Thanks. Tasmota switches and relays are a great way to 'rewire' switches and outlets without the need to alter any existing circuits or "in the wall" wiring. And as you mentioned, it also makes it easy to restore everything to "default" configuration whenever you decide to sell your house. Glad you found the video helpful. Let me know if you run into any particular questions or issues along the way.

Well, this is the way it should have been done in the first place. But it was one of my first "smart" devices and had been in place for years. And I've done so much "preaching" in my other videos about not removing existing functionality and yet I still had this old device in place doing just that... despite numerous times when I wish I could turn the light on with a simple wall switch. So unlike many of my other videos, this was a project I needed to do for myself and I decided to make it into a video in case it might help someone else. Actually, I ended up leaving it like I did towards the end of the video where one switch controls one lamp and the other controls the other lamp. I'm not sure why there were two three-way switches so close together anyway... but that's how they were wired. Using Tasmota let me repurpose one of those switches for better independent use. But as always, thank for watching and I greatly appreciate the comment.

While Tasmota has an amazing number of features, I think that device groups are one of the best features, since once installed it allows you to easily "rewire" how switches and outlets work in your house without actually rewiring them. Thanks for watching!

Thanks for noticing.... and being of an age where you even know what the S.S. Minnow is! Stay tuned for my next video where I make a working radio out of nothing but coconut and bamboo!

You are most welcome! For the Shelly connections I just took a small scrap piece of 14/2 Romex and cut short leads from that to make short jumpers for the switch and power connections. So, 14 gauge would be recommended. Whatever wire you use, it needs to be rated for the expected amps that will pass through the circuit. The good news are that they are very short runs, but you don't want to risk the wire overheating. The Shelly relays are rated for 15 or 16 amps (depending upon model) so I'd say as long as you use 14 gauge wire or larger, you should be fine. But as I stated, I am not a licensed electrician but since 14 gauge is what is used for most US residential situations, as long as you stick with that, it should be acceptable. Good luck with your Home Assistant journey. Don't hesitate to reach back out if I can help out in any way.

You are welcome! Glad that you might have gotten something out of this video. Yes... I did cover creating Tasmota device groups (there's a chapter link for that section), but it starts at 13:56. Thanks for watching and taking a few minutes to comment.

@@ResinChemTech I always get lots out of your videos...

@@ResinChemTech Sorry, I missed that...thank you...🙃

It is true that LEDs still draw a small amount of power when "off". One solution is what you have done... use a smart switch or plug to kill power to the entire system, including the ESP32. But this does have the drawback of the device being unavailable in Home Assistant or for use in any automations unless that automation also powers on the system first... which does add a slight delay due to the time it takes for the ESP32 to boot up. If you wish to truly kill the power to the LEDs while keeping the ESP32 powered on, WLED supports use of a relay that will switch the power to the LEDs off/on. You can find information on using a relay with WLED here: kno.wled.ge/features/relay-control/ Personally (and this is JUST my opinion), the amount of energy draw by a string of 200 LEDs when "off" is around 1 watt (per the WLED page). Here where I live, the cost of a kWh is about $0.13. That means that 200 LEDs that are off but drawing power would cost me about $1.13 for the entire year for that. If I spend $5.00 to add a 5V relay to shut those LEDs off, it would take approximately 4.3 years of cost savings just to cover the cost of the relay. And this doesn't count any additional energy used by the relay itself. But there are other reasons for killing the power to the LEDs I suppose. Safety could be one... I do kill the AC power to the entire power supply for my outdoor LEDs when they are not is use. But this is because they are outside and if not in use, it is just safer to kill the power. You may have additional reasons. But I think when people believe they are "saving money" by killing the power to the LEDs, they haven't really done the math. If you have an install with 1,000s of LEDs that are going to be turned off for a significant amount of time throughout the year, you might be able to save a few dollars each year. But in my example of 200 LEDs above, it would take me approximately 5 years of "off" time to realize about $1 of actual energy cost savings after the cost of the relay was recouped. But again this is just my personal opinion and everyone has their own reasons for wanting to save that power. Thanks for watching.

@@ResinChemTech Thank you for your quick and detaild answer! From my side it would be a safety reason and curiosity

According to the official Tasmota site for device grouping: "UDP multicasts, followed by UDP unicasts if necessary, are used to send updates to all devices so updates are fast. There is no need for an MQTT server but all the devices in a group must be on the same multicast network."

@@ResinChemTechvery interesting, thanks!

Actually, for Tasmota groups, MQTT is not required. So the grouping/syncing works completely standalone. Only your WiFi is needed so the groups still work even if your MQTT broker goes down (or you don't even have one). MQTT is needed however for Home Assistant integration. Even though there is a native Tasmota integration for Home Assistant, it still uses MQTT "under the hood". So, in short, you can do everything I showed in this video even if you don't have MQTT (well, except for the voice control... as that uses Home Assistant in my case).

@@ResinChemTechExcellent, I was hoping that was the way it actually worked, but was unsure!

@@ResinChemTech I am sorry, but I don't understand "MQTT is needed however for Home Assistant integration" vs "native Tasmota integration for Home Assistant"...I have the MQTT add-on in HA? Do I need more?

If you don't want to manually enter all the YAML to integrate the Tasmota device, then you need the Tasmota integration installed in Home Assistant. However, since the Tasmota device uses MQTT discovery for the integration, you also need the MQTT integration. So... you always need the MQTT integration. You can then manually create all the MQTT entities via YAML... or you can install the Tasmota integration as well, which will create all the entities for you without any manual YAML code.

@@ResinChemTech ok, and this is where I get confused...I am a "power user noob" for the last 5 years +...I have devices under MQTT, and Tasmota, and Unifi (some of them the same devices)...when I look at all of my Tasmota devices...and I am still trying to figure it out...and then link Google Home to Nabu Casa... and Google doesn't work (wife factor)... My head hurts...LOL Again, thank you for your time...