Planning smart lighting for a new build

kenmc

About to start building a brand new house, so everything is up for speccing.

Am tinkering with OpenHAB in our rental at the moment, have one light running from a sonoff wifi switch, kitchen overcounter led strips powered from a RF socket, likewise the TV and a living room light. Just getting dabbling at the moment with a view to the new build. Hoping to get a googlehome in the black friday sales too.

So with that in mind, am looking to see how I can best spec the lighting layouts in the new build to allow control; many if not most of the fixtures we've (at least for now) selected are dimmable led, either with the light source built into the fitting (e.g. this http://www.artemide.com/prodotti/scheda-architectural.action?idSubfamily=29700) or with a small G9 type bulb, or a strip-led - basically not many of these will be capable of taking something like a hue/wemo/ikea E14/27 or B22 straight up 'smart bulb' and being controlled in the fixture, the actual fixture(s) themselves need to be controlled.

Likewise we've several groups of downlighters, e.g. in the kitchen/utility/bathrooms etc which these days seem to be coming more and more in 'whole unit' rather than 'fitting and replacable bulb' fixtures.

We've got some 5A wall plugs spec'd for the sitting room for table/floor lamps, which can obviously either be chosen to take a smartbuild, or wire a sonoff inline after the socket, or perhaps even route these through something like the sonoff 4ch DIN rail back at the fuseboard - but of course that's only going to provide on/off rather than dim functionality.

But really I'm trying to figure out the best way to make as many of the lights controllable from google home or similar, but without being taken for a ride by the electrician when he hears the word 'smart'. Likewise I'd like it to be reasonably futureproof.

I'm beginning to wonder if we should try to find alternative fittings which we like, but which take a straight up replacement smart bulb, and just let the electrican wire up for a 'dumb' house and correct it when he's done. (edit to add): Actually, with these smart bulbs, which i've no experience of, does the wall switch fully control them also, so that if you turn the switch on the wall (possibly off and then) on, the light will turn on just like in the 'olden' days, overriding the smartness? Or do they wake up in their previous state? I'm just thinking about the case where e.g. the router is acting up for wifi, or a guest comes in and doesn't have an app on their phone or doesn't know how to use google home or whatever - basically how can you turn the lights on with a manual override?

Any suggestions?
thanks

SachaJ

kenmc wrote: »

About to start building a brand new house, so everything is up for speccing.

Am tinkering with OpenHAB in our rental at the moment, have one light running from a sonoff wifi switch, kitchen overcounter led strips powered from a RF socket, likewise the TV and a living room light. Just getting dabbling at the moment with a view to the new build. Hoping to get a googlehome in the black friday sales too.

So with that in mind, am looking to see how I can best spec the lighting layouts in the new build to allow control; many if not most of the fixtures we've (at least for now) selected are dimmable led, either with the light source built into the fitting (e.g. this http://www.artemide.com/prodotti/scheda-architectural.action?idSubfamily=29700) or with a small G9 type bulb, or a strip-led - basically not many of these will be capable of taking something like a hue/wemo/ikea E14/27 or B22 straight up 'smart bulb' and being controlled in the fixture, the actual fixture(s) themselves need to be controlled.

Likewise we've several groups of downlighters, e.g. in the kitchen/utility/bathrooms etc which these days seem to be coming more and more in 'whole unit' rather than 'fitting and replacable bulb' fixtures.

We've got some 5A wall plugs spec'd for the sitting room for table/floor lamps, which can obviously either be chosen to take a smartbuild, or wire a sonoff inline after the socket, or perhaps even route these through something like the sonoff 4ch DIN rail back at the fuseboard - but of course that's only going to provide on/off rather than dim functionality.

But really I'm trying to figure out the best way to make as many of the lights controllable from google home or similar, but without being taken for a ride by the electrician when he hears the word 'smart'. Likewise I'd like it to be reasonably futureproof.

I'm beginning to wonder if we should try to find alternative fittings which we like, but which take a straight up replacement smart bulb, and just let the electrican wire up for a 'dumb' house and correct it when he's done. (edit to add): Actually, with these smart bulbs, which i've no experience of, does the wall switch fully control them also, so that if you turn the switch on the wall (possibly off and then) on, the light will turn on just like in the 'olden' days, overriding the smartness? Or do they wake up in their previous state? I'm just thinking about the case where e.g. the router is acting up for wifi, or a guest comes in and doesn't have an app on their phone or doesn't know how to use google home or whatever - basically how can you turn the lights on with a manual override?

Any suggestions?
thanks

You can wire up for dumb lighting as normal and just put blank plates over the switch boxes. In my case I’m looking to replace the switches (room by room) with an Amazon Fire 7” tablet running Imperihome as an interface to HomeSeer.

Really I’d like to get to a place where I’d have motion and lux sensors in the room and control the lighting that way but still have the tablet on the wall for manual control.

Also I buying all the same bulb type and ensuring any new lamps are E27 (Ikea is great here for mostly using E27 and E14 bulbs in their lights). I’m also replacing old pendants with E27 ones from Ikea. Only €3.25 each.

For now I’m buying Hue bulbs exclusively until the Ikea Smart Lights matures a bit.

kenmc

I was hoping to control the fixture rather than the bulb if you know what I mean, since lots of the fixtures are not one that's replaceable with a hue....

wexfordman2

kenmc wrote: »

About to start building a brand new house, so everything is up for speccing.

Am tinkering with OpenHAB in our rental at the moment, have one light running from a sonoff wifi switch, kitchen overcounter led strips powered from a RF socket, likewise the TV and a living room light. Just getting dabbling at the moment with a view to the new build. Hoping to get a googlehome in the black friday sales too.

So with that in mind, am looking to see how I can best spec the lighting layouts in the new build to allow control; many if not most of the fixtures we've (at least for now) selected are dimmable led, either with the light source built into the fitting (e.g. this http://www.artemide.com/prodotti/scheda-architectural.action?idSubfamily=29700) or with a small G9 type bulb, or a strip-led - basically not many of these will be capable of taking something like a hue/wemo/ikea E14/27 or B22 straight up 'smart bulb' and being controlled in the fixture, the actual fixture(s) themselves need to be controlled.

Likewise we've several groups of downlighters, e.g. in the kitchen/utility/bathrooms etc which these days seem to be coming more and more in 'whole unit' rather than 'fitting and replacable bulb' fixtures.

We've got some 5A wall plugs spec'd for the sitting room for table/floor lamps, which can obviously either be chosen to take a smartbuild, or wire a sonoff inline after the socket, or perhaps even route these through something like the sonoff 4ch DIN rail back at the fuseboard - but of course that's only going to provide on/off rather than dim functionality.

But really I'm trying to figure out the best way to make as many of the lights controllable from google home or similar, but without being taken for a ride by the electrician when he hears the word 'smart'. Likewise I'd like it to be reasonably futureproof.

I'm beginning to wonder if we should try to find alternative fittings which we like, but which take a straight up replacement smart bulb, and just let the electrican wire up for a 'dumb' house and correct it when he's done. (edit to add): Actually, with these smart bulbs, which i've no experience of, does the wall switch fully control them also, so that if you turn the switch on the wall (possibly off and then) on, the light will turn on just like in the 'olden' days, overriding the smartness? Or do they wake up in their previous state? I'm just thinking about the case where e.g. the router is acting up for wifi, or a guest comes in and doesn't have an app on their phone or doesn't know how to use google home or whatever - basically how can you turn the lights on with a manual override?

Any suggestions?
thanks

You know ot might be worth looking at a wired system, such as idratek, loxone, velbus or cbus eib

Will give you what you want, at a reasonable budget. Full manual control as well. Integration into google home might not be as straightforward but is possible.

ted1

Be sure to Tina neutral to each switch. It’ll give you more options

kenmc

Yeah I'll be speccing that for sure, as it gives me the option of smart switches when they become more affordable. I think it's becoming more normal these days anyway.

tweek84

If your thinking of going the sonoff route you could just buy a larger fuse board and mount a few 4 channel switches in there and use relays, run some of your socket circuits back individually to the board. If it were me i would definitely wire all my external lights back individually (security/intruder nonsense), as mentioned you should blank off some of the switches and run neutrals down to the switches its a pity sonoff don't do dimming anymore. There is probably lots more you could do but that is my two cents.

wexfordman2

tweek84 wrote: »

If your thinking of going the sonoff route you could just buy a larger fuse board and mount a few 4 channel switches in there and use relays, run some of your socket circuits back individually to the board. If it were me i would definitely wire all my external lights back individually (security/intruder nonsense), as mentioned you should blank off some of the switches and run neutrals down to the switches its a pity sonoff don't do dimming anymore. There is probably lots more you could do but that is my two cents.

If I was putting the sonoff 4 chan switches in then I would definatly wire cat5 to the light switch as well, as this will give local manual control, and will work irrespective of whether external servers, WiFi or bb is up or down. (Using the 4ch pro with the ext push buttons wired to the your lightswitch via cat5).

This is one of the major benifits of a wired system (eg the son off 4 CH pro, velbus, knx, etc, you still maintain full manual control irrespective of status of your controller, hub or external sources etc.

kenmc

That's a fine idea, as realistically there's probably only around 3 or 4 groups of lights I would want to control via automation. That said, the more I watch superhousetv youtube channel, the more I want to do...

wexfordman2

kenmc wrote: »

That's a fine idea, as realistically there's probably only around 3 or 4 groups of lights I would want to control via automation. That said, the more I watch superhousetv youtube channel, the more I want to do...

Do take a look at the other wired systems as well though, loxone, idratek and velbus for example.

Access

I have seen a few good examples of home automation done by work colleagues.

The one thing that pops up though is that it can give issues on some rare occasions.

Keep physical switches if you can.

When the baby is crying at 3am and you or your partner rush into the room to attend, you dont want to be fumbling with a tablet interface or looking for the app on your phone to turn on the lights, especially if it crashes or wont respond.

Neutral to switches as mentioned earlier is a must.

kenmc

I've been thinking of how I can do this the most cost effective way, and I think I've come up with a solution which might a) work, b) be cheap, c) be easy to install and d) give me both physical and wifi controls.

I'm predominantly interested in controlling the ground floor, which is essentially:
- Sitting room (3 lighting 'zones' - wall lights, 5A sockets, downllghts at a window). Single switch point
- Den for the kids (2 zones - wall lights, downlights). Single switch point.
- Hall/stairs/landings - all wall lights, but i guess 3 or 4 zones, and multiple switch points
- Kitchen/Dining/Lounge - probably around 6 zones here, probaby 2 switch points. maybe 3. Ignore for moment.

So the idea is that each of the listed areas is run by a sonoff ch4 pro, flashed with tasmota to enable MQTT for control from something like a google home. I've got suspended ceilings in the ground floor, so in every area, one of these would be mounted above the false ceiling, and wired back to the fuse board as a supply.

Each zone on this sonoff would then have it's own relay to control it.

In order to allow physical control, I would modify the push button switches to provide wire terminators. Cat 5 or 6 cable would give me control of these 4 buttons at a wall plate, so there's literally 1 cable going from the sonoff to the wallplate to give me control of the 4 channels.

Switches can be wired in parallel also so it means the multiswitch locations for hall/stairs/landing become simple.

I'd need momentary switches I think - press to turn on, press to turn off. Might be such a thing in existence, else could make them up on a plate using something like

.

Am tempted to order one sonoff 4ch and set it up as a demo to show the electrician to see what he says.

Advantages for me seem to be low cost per room, less wiring for the switches, less wiring to the fuse board (one spur to the sonoff rather than each lighting circuit) so less cost, simple to install, cheap to buy..... no?


But am I missing anything obvious? It seems too simple to be true.....

tweek84

I doubt you need to flash the sonoff 4 channel it can be controlled from google home from what i know,

Momentary switches wouldn't work with the 4 channel it will keep sending the voltage if powered on.

You could use a spur or similar switch to by pass the 4 channel.

kenmc

tweek84 wrote: »

I doubt you need to flash the sonoff 4 channel it can be controlled from google home from what i know,

Momentary switches wouldn't work with the 4 channel it will keep sending the voltage if powered on.

You could use a spur or similar switch to by pass the 4 channel.

I would flash it so it can be run by openHab using mqtt. Although since I don't yet have a GH to play with, there may well be google home support in openhab that I'm not using and can just enable. I know i don't like the ewelink stuff it comes with though. I like the ability to hit my openhab server from outside the house though.

Momentary switches would work like the on-board switches which are also momentary I think, from what I can see it toggles on the switches - so press to turn on, press turn off, press turn on....

Not sure I understand the last comment on the spur?


Have one ordered from amazon anyway, should be here this day week all going well.

wexfordman2

kenmc wrote: »

I've been thinking of how I can do this the most cost effective way, and I think I've come up with a solution which might a) work, b) be cheap, c) be easy to install and d) give me both physical and wifi controls.

I'm predominantly interested in controlling the ground floor, which is essentially:
- Sitting room (3 lighting 'zones' - wall lights, 5A sockets, downllghts at a window). Single switch point
- Den for the kids (2 zones - wall lights, downlights). Single switch point.
- Hall/stairs/landings - all wall lights, but i guess 3 or 4 zones, and multiple switch points
- Kitchen/Dining/Lounge - probably around 6 zones here, probaby 2 switch points. maybe 3. Ignore for moment.

So the idea is that each of the listed areas is run by a sonoff ch4 pro, flashed with tasmota to enable MQTT for control from something like a google home. I've got suspended ceilings in the ground floor, so in every area, one of these would be mounted above the false ceiling, and wired back to the fuse board as a supply.

Each zone on this sonoff would then have it's own relay to control it.

In order to allow physical control, I would modify the push button switches to provide wire terminators. Cat 5 or 6 cable would give me control of these 4 buttons at a wall plate, so there's literally 1 cable going from the sonoff to the wallplate to give me control of the 4 channels.

Switches can be wired in parallel also so it means the multiswitch locations for hall/stairs/landing become simple.

I'd need momentary switches I think - press to turn on, press to turn off. Might be such a thing in existence, else could make them up on a plate using something like

.

Am tempted to order one sonoff 4ch and set it up as a demo to show the electrician to see what he says.

Advantages for me seem to be low cost per room, less wiring for the switches, less wiring to the fuse board (one spur to the sonoff rather than each lighting circuit) so less cost, simple to install, cheap to buy..... no?


But am I missing anything obvious? It seems too simple to be true.....

It should work, but why not put the sonoff actually in the fuse board rather than distributed about the place ?

I assume that the buttons in the sonoff are momentary, is that you just clock them in and they make a short briefly and then return to position, son the would be normally open and you just quickly put a short on it for it to cjafe the state of the relay ?

For your light switches, if you are going for cat5 to them and you need momentary switches there are loads if options. I gave away prob about twenty clipsal ones only a few months ago, i replaced them with lovely brushed steel screwless ones. Will post a link up to them shortly.

wexfordman2

Here are the switches I used, a quick video clip as someone asked me before his they sounded etc so I recorded this for them.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1zlDoqP2HdxYVprVkxfZ1g0Y0U

They are click minigrid and I got them from www.alert electrical.com

kenmc

wexfordman2 wrote: »

It should work, but why not put the sonoff actually in the fuse board rather than distributed about the place ?

I have the space for them in the false ceiling, which most normal houses probably wouldn't. It also means much less cables need to be run all the way to the fuseboard, so faster and cheaper. The electrician may have other thoughts though...

They're also controllable by 433MHz so having them distributed means i could use that to control them locally also.

tweek84

I am using a sonoff 4 channel like the images above there doesn't seem to be any place to wire in monetary switches excuse the image size

kenmc

the 4 buttons on the RHS of the bottom image are where i would wired them in. would of course void the warranty, but hey

tweek84

Ha ha a country job what better way lol
If going that route make sure that the wavin/conduit in the wall is big enough to take a t&e 1.5 incase down the line you want to run power down to the switch instead of the cat5

kenmc

yeah was planning that too for sure. belt and braces.

kenmc

Sonoff arrived this morning, will look at adding a remote switch to it this evening.

There's even spare switch points to solder to nice.

And I forgot about the RF interface, I can perhaps use that also, if the electrician isn't too keen on me modifying these boxes before he installs them (still running cat 5 down to the switches on the wall, and an arduino or similar up in the ceiling doing the RF sending)

wexfordman2

kenmc wrote: »

Sonoff arrived this morning, will look at adding a remote switch to it this evening.

There's even spare switch points to solder to nice.

And I forgot about the RF interface, I can perhaps use that also, if the electrician isn't too keen on me modifying these boxes before he installs them (still running cat 5 down to the switches on the wall, and an arduino or similar up in the ceiling doing the RF sending)

Cool, I'm def gonna get one, I have plans for 4 circuits in the shed

kenmc

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Cool, I'm def gonna get one, I have plans for 4 circuits in the shed

Yeah they're essentially free

I've also planned one into my AV setup, as remote power control for STBs which will be located in the attic, and sending HDMI over cat5 to the tvs. In my experience, every so often these need power cycling (at least the one I have at home, amiko alien), so don't fancy traipsing up to the attic to do so.

Stoner

tweek84 wrote:

I am using a sonoff 4 channel like the images above there doesn't seem to be any place to wire in monetary switches excuse the image size

So I've a four channel in the post.

It's confirmed that it has rf433 switching.

Then all you need is the SONOFF switches. You power them up but they pair to the channels using rf433mhz

You can buy the 10 amp units with it without RF, I've both

So you can pair a switch to an RF one

I've also bought the SONOFF RF WiFi bridge. In my head this Skittle brew device can be used to translate a RF switch signal to WiFi and turn on or off a SONOFF device that had no RF on board

I could be wrong they are cheap I'll report back on them , I ordered them a month ago they should be here in 5 years!

Stoner

In keeping with the wiring up momentary switches.

I matched up brushed stainless steel plates for 1.5 each to they almost match my mk edge units I have (10 euro)
I have 16mm stainless steel momentary switches on the way.

My plan is to use these to cable into the SONOFF switches, but also to connect into their remotes (2.5 each) one remote would do for 1,2,3 and 4 gang switches.

On the mega cheapo side I've some RF transmitters at 50 cent each. They might pair to the SONOFF altough there's mixed success with spurious transmitters pairing.

So using a glue gun a sonoff remote and some solder, I should be able to build light switches that don't need a neutral
At about 5.5 for a one gang stainless steel switch, 7 for a two gang 8.5 for a three gang and 10 for a four gang.

Again in stainless steel not the plastic units off the shelf and using 6V batteries as I don't have neutrals at the light switch.

kenmc

All up and running (at least with one 'remote' switch, i didn't bother wiring up the other 3 yet, just wanted to make sure it'll work ok - i'll order in a couple of cat5 sockets and make it a neater job.

But basically i just soldered on a 4 pin header, flashed it with tasmota firmware, configured it to talk to my mqtt broker and had that working quickly. Added that remote switch soldered to the points I highlighted in a previous post and that was fine.

Last step then was to get my openhab server to know about these 4 power channels and have them displayed (WallLights, Downlights, FloorLight, TableLight for now) and I can control them either via openhab (cloud or local server), the physical remote pushbutton switch, and I also paired it with an energenie rf433 remote I have and that all works too.

So basically I've 3 (4 if you count cloud vs local openhab) ways to operate the 'lights' : openhab, either directly using the app or website, or writing it into some smart rules, or if e.g. my router or network is down i could use either the 433 controller, or the wired interface.

Happy days. Concept proven.

In theory I can also add other sensors to this unit too, e.g. a DS18B20 for temperature, or a DHT22 for temp/humidity, several other options too i think. Another days work though, am hoping my GoogleHome arrives in parcelmotel locker overnight so that I can get that working with this first

kenmc

Stoner wrote: »

In keeping with the wiring up momentary switches.

I matched up brushed stainless steel plates for 1.5 each to they almost match my mk edge units I have (10 euro)
I have 16mm stainless steel momentary switches on the way.

My plan is to use these to cable into the SONOFF switches, but also to connect into their remotes (2.5 each) one remote would do for 1,2,3 and 4 gang switches.

On the mega cheapo side I've some RF transmitters at 50 cent each. They might pair to the SONOFF altough there's mixed success with spurious transmitters pairing.

So using a glue gun a sonoff remote and some solder, I should be able to build light switches that don't need a neutral
At about 5.5 for a one gang stainless steel switch, 7 for a two gang 8.5 for a three gang and 10 for a four gang.

Again in stainless steel not the plastic units off the shelf and using 6V batteries as I don't have neutrals at the light switch.

Have you links to these switches? I'd be interested to see how long you get out of the batteries though, bit of a pain having to take a wall plate off to change them.

Stoner

kenmc wrote:

Have you links to these switches? I'd be interested to see how long you get out of the batteries though, bit of a pain having to take a wall plate off to change them.

Which one's I'm planning on using the SONOFF ones that they sell with the units, I won't link the others as I don't know if they will work yet.


These are the momentary switches.

NO 16mm Metal Momentary Round Push Button Switch N.O. Normally Open https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HZY9Q3G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_V93eAbSHB794D

I'll drill out the back plates

Stoner

True.
The mains wiring will remain intact if I don't think it will work.

I actually have one of these remotes on my keyring I paid 40 euro for two and set them up to activate my gate.

Turns out they are 2.5 each nice mark up !!

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/292070514015

The battery for the gate is used a number of times a day and it's there 2.5 years now

Stoner

kenmc wrote:

In theory I can also add other sensors to this unit too, e.g. a DS18B20 for temperature, or a DHT22 for temp/humidity, several other options too i think. Another days work though, am hoping my GoogleHome arrives in parcelmotel locker overnight so that I can get that working with this first

Why not try assistant on your phone, same thing