I've been doing some research to try and find a way to turn a Wyze bulb on and off with a button on the wall, or cheap switch, but I'm struggling.

Situation: I have a Wyze bulb that I have been turning on/off with voice for a couple years. It's not something I want to be on a schedule. I just want to turn it on with a switch/button. I have switched outlet in the room, but the lamp is on the other side of the room from the outlet. The switched outlet has a neutral wire but it's being used at the end of the run of the circuit (14/3 from panel going to outlet, and the from the outlet to the switch with 14/3). So essentially I cannot use a cheap Wyze switch or other smart switches to replace the current standard switch.

I have heard of some smart switches that don't need a neutral but I have not found any. I also wanted to see if I could get a simple battery stick on button to just trigger an automation to turn the bulb on. However I have not found anything that seems to work with Wyze or the Google Home app. However I'm probably just missing something.

Any advice would be appreciated!

My mom was interested in a smart doorbell to let her know what’s going on at the house when she’s not there, if a package gets dropped off or if someone tries to in. She does have a number of Google Pucks and an Android phone with some smart plugs set up with Google Home, but also has Roku TVs if that ecosystem is a major value add. I’m not super interested in yet another subscription service, but if it’s a “monthly fee to make the problem go away,” I can be convinced. Are there any must have recommendations or considerations I should keep in mind?

Edit: As far as I can tell, there’s no wire leads on or around the doorframe. The old setup had a chime wired to the wall of the foyer, but that was uninstalled and the wall was repaired, so I don’t think there’s a lead if that changes recommendations.

It's hot here in Germany at the moment, and I've found a new hobby: experimenting with different ways to keep the flat cool. Unfortunately, right now I'm doing that mostly on gut feeling, and I'd like to add some data to the mix so I can pretend that this is Serious Research™.

Does anyone know of some good smart thermometers that I can use both inside and out, and that I can regularly take automatic readings off? My main criteria are roughly:

• Reasonably waterproof and battery-powered - I'd like to put at least one on my balcony which isn't covered, so I want to be confident that it survives out there.
• Relatively cheap - I want around 4-6 different thermometers spread around the inside and outside of the flat to see how the sun's position affects the temperature, and I don't want to spend more than around 100€ on this project in total.
• Scriptable - for the data collection, my plan is to be able to run a script on a spare Raspberry Pi to download all of the data and potentially send alerts when something changes or when it makes sense to start opening doors and windows to cool the flat down.
• Not too complicated - looking around, some thermometers seem to require smart hubs and online accounts and things. Ideally, I can avoid all that - I want something that I can connect to from my home network and download data from as I need.

Right now, I've found a few different smart temperature sensors that I can buy off-the-shelf, but these seem to be on the more complicated end of the spectrum, and require central hubs and uploading all the data to clouds and things like that. Ideally I can avoid that. Alternatively, I have some RPi Pico boards at home, so if I can buy some sensors that I can connect to those, I could get those set up more simply. But with the DIY route, I'm worried about weatherproofing, especially if the temperature sensor needs to remain fairly exposed for an accurate reading.

So: do you have any recommendations either for simple smart sensors that I can buy, or for sensors that I could easily stick to a Pico and leave outside for at least the rest of the summer months?

Just interested in how people's smart homes are set up and how they enjoy things or what they may dislike/wish was changed.

Alexa? HomeKit? Google? A mix? Other?
Glitches?
Any complex or otherwise unique use cases you've set up?

Does anyone else here have a smart home setup?

I've been building mine over the 7 or 8 years now in fits and starts. At first, it was smart lights in an apartment and then grew to include smart door locks. I bought a house and it now remotes, motion/door sensors, light switches, and more.

After trying all of the platforms you can think of (Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Homekit, Homekit + Homebridge, Home Assistant, and more), I settled on Home Assistant earlier this year. As I've bought stuff over the years, I've tried to get things that support more than just one platform to avoid being too locked in to one ecosystem. Apple's Home platform is nice, but I can't use it if I want to switch to an Android phone.

Like many of us, I've had some free time during the pandemic, so I put some work into getting Home Assistant up and running. It's definitely not for the average consumer. It requires quite a bit of manual editing of code to get it working perfectly but I've spent the past few months learning how to customize it and get things working just how I want them.

I've also been working toward replacing the few components that rely on cloud services with equivalents that can work locally, so I'm not beholden to a cloud service that could disappear eventually.

I also started automating more and more things:

• I added a Zigbee controller and a bunch of motion sensors to automatically turn lights on and off as people enter/leave rooms.
• Turn on the lights for my dogs if no one is home at dusk.
• A very nice bedtime routine that turns off all the lights in the house, turns on the bedroom TV, arms the security system and then turns on the bedroom lights and slowly fades them out over the next half hour. That last one has been great for helping me get to sleep.
• My favorite is an NFC tag hidden under the living room coffee table that I can scan. It turns on the TV and receiver, switches to the correct inputs and turns on the light strips I have around the living room. If my wife isn't home, it also turns off all the other lights in the house.

I'd love to hear what other people have been doing.