I’m setting up with HA and zigbee smart bulbs. I’ve got a few automations already set up, such as turning on a bunch of lights in the morning and turning most of them off again at night.
All these lights still have physical switches. I don’t want to take those switches out for lots of reasons, and putting smart switches there seems like overkill when the bulbs are already smart. What are people doing with their physical light switches to ensure that they don’t get flipped?
Ideas I’ve had:
- some kind of physical plastic covering that fits snugly around it. I’d probably do this if I had a 3d printer, but I don’t. Maybe someone sells a thing like this? More just a reminder not to touch them.
- Carefully paint the switches a different color (perhaps the HA color scheme?). Again, basically just a reminder. This especially makes sense with a few multi-switch plates where some of the connected lights are automated and some are intentionally left manual.
- Entirely replace the plate with a smart switch? Besides incurring a nontrivial cost and being a bunch of work to install, this won’t even help me with the aforementioned multiswitch plates. I don’t want all my lights automated.
Other ideas?
I have 1 light in my house that can’t be put on a smart switch because of wiring issues. For it I have printed a couple of locks (the light has 2 switches) similar to these.
I know you said you don’t have a printer, but check etsy. Every good model ends up being sold by somebody on etsy. Or you can check to see if your local library offers use of 3d printers, mine has a whole maker space in it now.
I never knew about the library thing! I think I’m going with these instead, but knowing my library has a 3d printer (it does!) will be far more powerful down the road.