Blog ≫ 2025 ≫ DIY electrics
It will be fine...
Finally getting round to the new zigbee inline light switch, going to put it in the kitchen. We've had six IKEA zigbee remote GU10 bulbs in there for ages, two of them have gone now, so it's a bit dimmer. I would have to put new IKEA bulbs in there the same, but instead I'm going with my new scheme of a remote controlled switch, rather than remote controlled bulbs. We don't really dim the bulbs or change the colours, so I don't need that, but might leave the existing dimmable bulbs in there, because why not. Then a couple of the old non dimmable non smart bulbs to fill the gaps. Until today the existing light switch was replaced with a terminating block, with an IKEA remote control stuck on the outside. It doesn't look as bad as it sounds:
But anyway now it will go back to looking like a normal lightswitch... First step take that off and see what I did behind there. That round ipod looking switch is a remote, with a magnetic back, and there's a metal holder basically glued to a blanking plate. If I take that off it looks like this:
Now that confused me slightly. What the hell is that blue one all about? Did I secretly have a neutral wire there all along? The red casing round it tells me no... then I remembered this was originally a double switch, the other switch was for cabinet lights which didn't work, so I disconnected them. The two on the right are the main light switch.
They go into L1 and L2 of the new Sonoff remote switch, and that other rogue wire gets terminated with a Wago. At this stage there's no "real" switch connected, it's all remote, but I powered up anyway. The new zigbee switch goes into pairing mode and I have a new kitchen lights option on Home Assistant.
Will remove those TRADFRI bulbs in a bit, that's all the GU10s. You can see the two that are not responding.
Even though this Sonoff switch is pretty small that's still quite a lot to fit in the back box, so I will need a spacer. So, connected up the actual switch to S1 and S2 on the Sonof with correctly coloured wires, screw an old style switch back on over the top, and now we have remote controlled lighting, but with a regular light switch that also controls it. So as far as anyone knows we're a normal family with normal lighting!
When I first connected the manual switch over the top it flickered a bit, so powered off again. This is where I thought it would go wrong... but no, it was just that one of the connections was not tight, so now it's all good again.
This gives us two way lighting in the kitchen, in case that makes it any clearer. There is remote controlled lighting, for timers, and all the fancy smart home bits, then the old style light switch just toggles that.
Pleased with this! Though it's surely a bit early to be pleased with myself, it has not been battle tested by the family yet. Started writing this in the morning, but have added pictures as I went along, so finished by midday. Time for lunch! Soup I think.
Sunny and a moderate breeze, -1 - 4℃.
⬅️ Up early on day off :: Not very manic Monday ➡️