@Megan
Why over a lighting control panel?
Miles said:
@Megan
Why over a lighting control panel?
Because all the lighting control panels I’ve seen completely replace the concept of a “smart home” with the concept of centralized control.
Central control is great and I have wall mounted tablets around my house that display various Home Assistant dashboards and can control various lights (as well as many other things - thermostats, doors locks, garages, etc). So, those tablets, as well as our phones, all function as “lighting control panels”.
BUT, because the actual control is done by Home Assistant, we can also have lights triggered automatically based on other things … So, a car comes down our driveway at night, the driveway floodlights come on as soon as they trip the first motion trigger at the top of the driveway (400’ driveway). And, the lights across the front of the house (a floodlight, two doorlights, and ceiling lights in the covered porch) also come on.
And all of them go back off when no motion is detected for a while.
BUT, what if it’s dark because a bad thunderstorm is overhead and someone trigger motion at the top of the driveway? Well, the detection of “night” above is not based on time of day (although it could be). Rather, it is defined as ambient light being below a certain level.
Motion triggers => Is light level low => Turn on driveway/front light group => wait X minutes => check for motion, etc, etc, etc, etc
Logic control is available with smart switches connected to a controller like Home Assistant that (to my knowledge) is not available with a lighting control panel. This was just one example.
@Megan
Ah I see. I believe it is possible, but not as DIY.
Miles said:
@Megan
Ah I see. I believe it is possible, but not as DIY.
What type or brand is this lighting control panel?
Miles said:
@Megan
Ah I see. I believe it is possible, but not as DIY.
What type or brand is this lighting control panel?
I misspoke, I meant a central control system like control4 which then interfaces with a lighting control system like Lutron. Again, not DIY though.
@Rocco
Can confirm Grouchy’s position. I ‘designed’ and sold commercial low voltage BAS systems for a bit. While it’s not necessarily hard, there are a lot of variables to consider, and it should be done right.
More detail and information now will save you tons of time/headaches/money later. If they’re going to present the ‘high-end’ option, their service and deliverables should match.
@Megan
Oh cool, yeah I realized HA probably is analogous to those central control systems. Personally I’m installing a Josh.ai as a central control, but I did wonder if HA would ever work with it at some point. Those companies probably do not allow open API access to write an HA plugin with, but maybe Josh would.
@Miles
Awesome! Josh.AI is great. And I know it works well with C4. I have no idea how or if it works with HA. I know that 2023 for HA was dubbed “the year of voice” for their development groups and that they have developed tools for voice.
In my case, I use Amazon Echo devices and other Alexa-enabled devices (i.e. Ecobee thermostats, etc) in every room. We don’t use the Alexa tools to directly control any devices, but we have her connected to HA through the Nabu Casa integration so she “sees” all HA devices and can control them.
@Megan
I’ll look into that, as I was hoping for the same. Some way to bridge the two.
@Megan
Why the wifi hate? I don’t subscribe to all the channels so I don’t listen to all the noise but my wifi switches are working well. Maybe I’m lucky
@LimitlessKnowledge
The operative phrase being, “until it’s not.” Proper planning can help to avoid that day. 
@LimitlessKnowledge
Or just minimize IoT traffic over your WiFi. It’s hard to completely avoid it, especially when people gift you WiFi bulbs because you’re into “that smart home stuff.” 
kelly12 said:
@Megan
Why the wifi hate? I don’t subscribe to all the channels so I don’t listen to all the noise but my wifi switches are working well. Maybe I’m lucky
No WiFi hate at all. I love my WiFi. That’s why I protect it from unnecessary traffic. I decided to keep as much as possible of my IoT traffic off of my WiFi because there were better protocols.
The WiFi protocol is ideal for high-speed media streaming and we do a lot of that here. It is not ideal for high-volume low-bandwidth IoT traffic. Not that it can’t do it, but it is not ideal for it.
So when I made my decisions, the alternatives were Z-Wave and Zigbee. Zigbee runs on the same 2.4GHz frequency that WiFi uses. Z-Wave runs on a much lower frequency (somewhere around 900MHz I believe). The lower frequency has better wall penetration and better range. It is also slower. But for tiny messages like IoT traffic speed does not matter. So, I decided to go primarily with Z-Wave for IoT.
Today in my house, my Ubiquiti UDM-SE router reports something like 64 clients, slightly more than a third of those are wired ethernet and the rest WiFi. One of those wired devices is my Home Assistant hub and it shows just over 200 devices, mostly Z-Wave, but some Zigbee, and of course some WiFi/ethernet as well so those are overlap with the 64 UDM-SE devices.
Can’t edit on mobile but I clarified approximately how many 3 ways vs single pole vs dimmer I would need if I went the smart switch way
I’d recommend getting thread enabled smart switches. It’ll lighten up the load on your router, while providing better connectivity at longer ranges.
I wouldn’t do WiFi. I’d do Z-wave dimmer switches everywhere, except for areas where a dimmer doesn’t make sense (garage, utility, closet, etc). Having powered Z-wave devices form that mesh can really build a robust network. And it won’t interfere / be hampered by what WiFi channel they’re on.
A centralized smart panel (eg. Siemens) for all lights and plugs is the way to go if you are doing a new build and don’t mind the cost. This is not new, btw, it has been the norm since the 60s on high end houses including two I have owned. They weren’t smart back then but it was all centralized via low voltage. I have a panel in the current house (actually two) which let me turn see current status and turn on/off any light inside or outside the house plus a few floor plugs. It is more complex than basic wiring, for sure, but more elegant as it is organized and centralized. Low voltage (24v) wiring is easy to work with and you can have as many switches for one light as you like and put those switches anywhere you have the 24v bundle or access to it.
I would ask the electrician for a lot more detail on the low voltage option - cost, specs, etc.
They don’t get a ton of love, but I’ve used Leviton Gen 2 switches in my whole house, and updated them to Matter instead of using WiFi (and cut them from internet access). Not sure your setup, but I’m using Home Assistant with a SkyConnect Dongle that supports both Matter and Zigbee.
They work perfectly. I’ve only had to return one for being faulty. Their support is also fantastic. $29 for standard switch right now on Prime.
Run poe via cat 6 cables connected to your home server
Everyone says no wifi, but I have concerns about the zigbee controller dying. I’m still new at it but what I’ve been able to find so far is that you’d need to repair every device you have to the new controller.
Wifi you just set up a new access point, and you can have more than one. 
I haven’t had any problems with my wifi or my wifi switches over the last 5+ years.