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Local IoT switches (ZWave/Zigbee/etc.) are kind of the best of both worlds: being able to switch off at the wall, plus being able to control digitally/remotely.

Local IoT switches (ZWave/Zigbee/etc.) are kind of the best of both worlds: being able to switch off at the wall, plus being able to control digitally/remotely. For example, I love being able to switch off the living room's lights, as well as all adjacent rooms' lights, all with two taps on my iPhone, without getting up from the couch. Also nice is turning the lights on/off at certain hours of the day, or when certain triggers occur. My setup goes: ZWave wall switch <-> (Raspberry Pi) [ZWave hub <-> Mqtt <-> Homebridge] <-> AppleTV (Home Hub) <-> iPhone. Despite all of the moving parts, this has been 100% reliable for me with near-zero latency. It even works well when I'm away from home (albeit with a tenfold increase in latency) Unfortunately, this setup is not a low/no configuration one, so it's not a solution for the vast majority of people, and is why internet connected IoT (Nest/Alexa/Hue/Insteon) are as popular as they are.

outworlder 5y ago
Agreed. Except that companies are now trying to deprecate those protocols. Used to be called "CHIP", don't know what the latest name is for the initiative.
- joshstrange 5y ago
  > Used to be called "CHIP", don't know what the latest name is for the initiative. Matter [0] [0] https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/ https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/
svrtknst 5y ago
I use IKEA wireless stuff (which in turn use Zigbee) and, outside of a relatively slim range of products, they work great. Good quality stuff, easy to set up, and continue to work even if my internet cuts out.
- mszcz 5y ago
  And they're cheap. When I started messing around with smart home stuff the IKEA TRADFRI line bulbs were around $10-15 while Philips's Hue was at about $50. I agree, they work good, but one thing I love most about them is that, if you use IKEA's gateway, they neither require nor provide "the cloud". Everything's local, it's great.

outworlder 5y ago

Agreed. Except that companies are now trying to deprecate those protocols. Used to be called "CHIP", don't know what the latest name is for the initiative.

joshstrange 5y ago
> Used to be called "CHIP", don't know what the latest name is for the initiative. Matter [0] [0] https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/ https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/

svrtknst 5y ago

I use IKEA wireless stuff (which in turn use Zigbee) and, outside of a relatively slim range of products, they work great. Good quality stuff, easy to set up, and continue to work even if my internet cuts out.

mszcz 5y ago
And they're cheap. When I started messing around with smart home stuff the IKEA TRADFRI line bulbs were around $10-15 while Philips's Hue was at about $50. I agree, they work good, but one thing I love most about them is that, if you use IKEA's gateway, they neither require nor provide "the cloud". Everything's local, it's great.