153
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
153 points (88.1% liked)
Technology
59200 readers
2347 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Harvesting stray RF energy sounds like a cool technology for certain niche applications.
But for switching lights in particular, I much prefer smart bulbs vs installing stuff to put the switches in nicer places. It also makes it easy to dim a room or the entire house in the evening.
Wouldn't it make more sense to make the light switch the smart part then you can have cheap bulbs. You want the technical bit to be the bit that doesn't wear out and has to be replaced.
As someone who has smart bulbs and smart switches. The switches are a 1000x more preferable. It’s nice to be able to use my phone, but it fucking sucks needing to use my phone every time I want to control them.
Smart switches are one of the next things I'll upgrade in the house. But some of my switches control fans as well, so there's not a huge amount of choice when it comes to finding something that's compatible and works with some sort of standard instead of having their own app.
That's where occupancy sensors shine. I generally don't have to touch my phone or switches.
Yeah, I agree. And then you can have your override immediately available and not be forced to use your phone all the time, or have to keep the switch on all the time.
If you have smart bulbs and want to turn them off temporarily, you have to do it through your phone or if you use the switch you need to remember to turn the switch back on or you can't control the bulbs through your phone until you do. Makes so much more sense to have the controllers in the switches instead of the bulbs.
Plus less much heat to wear down the circuits.
For simple use cases, maybe. But if you want to use multi-colored bulbs or turn on only one bulb in a multi-bulb light fixture, you get that granular control with smart bulbs.
As for where I’d want to have the technical bits, what you said makes sense, but led bulbs are also supposed to last a long time. Maybe upgrading their technical bits every several years isn’t a bad thing.
The conclusion of the research is that solution energy efficient and cheaper. Smart bulbs are nice, but they solve neither of the issues mentioned. They need to be powered on all the time and you still need the switches either way, unless you design your home to be solely smartphone controlled but nobody does that.