I'm interested in making a smarter light switch for a few rooms in the house. The switch will be controlled by a computer somewhere in the house well away from the switch, and the smart switch module will be on a network. What's the best way to actually turn the 115V/60Hz on and off safely and reliably ?
I was thinking I should detect the next zero crossing and switch a relay so as to reduce arcing on the contacts.
Can you get power mosfets in small packages that can handle like 5A through them, operate them in an on-off switching manner, and not care about detecting a zero crossing time ?