State Switch for Matter, Homekit or Zigbee?

2 years ago by ClassifiedPancake to c/homekit

Does anyone know of a simple, battery powered state switch device for either Matter, Homekit or Zigbee? It should NOT be a wallsocket and specifically needs to keep a permanent on/off state.

My current plan is to be able to set an "On Vacation" state and base my automations around that but other usecases are possible as well.

I used to have this using a virtual switch in Homebridge that ran on a Raspi but this thing was too maintenance heavy and I would prefer a less hacky solution.

farcaller 2 points 2 years ago

You can (trivially) spin up a fake matter switch from one of their examples. It requires a service running on a Raspi.

Otherwise, what was wrong with a virtual switch in homebridge? I’ve been using one of those for years now to do a bunch of homekit automatons.

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ClassifiedPancake 1 point 2 years ago

Because I was only using it for this one thing and it was kinda over the top. In the past I used Homebridge for everything because Homekit was still new and it was hard to get any affordable devices to work with it. But over time only this one plugin was leftover.

I’m not completely against hacky solutions but was just hoping there is something simple like an actual button. That is for me always the first solution.

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farcaller 1 point 2 years ago

It'd be hard to find an actual product because your use case is rather niche and all of those platforms have and expensive certification process. You can DIY a matter solution the easiest, though, there's plenty of devkits for standalone matter devices.

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Num10ck 2 points 2 years ago

maybe a door sensor that isnt on a door? just secure the magnet. maybe replace the battery with AC.

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ClassifiedPancake 1 point 2 years ago

I actually thought about that as an alternative. Also unused socket switches could be used instead. I just wish there was a cleaner option. Even better would be if Homekit/Matter just added states as a global option without requiring a device for that. It has been on my mind since I started diving into smart homes and I wonder why I seem to be the only one.

Apple even added such a feature into iOS a few years ago with Focus, to my delight.

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Num10ck 1 point 2 years ago

maybe use an apple shortcut somehow?

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ClassifiedPancake 1 point 2 years ago

That won't work. It needs to be a state in the smart home so automations can check it and do things based on that. Same way they can check for current temperature or sunset/sunrise.

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