This sounds like a hacker gone mad.
I Ripped Out a £6k Lighting System
41–50 of 317 posts
Re: I Ripped Out a £6k Lighting System
#42This article honestly made me want to quit engineering and limit the amount of technology I am dependent on. You must have the patience of a god. Also your family definitely hates you
Re: I Ripped Out a £6k Lighting System
#43What is a wireless lighting system? What is the advantage of such a system over a switch next to the door? E: A wireless lighting systems seems to be a light bulb with WiFi capabilities.
For example, not having to get up and go to the door. I find that extremely convenient when lying in bed, about to sleep. I usually read for a few hours with dark red light, when I’m ready to sleep I can just turn the lights off.
There is a technical solution for this which might need some research and I’m not sure it’s been proved out yet but if you search for ‘bedside lamp’ you might find a starting point.
Re: I Ripped Out a £6k Lighting System
#44When people have more money than good sense.
Don't forget time.
Re: I Ripped Out a £6k Lighting System
#45I greatly enjoyed the article, love the Shellys too. +1 also for Homeassistant.
Just wish (minor point) the author had chosen a font-color with more contrast to the background, like a slightly less pale shade of grey.
Re: I Ripped Out a £6k Lighting System
#46I have been gradually installing Shelly relays and dimmers in my place for some time, and they are excellent. They have a fully open and documented REST API, a simple but effective local web interface, and any Cloud connectivity is completely optional.
I have never had one fail (N=25). Since installation, I have never had one drop off the WiFi or require a physical visit for any reason at all (one is installed in my boiler and it takes an hour to get it apart, so I really appreciate this!). I honestly don’t think a single one of them has missed a single rest API call in the time they’ve been running.
When initially installing them, this can be done from a mobile next to the unit, at which point you join them to your WiFi.
I’m not in any way connected with Shelly, just a very impressed user of their stuff.
Re: I Ripped Out a £6k Lighting System
#47What is a wireless lighting system? What is the advantage of such a system over a switch next to the door? E: A wireless lighting systems seems to be a light bulb with WiFi capabilities.
For example, not having to get up and go to the door. I find that extremely convenient when lying in bed, about to sleep. I usually read for a few hours with dark red light, when I’m ready to sleep I can just turn the lights off.
Why would you leave the room light on for reading in bed?
Re: I Ripped Out a £6k Lighting System
#48I had almost exactly the same problems, albeit on a much smaller scale of perhaps 10% the size of this person's network. I spent years and a fair chunk of cash trying and failing to get a reliable zigbee and z-wave network set up using various bits of kit. To echo the article, the problem with zigbee & zwave for me was that things would stop working, and it was almost impossible to work out why. The only "solution" w…
I use OpenHAB purely as a ZWave I/O engine for Node-Red which works quite well for me.
Re: I Ripped Out a £6k Lighting System
#49So, has anyone used this Shelly 2.5 "WiFi-operated double relay switch" thingy? Looks pretty cheap and interesting in principle.
Yep. Works as intended, easy to set up though as with most of these wireless technologies the initial pairing can be a bit fussy. The built-in software and smartphone app is good enough for me, but if you want you can flash new firmware and/or use HomeAssistant. I use it for roller blinds and for outdoor lighting on a sunset/sunrise timer.
I'm not a huge fan of home automation and my partner hates the mere thought of it, so what's nice about Shelly is that these units have not just outputs but inputs as well. If you flip a physical switch you will still trigger your lights or appliances or whatever is connected to it. You're not locked into an ecosystem with its own remotes, switches etc. – it'll feel like the sturdy old system you already had, except that now you can program it and control it remotely, too.
Re: I Ripped Out a £6k Lighting System
#50I’m rather confused - what exactly is a wireless lighting system? And what are the advantages?
It's a system for controlling lights wirelessly. The lights themselves are of course still wired, but instead of having physical switches you have a wireless control network turning them on or off.