What Type Of Control should I Get?

What Type Of Control should I Get?

It really depends on a few factors. Cost, Convenience, Control-ability. There are more factors then just the three, we will stick with three for now.

Cost

Take my dining room as a example, just did the lighting last week. I have a chandelier that uses 8 bulbs. There is 1 switch that controls the lights in the chandelier.

To purchase 8 Hue Smart Bulbs currently the cheapest smart bulb at my local home depot. $13.99 each so for smart bulbs it would cost $111.92. I can get LED non-dim 3, 3 packs for $9.00 or I can get dim-able ones for $12.00 and a smart switch $44.99 or a dim-able smart switch for $49.99.

For Cost the switch option wins hands down

Convenience

If you do the Smart bulbs, you will have to pair 8 devices and control them separately. But you can create a zone and scenes to control them as a group. Which is great but all that takes more time to setup and manage. if you have to re-pair them start all over. Not very convenient, but it gets worse. If someone turns off the switch you cant control them at all.

For Convenience I have to say the bulbs have lost again in this scenario. In this category the switch didn't do any better. It also lost for Convenience because the switch doesn't have a ground or a common wires running to the box. So to use a switch I would have to either pay a electrician to run them for me Which will make the cost go up a lot as little as $250 - $400 depending. Or I could do it myself, I have been working with electricity most of my life so i could do it. Convenient not at all.

No Winner for Convenience

Control-ability

The last part covered this category as well. So neither can be controlled because of issues with the switch. So for the bulbs you could Use some duct tape and cover the switch. you could even cut the toggle of the switch so no one can turn it off. Or you could even wire it so that it is always on. But you have to ask your self do you really want to control each bulb? is the cost of controlling each bulb worth it? If it is and you do then this is the way to go.

For me however the third option is what I went with and that was keeping the dumb switch and getting a inline module. with the inline module I have a couple choices on how I can do this.

Dimmer? yes or no both are available for the same cost as a switch. Cost wise we have a new winner inline module. Control-ability there is a coupe options. I remove the switch and use only the module. Or I keep the switch and slightly rewire it and I have both the inline module and now my dumb switch has just educated its self and is now also a smart switch. So it wasn't actually as convenient to do as the bulbs. However since I chose to keep the switch it is now more convenient. Because I can use voice control, automation devices and such as well as the switch.

Inline module with a dimmer is the clear winner with a cost total of about $90.00. For the bulbs the module the filter and the additional wire. Bulb replacement cost $12.00 or less.

So for me personally I use a combination of all the controller types.

Besides Cost, Convenience, Control-ability there is other things to consider Application, what are you trying to-do, aesthetics how do you want it to look, Purpose why are you doing?

Pictures from Left to Right: Inline Module, Standard Light Switch, Smart Bulb, Smart On & Off Switch, Smart Dimmer Switch.

Electrical Danger Warning & Disclaimer & a couple true stories.

I have been working with electricity most of my life. If you know how to properly wire a circuit then you could to. I don't recommend doing this, because you could burn your house down.

2 Tips:

#1 Something to keep in mind electricity is no joke it is very dangerous. In many ways especially if you do not know what you are doing. Making the smallest mistake could be fatal to you and your entire family or at the least destroy your home. I'm speaking from experience, When we bought our current home we had everything inspected. We hired the highest rated inspectors that got rave reviews from the city and previous customers. They inspected the electrical and everything else even air quality and radon. Built mid 70's The only thing the inspector said was people consume more electricity now and We will have to upgrade our service at some point if we want to add a pool and hot tube etc. We bought the house 3 weeks later it caught on fire.in the panel because the locks on the mains were missing. The wires vibrated from normal use and one worked its way out enough to start a fire.

#2 When implementing your smart home projects save some money for the unknowns. you could open up a wall plate and take a switch out and discover you know have to rewire the entire circuit. Of even worse that someone had wired up way to much to this circuit so you have to rewire the entire circuit and run new lines to separate out some of the excess. Depending on when your house was built. Your panel etc. it adds up quick. Im speaking from experience again 2 nights ago I picked up a humidity sensor switch for the bathroom and figured I would put it in before dinner. took the face plate off and pulled the switch's out. There were a lot of wires in there but I was determined. hey the common wires and grounds were there. Come to find out the GFCI plug by the sink was the feed coming into the bathroom and feed to the lights and the fans. But the rest of those wires did not go to the fans or lights they proceeded to run everything In the master and in Bedroom #2.

We have had occasions where the GFCI tripped and we believed it tripped the breakers that the back bed rooms were on it was a double breaker sounded good to me. We never put 2 and 2 together or looked further into it. So when Home depot opens today I am going to buy a four switch box so I can safely wire the 3 switch's back in and a spot to put all the bulk excess wire while I try and run them down so i can split them off and run a couple new circuits to the back of the house. because of the fire in tip #1 I got the big daddy of electrical service running into my home. main panel outside only using 1/3 of its capacity. that 1/3 is feeding the sub panel in the house which is only setup currently with 1/2 of the breakers available. The contractors and electricians said I could more then triple the size of my house and the load and I still would not be at capacity. Whole house surge suppression, and line conditioners. hopefully in the next couple months I will also have my smart home power monitoring systems installed.