off timer for smart lighting, advice please

[happyhero]

Hi I have automated a fair bit of my lighting with smart switches which I also control with Alexa.

The majority of my smart stuff is the Quinetic switches and they all work fine but I have kids who keep turning stuff on but never get round to turning things off and not all my lamps are LED yet, not that I wouldn't want them to be turned off too if someone wasn't in that particular room for hours.

Anyway I thought it would be simple to find a app or function to do this and I have spent ages looking and found nothing. I basically want to be able to control them like those old fashioned staircase lights you get where you press a button in and it pops out and the lights go off after a set time.

So I would set a time depending where that light is ie 20 minutes or an hour depending on the best for that area and they would then go off automatically.

It would be particularly useful for the staircase because they are always left on. My daughter will often turn the staircase lights on, walk up the stairs and close her door and they will stay on for 3 hours or more before she re-emerges again.

Any advice/help appreciated.

 

[ericmark]

I have set a series of off times, to turn off some lamps if they are switched on in error, Google Nest has been known to get it wrong, so one also needs to be careful not to switch lights off at inopportune times. My landing light has 5 bulbs and centre is independent of outer, so set two different times.

I have one odd bulb outside (Wiz) with a slowly dimming function before it turns off. Living room we have cabinet lights as well as main lights, and top of stairs a touch which has a PIR built in.

I note smart life does have a count down option not tried using it, but would need to use phone to set it, so can't see how it helps. I am sure I could ask Google to turn off living room main at 10 pm or some thing, but can't see how that helps.

Smart bulbs typically £12 and smart switch £25 and the switches often need a hub, where many bulbs don't, so money wise one would need to leave lamp on a very long time to counter cost of smart device to turn it off. I have set most with the option to turn off at dawn, clearly not really required after that, but not all have that option, but off at 8 am seems good enough.

So to have a bulb which is not required after 10 pm and is auto turned off at 8 am rather than 10:00 pm at 12 watt will cost around £13 per year, is it really worth getting smart bulbs to do that?

I find I tend to nod off watching day time TV and will wake when it is dark, not a clue where the cats or their toys are, so to be able to turn on lights without leaving my seat really increases safety. But as to money saving, unlikely.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

The Sonoff stuff comes with a handy app (Ewelink) which lets you put event timers on anything- the event can be anything it knows about including switching it on. A timer setup on a staircase could be a bit risky - there you are trotting down the stairs when the light goes out, you trip over the cat and wake up dead.
Try some parenting