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Comment by liam_krewer | Hacker News Reader

I can recommend Shelly for light switches over smart bulbs. It's a relay that fits inside the wall switch with zigbee to sit between the light and the switch.

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They're not mutually exclusive. I have Shelly relays in my light fittings (not the switches) and use smart bulbs. When everything is working the wall switches just control stuff in HA. When HA is not working the switches control the relays in the Shelly directly, without HA.

This is the only solution I'm aware of that gets you all of:

* dimmable,

* colour temp and RGB control,

* regular switches that work as expected,

* no "forbidden" switches,

* lights always available for automations,

* lights go on and off with the switch when HA is down.

Philips Hue, and Zigbee direct-binding in general, can achieve this if you're willing to use their wall switches. Still works if the hub is offline.

Depends on your definition of "regular switches," I suppose -- but anyone with 3-way wiring (i.e. multiple light switches for a single socket) has given up on "up=on" for their switch.

Oh, two more things on my list that rule out the Hue switches:

* No battery powered devices in walls,

* Lights don't come on automatically following power cut.

If the Shelly relays supported ZigBee direct bind then it would be even better, but with decent ZigBee devices it's not bad with my setup.

That's what I am doing too, though I did have to drill out some wall to fit it, in some cases.

There is another option that I don't think many people are aware of: You can put a battery powered relay downstream of the (dumb) switch, and have it broadcast events when power comes on and off, to control other smart devices, which just have to listen for the events (via a broker like HA).

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