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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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Need help converting dumb switches; one w/o any lights, one w/ Hue bulbs (self.homeassistant)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by Backfire to c/homeassistant

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I'm looking for a smart home solution use two switches in my living room (EU), in order to make them just smart enough so I can control some devices. The setup isn't very complex in itself, and I'm pretty sure it's doable - I'm just unsure what I'd need in order to use these switches in a 'smart' capacity...

This is what I had in mind:

On-off switch, connected to a single light with three Hue filament bulbs. I'd like this one to always be powered, as to make them always controllable
On-off switch, which should be connected to a light which isn't in use at all. Once this one is 'smart', I could control all other smart devices in the living room like a 'turn off everything'-button.

I have a Hue bridge and a Home Assistant instance running in my home.

With regards to wife-approval-factor, I'd rather leave the original switches in place, but I'm open to suggestions. I hope one of you can steer me in the right direction.

Edit: if this isn't the right community for the question, I'd understand, but I wasn't sure where to put it otherwise... I'd be open to suggestions to that too.

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[–] semperverus 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Every normal electrical box in every house ive lived in has a white wire, a black wire, and an exposed copper wire. Every switch has always had a green screw that the copper wire goes around. The zigbee adapters all seem to lack a spot for the copper wire, which is meant to help protect electrical equipment and prevent fires during events like power surges and whatnot.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

@semperverus
In European countries you only have live wire, never the ground, neutral in newer installations.
The switches don’t need ground as there is no exposed metallic component. Ground is needed where a human could be exposed to live (due to a fault) as it would trigger the breaker.