature

[ferpando]

I use something like this in my switches. This devices are also present in your controller, so you can use either physical or virtual switch

Take a look

http://www.domotique-info.fr/2014/03/micromodule-variateur-di-o-chacon/

[mainali]

@ferpando I am talking about the normal switches that we have in most of our home switch

[jendrush]

@mainali I've changed my two way switch to one way. So i can control my light with phisical button, and also by app.

[rvendrame]

@mainali , not sure if this is what you are looking for, but the mySensor "RelayWithButtonActuator Example' allows you control the relay via wireless (from controller) as well as locally (from local switch).

http://www.mysensors.org/build/relay

[rachmat aditiya27]

it depend on your physical switch, if it a pushbutton, as long as I know, you can't do that, you have to modified the older style switch and put some trigger there

[rachmat aditiya27]

the best way is to create a binary button as an actuator powered by your ac wall because binary button needs less current than you put with relay and button actuator. then create suitable case for your binary button . and put all of your light connection to ethernet relay like eth8020.

[Chaotic]

Could you just remove the switch from the actual circuit.

I believe you can use a "normal" light switch as just a switch for an arduino. So you could make a small node to go in the wall and read the light switch and send the command to toggle and update the controller at the same time. This might introduce a small delay into turning the light on since it would have to go from the light switch node to the gateway/controller and then back to the actual light.

However I believe (haven't tried it yet my nodes are mostly passive right now) that you could send the command to turn the light on from the light switch node directly to the light at the same time that you send the light is on command to the controller.

This is what I'm suggesting https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/2yxcjc/my_first_project_arduinocontrolled_remote_control/

So instead of the light switch being connected to the house power it is just connected to an arduino/radio.

[mainali]

@jendrush said:

@mainali I've changed my two way switch to one way. So i can control my light with phisical button, and also by app.

Can you explain further what do you mean actually.

[mainali]

I don't want to take out the panels which are holding the switches, max I can do is replace the switch with a Two Way switch, I planned on using ACS712 to sense the current and process the data accordingly in arduino to send a message to my controller but adding a current sensor to each and every switch seems to be a cumbersome process, Is there anything better then the way I am thinking.

Note: Removing the current switches completely is out of question at least for me case

[jendrush]

@mainali Ok, i understand now that you have to use old switch as well. I have replaced my old switch(it was turning light by closing circuit) with button(momentum) switch. Of course i needed to change a lot of things(adding powersource for arduino, and relay, connecting switch with arduino etc).

[kunall]

I have achieved it using MQTT with OpenHab. So if some one toggles the physical button on the relay switch, the soft switch on OpenHAB will toggle to match the state.

Not sure if that's what you are looking for.

[funky81]

@mainali I think @ferpando solution is quite nice. He add RF switch to existing button. @ferpando could we track physical switch state using this?

[funky81]

@mainali have you finished the sketch? do you mind to share?