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In my experience, unless you have a strong need for something like dynamic color temperature control over your light bulbs/fixtures, it's more practical and eco
by moandcompany 3y ago
In my experience, unless you have a strong need for something like dynamic color temperature control over your light bulbs/fixtures, it's more practical and economical over time to use a "smart" light switch, rather than a "smart" light bulb.
The smart bulbs may have appeal for people that are unable or not allowed to modify their light switches.
By keeping the "smarts" at the switch level, you have a lot more choice in what bulbs you use (e.g. along color temperature, color rendition, light output, power consumption/efficiency, etc) versus the smart bulb.
The Lutron Caseta series of lighting products are basically the gold standard for being "fail normal" functional without network connectivity to the system control bridge, and the system also uses different RF frequencies than 2.4GHz Wifi based "smart" switches, so it doesn't rely on or potentially create congestion issues on your home Wifi network(s).
- wincy 3y agoWe use the hue lights as night lights, and have them turn red, then off on a schedule. I have to turn them on and off again to reset them to white but my 6 year old knows how to do it, so that feels simple enough to me.
- gnicholas 3y agoWe have a fan/light in our bedroom that has a single switch and two chain pulls. We use smart bulbs for that light (I think it was $30 for two, so that the fan can function independently. Also avoids the need to install a custom light switch. I suppose if the bulbs burn out faster than other LED bulbs, it might be worth it to do something else. But if the bulbs last a decent amount of time, and assuming prices keep going down, I imagine we'll get smart bulbs again to replace them.