I'm starting to dig into this more for my house. We have a few light bulbs that we control with Alexa, but I'm starting to look into more general solutions that are managed in my house directly, and voice control is not needed.
Home Assistant is the route I'm taking, I've already got my Ecobee thermostats setup there and it's working well. I want to start controlling lights more. In particular, I'd like to control our driveway lights this way, be able to dim them as appropriate for the situation, to do this on a schedule, and still be able to fully control the dimming level and on/off state at the light switch directly.
I've started looking at Zigbee and Z-wave systems, and am wondering what the Nerdery thinks about these two, and what kinds of devices people have experience with. There's an overwhelming number of products and brands out there, and I really have no idea what is quality and what is trash.
I'd like to control it through the switches, not the light bulbs directly. For example, we have 3 driveway lights, on one circuit, controlled with one light switch. I'd like to replace that one light switch with something that allows me to control it through a schedule in Home Assistant (without integrating with an outside 3rd party service), and also control it at the switch manually.
This is just the first goal I'm targeting, any advice would be appreciated. The Nerdery has come through many times, looking for any advice people can offer. Ideally, no internet required, only LAN access.
Home Assistant is the route I'm taking, I've already got my Ecobee thermostats setup there and it's working well. I want to start controlling lights more. In particular, I'd like to control our driveway lights this way, be able to dim them as appropriate for the situation, to do this on a schedule, and still be able to fully control the dimming level and on/off state at the light switch directly.
I've started looking at Zigbee and Z-wave systems, and am wondering what the Nerdery thinks about these two, and what kinds of devices people have experience with. There's an overwhelming number of products and brands out there, and I really have no idea what is quality and what is trash.
I'd like to control it through the switches, not the light bulbs directly. For example, we have 3 driveway lights, on one circuit, controlled with one light switch. I'd like to replace that one light switch with something that allows me to control it through a schedule in Home Assistant (without integrating with an outside 3rd party service), and also control it at the switch manually.
This is just the first goal I'm targeting, any advice would be appreciated. The Nerdery has come through many times, looking for any advice people can offer. Ideally, no internet required, only LAN access.