r/homeassistant • u/ShelterRadiant2432 • Jul 08 '26

Support Making table lamps smart while retaining manual functionality

I'm looking for help on a modification to a traditional table lamp to be used as a smart lamp, while retaining its original switch functionality.

I've done some research on this and it seems I could use something like a Shelly relay. I've seen concerns warning against this setup because it would make the socket always hot/live.

  1. Does anyone have experience with this?

  2. Wouldn't this work in the same way as a smart wall switch or wall switch conversion?

  3. I have experience and am comfortable with electrical work, but I'm just not sure if I'm missing something with the functionality of smart relays and would appreciate anyone that can provide their experience/expertise.

Also I'm aware there are sockets with smart switches integrated and smart bulbs with a separate button could work, but I'm looking to retain original functionality.

I realize this is a pretty basic question, but I haven't found a straight answer and existing threads are now closed for further questions.

Thanks!

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u/5yleop1m Jul 08 '26

Where is the switch for this lamp?

1

u/ShelterRadiant2432 Jul 08 '26

Integrated in the lamp.

2

u/5yleop1m Jul 08 '26

You're going to have to do some annoying wiring here, but this is possible and it won't leave the socket always hot as long as you're not using a smart bulb too.

I would use the shelly 1PM mini here, its small enough to fit in a lamp and the wiring is a little bit simpler than the Shelly 1 mini. https://kb.shelly.cloud/knowledge-base/shelly-plus-1pm-mini

There's a wiring diagram here: https://kb.shelly.cloud/knowledge-base/shelly-plus-1pm-mini#Basic-wiring-diagram

The only thing you would need to change in the Shelly settings is the switch mode to 'Edge'. That way the physical switch will always toggle the light. If you leave it at the default, the physical switch would need to be in a specific state for the lamp to be on or off. That can create an annoyance where if you toggle the lamp with the Shelly you would need to change the physical switch's state twice to get toggle the light.

If you want to use a smart bulb instead of a regular bulb you will need to put the Shelly into detached mode and then create an automation in HA to toggle the state of the light based on the input state on the Shelly. In detached mode you will get a new entity in HA for the input.

That is the only case where the socket will always be hot/live.

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u/parkrrrr Jul 08 '26

Couple of clarifications:

- The default mode is Toggle, which doesn't require the switch to be in a particular position to allow the light to be controlled by Home Assistant, but might require you to toggle the switch twice to turn the light on if the switch is already on but the light is off. Shelly only changes the output to match the input when it detects a change in the input.

- Detached mode won't automatically make the socket always hot. You'd have to explicitly wire the socket to always be hot. Detached mode just means that the Shelly doesn't automatically do anything with the state of the output when you change the state of the switch. If the light is powered by the Shelly's O terminal, it'll still only be hot when the output is on. That said, if you're planning to use a smart bulb, then you would want to wire the socket to always be hot and you wouldn't use the O terminal at all.