This year like last year is another quiet holiday period. The persistence of the Covid-19 virus and its many variants, especially Delta and Omicron, has made holiday travel near impossible and unpredictable.
Other than getting our Pfizer vaccine booster on Christmas Eve, there is not much to do then to treat myself to another smart home improvement project. The smart switches have really come down in prices. With my previous experience on the Homebridge server, it is now possible to acquire non-HomeKit compliant switches on the cheap and installed them with Homebridge so that I can still get Siri and Home App access.
This is exactly what I did on Boxing Day. I ended up purchasing the following switches and smart lock from Amazon:
- 1 x TOPGREENER Smart Wi-Fi 3-Way Dimmer Switch Kit ($49.99 + HST)
- 1 x Kasa Smart Light Switch HS200 ($12.99 + HST)
- 2 x Kasa Smart Dimmer Switch by TP-Link HS220 ($18.99 + HST)
- 1 x August Wi-Fi Smart Lock (Newest Model 4th Gen) ($159.99 + HST / orig. $279.99)
I used some extra TD Travel reward points that I am not going to use anytime soon on the smart lock.
The two HS220 dimmers are used for the pot lights in my basement. The simple HS200 switch is hooked up to my chandelier. The TopGreener 3 way dimmer will be used for my basement landing light underneath the stairs, and finally the smart lock will be used in the door between the laundry room and the garage. I already have the same August lock for the front door. With the above additions, all the light switches are now automated in the shared living areas of the house.
All of the above devices are on its separate Wi-Fi and are bandwidth limited as well as isolated from the our internal LAN.
I am looking forward to reconfigure my HomeKit Automations with the above capabilities.
Update: I had to return the TOPGREENER. My basement landing light wiring had both switches at the end of the load, so I don’t have a close loop access to constant power, while the load / light is off. In effect, I thought I had access to a neutral wire, but it was just a piece of white wire connecting the hot lead. This just took 2.5 hours for me to figure it out.
