Best Smart Buttons for Home Assistant (WATCH before you BUY!)

what's up smart homers my name's aaron today i'm going to do the ultimate smart button comparison where i look at many different smart buttons for home assistant and show you which ones i think are the best [Music] press start recently i've been trying to figure out which smart button or smart remote is best for my smart home but it's hard to know because there's so many options out there and you really don't know how they're going to work until you test them out i decided to buy a bunch of different smart buttons and remotes from a bunch of different brands and test them out for you guys i'll compare their prices and features and also give you some ideas of how you can use them around the house make sure you stay around to the end of the video so you can see which one i recommend and if you like what you see please consider subscribing okay so i have four requirements for smart button first they have to be compatible with home assistant next they cannot require a hub the third requirement is that they have to be under 50 bucks the fourth requirement is that the button needs to be available on amazon.com or walmart there may be some popular buttons that you've used that are not in this video and that's because they didn't meet one of these four requirements okay let's start by looking at single button smart buttons the first one i want to look at is the sonoff wireless smart switch this is one of the cheapest of all of the buttons that i'm looking at in this video for some reason it's larger than i thought it would be and it has a sharp square design that is not too comfortable in the hand it has an interesting but hardly noticeable fingerprint design on the front of the switch which is not a fingerprint reader and actually doesn't do anything it's aesthetic only the entire body of the switch acts as a button so you're depressing the face of the button when you press it this makes it so that you can accidentally press the button without realizing it like if you're just picking it up which is kind of annoying and sometimes clicks aren't always registered it comes with adhesive backing so it can be stuck under a table or desk and it would be easy to press without looking this song off button uses zigbee communication so it was super easy to pair with home assistant via zha so this button has three actions or automation triggers that can be used but in order to use these in home assistant via zha you have to install a blueprint once i did that the device worked as expected allowing me to trigger routines with a single press double press and hold the next one i want to look at is the acara smart button this button is one of the most popular among home assistant users as far as i've seen it's about the same size as the sonoff but it is thinner and way better looking it features rounded corners which makes it way more comfortable to hold in the sun off and it has the modern gray and white coloring and a perfectly round button in the middle of it this smart button uses zigbee protocol for communication and although the description on amazon says that an acara hub is required that's not the case i've paired many car devices with home assistant using zha with no issues this one was no different you know another advantage that this one has over the sonoff button that we just looked at before is that this one features four actions in homer system so you have a single press double press hold and release each of those things can be used to trigger automations at home assistant another beauty of this switch is that there's no need to install a blueprint to get it to work as soon as it's integrated you can start setting up automations in a previous video i showed an automation where i have an nfc tag on my nightstand and i can trigger a nighttime routine with it as an alternative to using the nfc tag i took the sakara button and put it on my nightstand it provides a great way to control my master bedroom light master bedroom nightlight as well as triggering the routine that sets the nighttime scene in my house at four dollars more than the sonoff it's really hard to recommend a sonoff over this one the next one i want to look at is the smart things button smartthings button is widely used across home automation communities not just with home assistant but also with smart things as the name would imply it's solid white design with that little rounded square symbol in the center that literally does nothing really gives a unique look that is recognized by many people this button uses zigbee communication as well and is easily paired with zha once paired no blueprint required you can start using it right away it supports three actions a single press a double press and a hold but it has a feature that none of the other buttons in this video do and that is it has a temperature sensor the temperature sensor is immediately available in home assistant once it's paired this button has been sitting in my office for quite a while and i use it to control the lighting scenes in my office as well as track the temperature at thirty dollars you're certainly getting what you pay for with this button the next button is the shelly button one this button is very unique compared to the rest of the buttons for a few reasons you can get it in either white or black and it has an led indicator ring around the button it also has a built-in rechargeable battery and the option to power via micro usb the button is also ipx5 certified so a little sweat or rain isn't going to hurt it the button also has a hole in the corner which allows you to add a key ring to it this button is also different than the rest because it uses wi-fi communication although i don't actually prefer wi-fi smart home devices this one has an advantage because you can trigger automations when you're not on your home wi-fi network as long as you're somewhere that has wi-fi you can trigger the automations however this requires a button to be connected to the shelley cloud which i know is a automatic no for some people the setup process for this button was a little tedious but it's clearly described in a video on the shelley youtube channel once it's connected to the shelly app it should be automatically discovered by home assistant but if it's not you can add it via the shelly integration in home assistant four automation triggers are available without the need for installing a blueprint however this is where the fun stopped for me because i was having all kinds of issues with the device falling asleep the button was not responsive because it had to take time to wake up before it could be used tapping the button after not having used it for a while caused the led ring to flash white for quite a while before finally turning green once it was green then i could press the button and it would trigger my automations the only way i was finding to stop this button from going to sleep was to connect it via micro usb and give it power continuously which kind of defeats the purpose of the button however i noticed there was a firmware update that was required and i saw that the previous firmware was from sometime in 2020 so when i updated the firmware immediately it started acting a lot more responsive when the button has been sitting idle for a while and you press the button it still takes about two seconds before the automation is triggered that still is a bit long in my opinion especially comparing it to some of these other devices and it may be expected for a wi-fi device but it's not really worth it for me to have something that has that kind of delay the fibaro the button is the next one i looked at it's definitely one of the most unique of all the smart buttons i've used it's styled to look like an emergency button but it can be integrated with home assistant and used to trigger automation even though it has largely negative reviews on amazon that unique plunger style push button look made me have to get one anyway it has a variety of bright colors that you can choose from and it also comes with an adhesive sticker for the back so you can stick it to a surface of your choice the button uses the z-wave protocol and easily pairs with home assistant via z-wave js with a blueprint the button is capable of seven actions single press double press triple press quadruple press 5x held and released because of its appearance it actually might be best used as an emergency button if you have someone elderly living in your home and you want to be able to trigger an automation that alerts you if they've fallen or if they need help they can press the button and you can set up an automation that sends an audio alert to all your smart speakers letting you know that they need assistance the only issue i had with this button was that the blueprint that was available on the blueprint exchange did not include the held and released options for triggering automations so i actually took the blueprint modified it and i posted on the blueprint exchange and i'll link that in the description the only other issue i had with it is that it takes a non-standard battery it's not a coin battery like most of them which is annoying when you're trying to minimize how many different batteries you have in your drawer overall it's a little bit pricey just for having this unique look but it's kind of up to you if you think it's worth it next let's look at the multi-button remotes that i've chosen the first one is the hank 4 key scene controller it's an impressively priced z-wave device that has three equally sized buttons surrounding a center button one of the buttons has a moon and star on it one has two people and one appears to be an io or on off symbol and the fourth one is directly in the middle it just has a circle on it honestly i'm kind of confused as to what these buttons mean or are for probably better if they just didn't put anything on them but anyway the button has a clean and simple look to it but it kind of feels a bit cheap and when you press on the buttons they kind of depress a different amount and just kind of feels cheap the battery is rechargeable and can be charged via micro usb as i mentioned this is a z-wave device and it paired pretty much instantly with home assistant via z-wave js however each button only has a press and hold and you have to install a blueprint in order to use it the next remote is the ikea tradfor remote which is pretty popular among smart homers although this zigbee remote is made to be used with the ikea trad free hub and used with their other ikea trad free devices it can be used directly with home assistant without the need of the hub this remote feels very high quality the nicest feeling of all the remotes and buttons i'm reviewing in this video the round button in the center with a four equally sized button surrounding it and the white and gray combo give it a really modern look that only ikea can manage the front of the button is white with a matte finish and the icons on the buttons are easy to see the back is a gray rubberized surface that's grippy in the hand and doesn't slide easily on surfaces the feel of it makes you want to keep picking it up for some reason it also comes with a wall plate that you can mount to the wall and then the remote is held onto the plate magnetically the remote has five buttons a brightness up brightness down a left right and an on off button as i understand it this is typically used with a trad free bulb or set of bulbs and the brightness up and down and power control the bulb and then the left and right buttons allow you to select which bulb you want to control however in home assistant each of these buttons are automatically available for use in home assistant to trigger automation there are a total of 10 actions a single press and a hold for each button on this remote that's more actions than any of the other buttons or remotes we've looked at the pairing of this device with zha and home says it was not exactly straightforward the instructions mentioned holding the pairing button which is found under the battery cover for 10 seconds in order to get it to be recognized that didn't work for me so i googled around and i found someone who said that if you press the button four times quickly it will allow it to be paired when i did this a hidden led on the front middle button lit up indicating that it was pairing and sure enough it showed up in zha without any further issues if you want to use this remote kind of like it was intended where it controls a single light and you can control the brightness up and down and the power on and off with the middle button there is a blueprint available by frank on the blueprint exchange that you can download and install at around 25 bucks this remote is a steal the next one is the aotech nanomote quad this z-wave remote is a very unique device featuring four buttons there are three buttons around the edges in a single button in the middle it kind of bothers me that the three buttons aren't equally sized but a cool feature is that each button has raised nubs on them the top button has a single raised nub the bottom left has two and the bottom right has three these nubs help you know by feel which button you're touching this is pretty awesome because if you're in the dark or the remotes in your pocket you don't have to be able to see the remote to know which button you're pressing this button also has a rechargeable battery that can be charged via the micro usb port it also comes with a keychain loop that you can attach by taking off the battery cover and then slipping the loop through the hole underneath the cover it seems like they designed it as something that can be carried around with you in your pocket or on your keyring and i can see this being pretty useful with those raised nubs adding this device to home assistant via z-wave js was extremely easy and straightforward but you do need to install a blueprint if you want to be able to use this remote once installed there are eight actions a single press and a hold for each of the four buttons since z-wave has a bit longer range than zigbee this could be used in your car as a garage door opener remote if you have a smart garage door opener but you don't have a remote in your car i set button one to open and close both garage doors and i set button two for the left garage door and button three for the right garage door the center button i set up to toggle the garage lights this has worked super well and i can see using this regularly the next one is kind of a bit of an oddball this toya 4 gang zigbee switch can be found on amazon sold by multiple sellers it seems like one of those products that's rebranded and sold by a bunch of different people despite this the remote is pretty cool it's easily the largest of all the remotes i'm looking at in this video and it has four large easy to press buttons it has adhesive strips for the back and it's clearly meant to be adhered to the wall or other flat surface i ordered this one specifically because i saw a video by smart home solver where he used a broad leg button as a toddler remote however the broadly button requires a hub this one doesn't large stickers or pictures can be put onto each of these buttons so that a kid can know which button does what i decided to use this button with my projector setup in a previous video i showed how i automated my projector setup using the broadlink rm4 pro now the kids have a button that's mounted to the projector cart that can be used to trigger these automations setting up the projector and shutting it down this remote was meant to be used with the toya zigbee hub and the toya app it can be set up with home assistant however i found this to be a pain i ended up having to install a custom zha quirk that somebody made in order to get these button presses to be recognized this process was a bit complicated and i can't say i recommend this to a beginner on top of that instead of the 12 actions that were advertised there's only six the left two buttons each only register a single press and the two right buttons register a single press and a hold that's not even close to the 12 that i expected although the switch only costs 27 bucks i really can't recommend this one and i'm really considering returning it i'll leave a link to the github pull request related to this switch if you want to get that zigbee quirk and install it okay so here's the last button i've tested with home assistant and it's also the cheapest of them all the remote had pretty poor reviews and seemingly was mostly because it didn't work with its own ecosystem but i ordered it when i got it i added it via zha a quick google search showed me that there's no blueprint for it for zha although apparently there is one for zigbee 2 mqtt so i did what any smart homer would do i made it work i actually spent way too much time on this little remote but i actually wrote a blueprint that allows the remote to function somewhat normally hardware wise this remote has 5 buttons it also has a magnetic wall plate like the triad free remote the wall plate has holes for screws as well as some sticky tape for the back this device was made to control a single or a group of rgbw bulbs the blueprint i wrote allows it to do this you can add the entities you want to control and then you select the mode that you want to adjust there are three modes brightness color and color temperature you can cycle through the modes with the left button and then use the up and down arrows to adjust them they're only preset settings it's kind of archaic and i think it'd be great if someone in the home assistant community could make this blueprint a little bit better unfortunately i was not able to see any events that the right button was actually sending so that does nothing so an example of how you could use this is for a bunch of lamps in a room that all smart bulbs you can use this remote to control all of them at the same time adjusting the brightness the color etc since this is only a ten dollar switch it might be worth you picking it up and just using this blueprint and hopefully some other people develop the blueprint better or you can use it with zigbee to mqtt alright so i'm gonna give you what i think are my favorites for single buttons i recommend the acara button as the best option for a budget device the low price combined with the ease of use and the modern look makes it a no-brainer and that's why it's so popular in the home assistant community if you're looking for the best bang for your buck i would suggest the smartthings button the quality feel of it as well as that extra temperature sensor makes it a no-brainer and definitely worth the price for multi-button remotes i would 100 percent recommend the ikea trad free remote that remote is perfect in every way and the price of 25 bucks is hard to beat on top of that it's got more actions than any of the other remotes that i reviewed in this video a runner-up to that one would be the aotek nano mult quad which although it has fewer buttons has those raised nubs which make it super useful surprisingly so since it uses z-wave protocol the ability to use it as a garage door open has been very useful to me and here are the ones i would not recommend first is the shelly button one and i'm sorry shelley fans but the fact that i have to wait two seconds before my action happens after i've pressed the button because the device has to wake up it's just unacceptable to me especially for the price of the button it doesn't have enough other features to make me really want to go for it i don't need ipx5 and i don't need an led ring on my button next the hank z-wave 4-button scene controller this remote really has nothing special to offer except for that it's pretty cheap for a z-wave device since there are other remotes out there like the aotek or the trad free i really have no use for this one anyway that's all i've got for you if you want to see a bit more information about all these devices i'm going to have a written version of this review i can't promise when it'll be up but as soon as i can in the description and in that written version you'll find links to all the blueprints that i've used for these devices if you've enjoyed this video or it's helped you decide which button you should buy please leave a like and consider subscribing if you want to see more stuff like this if there's one i missed that was an obvious choice or if you have any cool ideas for smart buttons that you think i might enjoy please leave them in the comments i want to hear about them i'm going to be doing more reviews like this as well as automation idea videos and guides with home assistant stuff so please consider subscribing and press the bell if you want to be notified when new videos are uploaded anyway smart homers thanks for watching that's all i got for you see [Music]

Channel: Make It Work

Views: 60,521

Keywords: aeotec, aqara, diy, fibaro, garage door opener, hank, home assistant, home automation, ikea, led, linkind, moes, nanomote, quad, rgb, rgbw, shelly, smart button, smart home, smart home automation, smart home devices, smart home ideas, smart home tech, smartthings, sonoff, tech, technology, tradfri, tuya, z-wave, zigbee

Id: B-AKnFAVzsY

Length: 20min 17sec (1217 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 14 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/is95js]

I tried to use my IKEA remote a few months ago but had major battery drain issues. Has anyone tried this recently or knows of a fix for this issue?

[u/makemeking706]

TL; DW?

[u/dbaines]

I really dig the Remotec Scene Master. It's z-wave, 8 button remote and is easy to set up in home assistant and zwavejs2mqtt.

I have a very long house so I'm using it in the middle near the kitchen to control kitchen, dining, living room lights and a "everything off" switch.

It comes with a sticker pack of generic icons that you can stick on the buttons to give them meaning which is a cool idea. I found the stickers to not really represent what I needed though so I picked up a label maker that can print icons and printed out my own custom icons for each button.

The thing can do double presses and long presses too but I haven't yet found a use for these, let alone finding a way of documenting these for the spouse/guests.

It was a little pricier than I wanted to go but man, it's been flawless.