  About a third of the hot subdwarfs of spectral type B, which are mostly
core-helium burning objects on the extreme horizontal branch, are found in
close binaries with cool, low-mass stellar, substellar, or white dwarf
companions. They can show light variations due to different phenomena. We used
light curves from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the \textit{K2}
space mission to look for more sdB binaries. Their light curves can be used to
study the hot subdwarf primaries and their companions and get orbital,
atmospheric, and absolute parameters for those systems. By classifying the
light variations and combining this with the fit of the spectral energy
distribution, the distance derived by the parallaxes obtained by \textit{Gaia}
and the atmospheric parameters, we could derive the nature of the primary and
secondary in 122 (75\%) of the known sdB binaries and 82 newly found reflection
effect systems. We derive absolute masses, radii, and luminosities for a total
of 39 hot subdwarfs with cool, low-mass companions, as well 29 known and newly
found sdBs with white dwarf companions. The mass distribution of hot subdwarfs
with cool, low-mass stellar and substellar companions differs from those with
white dwarf companions, implying they come from different populations. By
comparing the period and minimum companion mass distributions, we find that
there are several different populations of hot subdwarfs with white dwarf
binaries. We also derive the first orbital period distribution for hot
subdwarfs with cool, low-mass stellar or substellar systems selected from light
variations instead of radial velocity variations. It shows a period
distribution from 1.5 hours to 35 hours compared to the distribution of hot
subdwarfs with white dwarfs, which ranges from 1 hour to 30 days. These period
distributions can be used to constrain the previous common envelope phase.
