phone app controlled lights and sockets

[KingDave123]

Hi there,

A customer has asked me to install some downlights and a couple of sockets. No problem there. He wants the downlights to be able to be controlled from a smart phone app. Also he wants a couple of sockets to be switched by the same smart phone app rather than 2 seperate ones.

Does anyone know of such a system?

Thanks in anticipation,
Dave.

 

[crystal ball]

I fitted a Lightwave system in a holiday let, easy to install, but the customer had problems using the app, mainly down to his lack of tech knowledge, settled down now and seems ok

 

[KingDave123]

Thanks for the input. I don't think this particular system will be suitable. I currently have a bank of 3 light switches, only 1 of these needs to be controlled via an app. I am planning to use some sort of gu10 lamp like the phillips hue but need to also marry up a similat 13a socket to be operated by the same app.
Just going to start hunting now.....

 

[ericmark]

I have Energenie MiHome sockets, lights, and eTRV's fitted. The units are ITTT so in theory no limit to what you can do, however the light and socket units have just three events each built in. In my case for the sockets the idea was they would power the alarms used to protect my mum, we wanted the alarm to switch off at the times her carers are due to visit, I could have really done with four events, as it is from 12 midday to 6 pm the alarms as default are off.

The idea of the socket was we could not forget to turn it back on again, and if I went out leaving my wife in bed, I could reset the alarm after leaving the house. It has four ways to turn it on and off.
1) Button on socket.
2) Remote control we actually have two.
3) Smart phone or PC.
4) Timers.
Plus any ITTT app for example if the weather report says it's going to get cold.

As to fitting you need a deep box, there is not much spare room, with the light switch you need to remove any top or bottom lugs or bend them back, the light switch does not require a neutral and the LED on the switch is lit when on, the switch is used to power a 10W LED bulb, which is dimmable came from B&M bargains so nothing fancy. As with sockets you can have three set on times. I used light switch because I am lazy and did not want to pull in cables for a two way switch. Since I had to change the back box for a deeper one, not sure it was any easier.

All the units connect to a hub which in turn connects to the router. The eTRV MUST have the hub, without it no way to program, the lights and sockets don't need the hub to work with remote or on socket button, both cases red LED shows on. To work with phone you need hub, but will work direct or with remote without the hub.

The built in wall sockets do not monitor the power used, the plug in adaptors come as three types, same as wall socket you can only switch on/off no monitoring, with monitoring only you can't remote switch on/off, and both monitoring and on/off. Why the wall sockets do not have a monitoring version I don't know.

P.S. they were easy to set up, the eTRV's did give me some problems, I think down to house rather than the units, but no problems with sockets and light switches.

 

[^woody^]

TP-Link do lights and socket adapters controlled by their Kasa app over WiFi and internet.

 

[KingDave123]

tp-link look good but doesn't do a GU10 lamp, Hive looks good but doesn't do a GU10 lamp and MiHome doesn't do the GU10 either. It's obviously a common theme. Can't see that Hive, TP-link or Mi-Home do a 3-gang light switch either. It looks like the lightwave product is my only option at the moment.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Oh, how I long to be able to fiddle with my lights when I'm not in the house. I'd even sacrifice reliability, maintainability and fundamental security to be able to do that.

 

[bernardgreen]

My mobile phone is just a phone and SMS device, so I have no experience of running apps on smart phones. Hence I ask this question from ignorance......
If the phone is busy on a phone call can the user also run an app at the same time ?

And the other question is what happens to home life if the smart phone ceases to communicate with the automation system, are there back up controls, like little levers on walls that can be moved to turn lights ON and OFF as we old dinosaurs use.

 

[crystal ball]

On the Lightwave system there are manual override switches, not sure how you would use an app and make a call at the same time, it uses broadband to control the devices

 

[Iggifer]

Philips hue will do your light fittings, but you'd be best to wire out the switch and fit the hue dimmer on the wall to control them - if they're turned off at the standard switch there's nothing the app can do.

If you then look at the Elgato eve energy plug in module (not a socket unfortunately).

You can then control both of these in the Apple Home app (obviously this requires them to be iOS users, not android)

This will require a Hue Hub to control the lights from a phone etc and if they want to be able to control everything from away from the house, they will need a newest gen Apple TV or an iPad that's always home.

There are obviously lots of different options but because the Apple Home app is built in to the device it's super simple from both user and installer perspective.

It is quite limited currently as to what works with it.

You can, I believe, get Zigbee sockets and trick the Hue app into adding them, and then you can get cheaper sockets and it's not relying on the user being on iOS but it's not something I've personally tried so YMMV but I believe you just set them up as a switch so you can switch on or off

 

[ericmark]

I can only answer as to what my system does, there are three places where the command could be stored.
1) The device.
2) The hub.
3) The internet server.
For things like the on/off times of the socket or light switch I would expect it's stored in the device, maybe I should test it, set device to come on at a set time then switch off the hub, but for ITTT commands most likely the internet server, but could be the hub.

In my case to start with I tried using a simple remote plug in socket, I got 4 with a remote control from Lidi I think, two were simple on/off and two were dimmers, however I do not get a feed back to the remote to say "Yes done that" so I would press button to put the alarm back on, but for what ever reason it didn't go back on. So next tried to use a simple timer, however that did not help when some one came to door. Before answering door I needed to go up-stairs and switch off alarm.

The "Smart" socket combined timed events with the remote, so if in error the socket is not reset, then at the set times it will be reset anyway, we didn't really need it to go to phone, you can switch off alarm, open the door, switch on the alarm, leave house and alarm will activate as you close the door, on return the remote is kept just inside the door, so it goes off but for a very short time. It is so much easier to use the remote control rather than phone app the phone app is rarely used. But either PC or phone app is required to do that programming in the first place so socket has those timed events.

MiHome do a relay which could be mounted anywhere, it does not need to be in the light switch, so you can if you want use MiHome, but built into switch is likely easier.

 

[flameport]

If the phone is busy on a phone call can the user also run an app at the same time ?

Yes you can.
In a smartphone, the phone is just another app, as is messaging and everything else.
This also means that on Android smartphones you can replace the default phone app with another one should you want extra features or functions.

 

[phatboy]

If you do decide to provide this stupid 'technology' to your client, I would advise creating a clause that you will not be responsible for it's reliability going forward... you could end up on a free call-out every week because the sh1t 'technology' has decided not to work, or caused the TV or Radio to stop working!

 

[KingDave123]

Thanks everyone for all the various input. The client has decided on the litewave product. He is fully aware of any potential issues but is happy to go ahead.