ᐅ Switches or push buttons in new construction with Shelly – planning fully smart or sticking to traditional?

Hello everyone,

We are currently in the process of building a new house and are working on the electrical planning with the electrician. Now we need to decide where to install traditional switches and where to use push buttons.

The plan is to equip some lighting circuits with Shelly modules before moving in. In those cases, push buttons would be easy to use since the Shelly acts as a relay or control unit.

However, I have two basic questions:

1. Push button or traditional switch for smart lighting circuits?
It is often recommended to use push buttons for smart home solutions (because of scenes, multiple clicks, long presses, etc.).
My concern is that if the Shelly module fails, the push button might stop working entirely or only work with limitations. This would require immediate attention. A traditional switch might still offer some basic functionality depending on its setup.

2. Should everything be switched to push buttons and smart control?
Does it make sense to equip all lighting circuits with Shelly modules and install push buttons everywhere to keep the system uniform?
Or is this unnecessary, more expensive, and potentially more error-prone than needed, with smart controls better reserved only for areas where they provide real added value?

I would be interested in your experiences:

* What would you do in a new build today?
* Push buttons or switches for smart circuits?
* Standardize everything or make only selected areas smart?
* How important is system reliability and failure safety in everyday life?

Thank you very much for your insights.

Before going into details (wireless vs. wired / which system exactly / switches vs. push-buttons, etc.), you should first consider what you actually mean by “smart home.” A smarter approach is often to avoid switches and push-buttons altogether and instead use motion sensors. That would make your considerations much simpler ;-)

So, what is your plan for your smart home?

P.S. I personally use Shellys, which have never let me down so far.

FloSCFan schrieb:
* What would you do today when building a new house?

KNX.

FloSCFan schrieb:
* Push buttons or switches for smart circuits?

Push buttons. You’re thinking about it the wrong way: you only get fail-safe operation if you wire the switch in parallel to the Shelly module. But then you can neither use the Shelly’s functions with the switch nor turn off the light from the other control point if it’s on. It’s the worst of both worlds and simply a bad user concept.

FloSCFan schrieb:
* Standardize everything or make only certain areas smart?

Within each trade (lighting, shading, HVAC, etc.) go all in or nothing at all. Features like a “all off” command don’t make sense if only half of the lights are integrated.

FloSCFan schrieb:
* How relevant is fail-safe operation in everyday use?

At the hardware level, not very much; at the “good Wi-Fi” level, much more so.

Push button. You are mistaken: you only have fail-safe operation if you connect the switch in parallel to the Shelly module. However, with the switch connected this way, you cannot use the Shelly’s functions nor turn off the light from the other control point once it’s on. This is the worst of both worlds and simply a poor control concept.

That’s not true at all. As long as the traditional switch-to-light connection remains, you can still operate the light the old-fashioned way if the Shelly fails.

This might be manageable now, but we don’t get any younger. Most of these are “men’s projects,” but men tend to be older than women and statistically have a shorter lifespan. And whether there will be enough skilled tradespeople to quickly come when the KNX server fails, or the battery in the occupancy sensor needs replacing… nobody knows.
These are all cool “gadgets,” and it’s really fun to dive into them. But once it’s running and you haven’t checked it for a year, then want to make changes, you have to get back up to speed first.

Musketier schrieb:
That is not correct at all. As long as the traditional switch-light connection still exists, you can continue to operate the light the old-fashioned way even if the Shelly fails.

Then please briefly explain how the Shelly is supposed to turn off the light, for example, if the light switch is supplying power in parallel (and vice versa)? Aside from the fact that in this case the Shelly no longer has any accurate status about what the light is actually doing, and the mentioned long-/short-/multiple-press functions cannot be used either. This only works (and then without the button functions) if nobody ever operates the regular switch, meaning it is permanently off and everything runs exclusively through the Shelly. How practical that is for everyday use is something to consider.

FloSCFan schrieb:
We are currently building a new house and are in the process of planning the electrical installation with the electrician. Now we need to decide where to install traditional switches and where to use push-buttons.

This is a straightforward fundamental decision: as the name "switch" implies, a switch changes the state—between "circuit closed" and "circuit open"—of the electrical circuit. In the case of two-way switching, it works differently but similarly in principle. A push-button, on the other hand, simply signals a relay or some detector that it has been pressed—nothing more, nothing less—so it does not directly control whether current flows or not. With a switch, you make a direct decision by either supplying or cutting off power to the load. The switch maintains its position (which in two-way switching can be reversed by an equally authorized counterpart). If the switch remains in the "command" position and you want a "counter command" to apply, then a higher-level control with veto or override authority must be implemented.

Therefore, in a modern (and possibly fully or partially automated) house, I would generally prefer push-buttons. Simply because they can be operated satisfactorily by both tech-savvy and conservative or technology-skeptical users alike. A programmable logic controller (PLC) or similar intelligent interpreter can use the fact that each person has an individual "fingerprint" in how they press buttons. A good friend of mine (let’s call him "Daniel Düsentrieb") is very tech-friendly and has a father who is a trained electrician and a mother who is skeptical about technology. Daniel operates push-buttons skillfully—fast, short or long, single or double clicks; his father is slower due to age but otherwise similar; and his mother prefers switches (not wanting to engage intellectually with the difference) and presses push-buttons as if they were switches. So when a push-button is pressed at the Düsentrieb household, the PLC determines from the duration of the press whether it was Daniel, his father, or his mother. If the mother "switches" on the light in the hallway, then the PLC switches on the light only. If the father switches on the hallway light, the PLC switches on the light, activates motion sensors that anticipate his path to the cloakroom and bathroom, confirms on the display that the garage door is fully closed, and reports whether the washing machine cycle is complete. Daniel gets a text message on his phone saying "Boarding parents home completed"—of course, only if Daniel is not physically connected to the home Wi-Fi. Notably, the mother just gets her light turned on by the push-button and is never bothered by the fact that her son and her husband have a more tech-oriented mindset. Try doing that with switches ;-)

Conversely, push-buttons don’t force you to use a highly intelligent interpretation system; the complexity and intelligence of that system is entirely up to you. Even in the Düsentrieb household, there are push-buttons operating with classic logic in some places—for example, next to certain windows, where the left button raises the window shading and the right lowers it; often literally “analogous” to the duration of pressing (or a long press until a short press of the same or the other button). This can also be done remotely via smartphone without leaving the sofa, on equal terms (if Daniel weren’t such a good son, his command could of course be the highest priority).

Switches deliver "analog" commands, meaning that the power flow and the command (since they are the same) run through the same conductor; in some cases, this alone can save wiring runs.

In various related threads, you can also find endless debates about which "systems" are ahead of the others thanks to the so-called "bus of Columbus" ;-)

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