I am very new to the whole smart-home world, so I am struggling a bit with device interconnectivity.
I have a two gang smart light switch from koogeek, but since it's not detected in the hub, I tried to use the home kit integration of the switch. I installed homebridge and the associated plugin for the HE, but the switch never showed up, so I guess it's only for controlling your HE connected devices via Siri?
I am pretty lost on how I could connect the light switch to the HE or if it's even possible. If it's the case that it's not possible to connect it to the HE, which two gang smart light switch would you recommend? (230V - 50hz)
That’s correct. Homebridge is able to bring smart home devices that are not HomeKit-enabled into the Apple Home app on your iOS device. But it doesn’t work the other way around.
Im not familiar with koogeek but my guess is that’s a brand that makes smart devices with WiFi connectivity?
One problem with most brands of WiFi switches is that they aren’t usually designed to work outside of the closed ecosystem they are a part of, and are limited to being controlled by a single mobile app.
Switches that use the z-wave or zigbee standards are much easier to integrate with a variety of home automation controllers, like Hubitat.
How many of those switches do you have? If you’re just getting started with home automation, consider z-wave or zigbee devices rather than WiFi.
You mentioned your electricity is 240V 50Hz, which country are you in? Local availability of devices can differ a lot from region to region of the world.
You must have an always on iPad that can run the latest iOS, or an Apple TV 4 or later (the least expensive option), or a HomePod to do HomeKit automations. There is no other way.
Yes I think that’s what I said re: HomeKit automations. Some people can still use the Apple home app without automations. No assumptions made re: whether the OP has an always-on device that meets the requirement .
Edit: either way, I’d recommend to someone that says they’re just getting started with home automation to ditch WiFi switches and sensors, unless cost or availability is a major consideration.
The switch
Currently I have only one. My girlfriend bought it half a year ago to test it.
The idea with syncing a virtual switch is interesting, but I don't have a always-on apple device and I am not planning on getting one.
Zigbee and Z-Wave
As far as I know both of them have problems with range, especially indoors and through walls. My hub is 1 story below our living room, therefor the signal would have to travel around 20m through 3 brick walls and a ceiling with underfloor heating.
Where I live
Just noticed that I had a typo. I meant 230V 50Hz. I live in Germany.
It’s hard to make a blanket statement, although some people certainly could have specific issues that make one or the other protocol particularly problematic in their home environments.
Zigbee and z-wave form mesh networks, unlike WiFi, so if one understands a bit better how the mesh network functions, then most homes can support these networks quite well.
The hub documentation has a couple how-to articles that discuss building out z-wave and zigbee meshes:
I would think zigbee and z-wave devices would be available in Germany. Note that z-wave radio frequencies differ around the world, so you have to make sure your hub and any devices you get are on the same regional frequency. Usually not that hard to do if you purchase through most legit retail channels in your region.
As far as I have seen it, not really. Most of the stuff you can find is wifi cloud-only. I ordered a z-wave adapter, which you can put behind your regular light switch, but that's the only z-wave related light switch on amazon I could find that's not 100$.
I also just tried the variant with syncing a virtual switch. It shows up in homekit, but on the dashboard it has always the status unknown and toggling it isn't getting relayed to homekit.
Oh, got it.
Now I can toggle the switch via homekit and it updates in the dashboard, but when I toggle it through the dashboard, it doesn't change in homekit.
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