My kids, being as young as they are, respond more effectively to visual alerts than they do audio. With that in mind I've set up a "Red Alert" setup with my colored bulbs in some of my rooms. So far, these rooms have all been lacking a physical light switch so it was easy enough to accomplish this with some hue bulbs paired to the hue remotes. The kids can turn the lights on and off and they appear at the default white settings when they use the switch, but on demand I can change the colors. For example, if the smoke alarm starts going off I can have the lights begin flashing red to indicate there's an emergency and get out of the house.
My problem now is how to move forward with this in the rest of my house. The rooms remaining do have hard wired light switches, so using smart bulbs can be challenging. If the light switch is turned off, I have no way to address the color bulbs. For the light switches I have replaced I used WeMo dimmer switches as I had access to a neutral wire (and the concept of "Red Alert" hadn't been thought of yet), but these light switches have the same issue as dumb switches. When "off" the power is physically cut to the bulb. Most of the remaining light switches however are older wiring and don't have neutral wires. I was looking at solutions for those like the Lutron switches and it occurred to me that these might function differently from the WeMo switches . I figured that the physical design of these might be such that I could work something out in the hubitat, but I have no experience with them and would prefer not to drop the money on them without doing some research first. If they're still going to cut the power to the bulbs (and I suspect they do) then I might just replace the bulbs and deal with "educating" the family to not turn them off.
So, in short what I am looking to do is install a light switch that "functions" like a remote but uses hardwired power so I don't need to replace batteries and can easily fit into the existing wall space for the switch. Essentially the switch sends a signal to the hubitat, which then in turn turns off the appropriate bulbs via API call rather than actually cutting the power to the bulb. This would allow me to address the bulbs even while "off" with other automation and still allow people to turn the lights on/off with a light switch. I'm not sure whether anything like this currently exists but I figured if it does someone in this community would probably know about it. Of course, if anyone has an alternate suggestion for how I might accomplish the same idea I am all ears.
Any suggestions on how I might achieve this? I am 100% open to buying new hardware for this if there's a possible solution. I just wanted to see if I could narrow the field of devices to look at or even validate that I'm totally off my rocker with this one.
Some dimmers / switches have an option to leave the output on all the time (I believe the Inovelli's do) and control a smart bulb via the dimmer paddle. Or you could just jump the line to the bulb.
You would then associate the dimmer with the smart bulb allowing the local (smart) switch/dimmer to turn the bulb on / dim / off. This would still allow the hub to change the bulb color, or anything else you wanted to do in an emergency or new notification. (I was thinking yellow for ....."Dads coming home you better stop ______ before he gets here...")
I don't know the best combination of switch/dimmer & bulb. I would guess the Inovelli switch / dimmer and their RGBW bulb should work together pretty well. I'm sure there are other combinations that will work just as well.
BTW the reason I suggested direct association is to remove the delay then controlling the bulb at the paddle. With the switch talking directly to the bulb (ie by association) there is negligible delay. If the switch had to go through the Hub you would see some delay. This delay has been known to reduce the WAF.
I highly recommend Inovelli’s Red Series Dimmer. You can disable local control and use a series of taps to control lights unrelated to the load the switch is wired for. For example, I have 6 can lights in my living room and 3 table lamps. I have an Inovelli wired to the can lights but with the local control disabled I use the switch to control the lamps. Single, double and triple tap up/down control each individual lamp. So as not to confuse company — or myself— I added a pico remote beside it that controls only the can lights.
Another good solution for you might be the Zooz Remote Switch. Fewer customization options but certainly capable of doing the job. I have one of these as well and it works like a charm.
I started with Hue bulbs rather than smart switches and dumb bulbs. I had to block access to the dumb switches so that the bulbs couldn't be turned off while still allowing people that are used to "normal" switches access.
I use Lutron Smart Bulb Dimmers. It covers the switch, but looks a lot better than a piece of tape. There's a bracket available for paddle type switches as well. They attach to your Hue bridge (not directly to HE), and then you use the Hue app to associate it with the lights in the room. Press to turn off and on, turn the knob to dim. Bulbs are always powered, so available to HE for color changes, etc.
ETA: You can pair this with HE, but it's a little more involved. I found it easier to just pair it with the Hue bridge, since I already had one. I've had two of these for nearly 2 years and they've been rock steady.
Thanks, I'll look into the Inovelli switches. I had seen their name come up before but haven't actually looked at them yet. I definitely agree the direct association is better if possible. While the Hue bulbs work well on their own hub I have no idea what the latency would look like if I'm driving everything through the hubitat. Plus, why bog down the hub with menial tasks if I don't have to?
Thanks, definitely an option I would consider. I didn't realize Lutron made something like that!. Definitely easier than my current solutions to keep the light switch on lol.
BTW With an Inovelli Switch associated to an Inovelli bulb the delay will not be perceivable. I would guess other like pairs would do the same.
In theory there is not reason you need bulb and switch of the same brand. I just think it would be easier that way.
If I had decora-type switches and I was going to use the Lutron dimmer, I would be tempted to replace my switches with toggle type switches first. The Lutron dimmer fits over existing toggle switches with no other modification. The bracket for paddle switches actually replaces the switch completely, making the lights operable only with automation. With the toggle switches, if necessary you can take the button off and throw the switch. Plus, it's a few bucks cheaper.
