"on top" light switches and cheap IOT hardware

[LastSamurai]

Hi guys,

while "googling" around I just found some company producing lightswitches for the US that can be put on top of existing light switches so that they also relay the commands via bluetooth (do you want a link or would that just be advertisement?). I really like the idea because I don't really want to and perhaps aren't even allowed to change the light switches in my apartment, but I would really like to integrate them into my "smart home".
Do you guys know any similar product available for europe too? Or has anyone tried to build somethink like that?
I mean the "cheap" version can't be that hard to build. The main problem would be to get the housing for the switch and make the mysensor pcb small enough.

Can you guys recommend any other (cheaper) hardware that works well with domoticz and has the necessary certificates (or whatever needed) to be used in europe/germany without loosing insurance? The IOT/smarthome field is so crowded atm it's hard to find something via google

[hek]

Long time members of the community can post links to products, no problem.

[LastSamurai]

Ok the product I found is called switchmate. Looking forward to your ideas

[hek]

Oh my.. that's probably one of the weirdest solutions I've seen. Putting a big chunky thing on top of the light switch wouldn't get any approval in my house. Do they run on batteries? For how long?

Can't you just put a z-wave puck behind the switch? Not sure about your budget, but they got all the necessary certifications and cost about $40-50.

[LastSamurai]

@hek said:

Oh my.. that's probably one of the weirdest solutions I've seen. Putting a big chunky thing on top of the light switch wouldn't get any approval in my house. Do they run on batteries? For how long?

Can't you just put a z-wave puck behind the switch? Not sure about your budget, but they got all the necessary certifications and cost about $40-50.

Well I liked the idea that you keep your normal switches. Batteries last for about a year (at least they say so).
Can you recommend any switches? 40$ a piece is already kinda expensive (altough I understand why)..

[mrwomble]

A little off topic for this forum perhaps, but I've been eyeing out the Livolo range of switches. They're quite smart looking and can work with Domoticz over 433Mhz using Rflink or equivalent. The only problem is that it is not a mesh system like mysensors or zwave and there is no acknowledgement of command received. But on the plus side, they're much cheaper and seem to be capable of dimming LEDs too.

[AWI]

@LastSamurai Domoticz is started around an 433MHz module called RFXcom. this works with a wide range of 433Mhz devices which with EU certiication. Names are HomeEasy, KaKu (NL) which have small modules which can be built in. Also works with the livolo range of products as a fancy and cheap replacement. The protocol can also be implemented with an arduino an 433Mhz send module and used in conjunction with MySensors.

[LastSamurai]

@AWI Thanks, but I couldn't find too much on them, and what I found was still ~40€ per piece which is way too much for me. I guess I will have to keep building my own hardware and only automate the sub 230V stuff.

[AWI]

@LastSamurai I can find a lot of these even on main stream sites

[LastSamurai]

@AWI said:

@LastSamurai I can find a lot of these even on main stream sites

Thanks a lot! My bad, I did look for KaKu (and overlooked the NL part ).