Using an Aqara H2 EU Switch to control Smart Lights

 

Picture shamelessly stolen from Aqara's web site

I have on old house, circa 1850's in its current guise. It's also made of granite and the internal walls are all lathe and plaster -  so not easy to trunk wiring.

The house has had its wiring updated/modified over many decades... although I've been rectifying some of that.

As a consequence, currently, virtually no light switch has a neutral wire.

Virtually all of the house is covered by Aqara FP2 presence sensors and so lights turn on/off as people move around the house. Very occasionally that doesn't work, for some reason. Why? because it is a day with a "y" in it and the moon is in the wrong place. Maybe Mars is also not aligned!

I'll say, though, the presence sensor turning on of lights, etc does have my Partner Approval Factor! To the point that when we go to someone's house that doesn't have the capability, I'm often told how much it is missed.

Having said that, I still believe that a house should work in the old fashioned way for old fashioned people to know how to turn lights on/off.... and this means using a switch.

In the early days of smart home, it just wan't possible to use a smart switch and smart lights combined. Then you could start using buttons which, could, look like switches. These were often battery powered though, so one more thing where you have to change batteries! I know Hue had a button that didn't require batteries or power, but it didn't look like a switch and so confused non-smart-home-believers. Hue also only works with Hue, or Friends of Hue.

Then we started seeing switches you could use, because they worked in "de-coupled mode", which means they didn't cut the power to the light... but they required a neutral wire - which I don't have.

Finally, we started seeing Smart Switches not needing neutral wires, such as the Aqara H2 EU switch that supports de-coupled mode. Great!

I've already implement an H1 with Aqara lights, such as the Aqara T1M.

Installing and Setting up.

Now I wanted to integrate with Nanoleaf Essentials Bulbs/Globes in our Attic and, if successful, in other rooms too. Unfortunately, I can't do this with Matter.

Although the Aqara H2 EU Switch is Matter Compliant, and is matter over Thread as shipped, which is now my default capability to look for, it does not support de-coupled mode in Matter and so you have to use Zigbee firmware. This will mean using an Aqara Zigbee hub, or Home Assistant with a Zigbee dongle. I have an Aqara M3 Hub.

Now, why this is, I don't know. Matter has the ability to have vendor specific capabilities.

I had already added the Nanoleaf Globes/Bulbs to the Aqara M3 using Matter by putting the lights in Pairing mode in Apple Home, where they were already configured.

Converting the switch to Zigbee.

Don't... do NOT.... add the switch to anything using the supplied Matter QR code. Instead, go into the Aqara app and let it auto discover the switch.

 Select the switch and then it will show the option to continue with Matter over Thread or Zigbee.

When it has finished downloading and installing the Zigbee firmware, it will then ask which hub to connect to, what the device is called, and which room it is in.

Now you need to go into "Switch Settings" and set the top button to decoupled switch mode.

You can also modify the names of the buttons and what they are used for. I called mine Top and Bottom Button and indicated they are being used for a light. This isn't necessary, but it soothes my ADHD.

On returning to the Accessory Card, selecting the 3 dots in the top right....

This now takes us into more settings. A criticism I'd have of Aqara is that its UI is very inconsistent. 

This settings screen is split into two:

• Functional Settings
• General Settings

You should scroll down to General Settings and you are looking for "Configure Automations". Select the ">" to the right, and add an Automation. You can see here that I have added an automation that basically says "If either the Top or Bottom button is pressed THEN turn on/off the selected light bulbs".

Save the action, and you are all now done.

The buttons will work no matter which one you choose to use, so it wont confuse non-believers.

Things that kind of annoyed me.

In the Aqara UI, you can create groups of products, so I had created a group called "Attic Ceiling Lights" which contained both lights, but I couldn't use that in the automation, but you can use it in  what's called a "Batch Trigger".

As mentioned, that I had to do this via Zigbee rather than Matter because I needed decoupled mode. The switch and the buttons do show up in Apple Home, via the M3 Hub though.