YoLinkSmart Dimmer Switch, Alexa, Google, IFTTT Integration, Neutral Wire & YoLink Hub is Required

I have an older house and wanted to have lights turn on automatically when I entered the bathroom at night. I tried several "no neutral line" switches, like Moe's, and others. They were difficult to program and would loose connection with my app and motion detector. Yolink flex switch, was very easy to connect to the app and extremely easy to program. Works perfectly. Never looses wifi connection. Don't even bother with the others Tulu etc...Yolink works perfect...everytime. I've replaced all my bad switches with Yolink. Wireless Motion detectors are awesome too. Batteries seem to last forever.

Honestly if YoLink was HomeKit compatible with a local hub control, I wouldn’t even have another brand. These are the most reliable products on the market. I haven’t only ever had an API timeout failure. These devices are always responding and travel amazing distances to remain in touch. Perfect for the tasks I set for them on my outdoor lights.

I decided to give the YoLink light switches a try after purchasing a Yolink hub and flood sensors a few months earlier. I needed to replace some much older motion sensor/light switch combos that only worked with incandescent bulbs. Of all the options I looked at, these were by far the best value and I liked the wide range of products that work together with the same hub and app. Initially I was looking at Zwave or Zigbee products but decided on YoLink after comparing prices and doing the math.Most of the YoLink devices can be paired together directly in addition to pairing with the hub, such that simple automations will still work if the Internet connection is down (e.g. activating a switch with a motion sensor or door sensor). On the downside, YoLink's communication protocol is proprietary and not compatible with API's like OpenHAB. But so far the app's built-in automation features have been enough for my needs. The only other thing I would nitpick is that you can't configure the LED behavior on the switch itself, which some competing products allow. Alexa integration works great. The YoLink app keeps full history of switch state and allows configuring the switch's power-on state (recovery after power failure), which can be on, off, or last state. Device firmware upgrades are easy, though I would not recommend kicking off more than one or two at a time, as they all need to download from the hub. Overall I'm pretty happy with this purchase as well as other products in YoLink's ecosystem.[UPDATE]As of Jan 2024, these switches now cost $36 each, which is no longer a good value (not for a closed/proprietary API). They used to cost $22 each. Keeping the 5 star rating as I'm happy with my past purchases, but I won't be buying any more Yolink products if the prices stay this high.

YoLink system as a whole: Presently I have 27 installed YoLink devices, including 6 of these switches.Positives: After several weeks, so far everything is working well. The range of the LoRa based devices in a large multi-level home is much better than with WiFi based devices. Setup is alright, but not flawless.Negatives: The software is not bad, but could be much better. The system is not directly integrated with Apple Home. Setup of my two hubs required multiple tries. Setup of the non-hub devices is not as easy as the user guides suggest -- almost always requiring additional fiddling (additional pushes of the setup button or exercising of the switches). There is a lack of good explanation/examples for overall integration philosophy or more advanced features. There are YouTube videos but their scope doesn't add much over the user guides. There is no forum for casual users. There is a developer forum that requires sending a request for access.YoLink wall switches in particular: I like the functionality these switches and the YoLink software provide. I've set up outside motion detectors and automations to turn on and off lights in multiple zones as appropriate. Timers are also set to make sure the lights are turned off near sunrise -- should someone have manually turned them on during the night.During installation these do seem a tad light-weight -- I didn't have confidence that they would survive a drop onto a hard surface. They seem adequately robust once installed, and with the app and automation they may not be mechanically exercised as much as a conventional switch. Only time will tell how well they hold up with use. The color scheme for the off and on states would not be my first choice, but I can live with it.The provided install guide is only for the most basic / simple installation. These are large devices that can be non-trivial to mount into an existing electrical box -- hopefully you have a deep box -- and they are particularly non-trivial to mount in boxes already packed with wire and wire nuts for multiple switches. Such an upgrade is not for the uninitiated. If you aren't experienced and comfortable with electrical wiring hire a professional. I'm not an electrician and the following is not intended as professional advice but merely a report of my DIY'er experience over 6 YoLink switch installations.The installation is made far easier by using stranded copper wire -- so you can more easily push the wires into the crowded box. To do this right requires having stranded copper wire in respective colors for each of line (hot), neutral, load, and ground connections. Generally you will want to have various wire nuts -- such as a variety of WAGO 2 Port, 3 Port, and 5 Port connectors. It would have been nice if 14 AWG stranded wire in black/white/green/other colors (and perhaps the wire nuts) were supplied, or available as optional installation kits. It would have been nicer still if the wires came pre-installed on the switch.(After turning off the circuit breaker ...) You will want to first decipher the topology of the existing wiring. Complications may include: Due to paint overspray, many of the wires -- regardless of their function -- may appear the same as the wall color; In a bank of multiple switches often the line and ground wires are daisy-chained -- which may be electrically confusing at first and mechanically will require additional effort to extract the old switches.Once the old topology is understood, a wiring diagram and step by step plan and parts list can be developed for the upgrade. I chose to prepare (cut and strip) and connect all of the color coded wires to the switch first. Next came the connections in the box. Making the load connections generally is the easiest, followed by the line connections. Accessing the neutral (and often the ground connection) is generally more difficult -- these were almost always found in tight / burly bundles (twists) of many conductors held by a very large wire nut and pushed to very back of the box. Whenever practical I connected to a wire heading into these bundles rather than undo the bundle -- either using a smaller wire nut or a T-tap.The 2 flat-head screws provided are inadequate for use in a crowded multiple switch electrical box -- round heads are needed. The flat head means that the shaft tapers at the head, instead of an abrupt transition from the shaft to the head with round heads. In a crowded box, even when you have pushed all the wires into the back of the box, you often need to use tightening the screw to press the switch body into final position in the box. The supplied flat-heads -- with the tapering shaft -- too readily push through / enlarge the plastic mounting hole on the YoLink switch. In some boxes, where paneling was installed over sheetrock, the screws were also too short. 2" 8-32 round heads worked well.In two 4-switch boxes I used 2 YoLink switches and 2 conventional toggle switches, with a corresponding wallplate. Conventional wallplate screws do not work with the YoLink switches. Generic M3 screws happened to work well to hold the wallplate to the YoLink switches. I then painted the heads to match the wallplate. Again it would have been nice if these M3 screws with pre-painted heads had been supplied, or available as an optional installation kit.

Yolink dimmer performed very good. For me, the hardest part was tucking all the wires into the box and still having room for the switch itself as all dimmers have a deeper dimension to them. The switch is easily controlled by the app. I use routines to turn on and off this switch depending on time and whether a certain door is open or not. All good!