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- cross-posted to:
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Researcher has developed, at a cost of less than one dollar, a wireless light switch that runs without batteries, can be installed anywhere on a wall and could reduce the cost of wiring a house by …::A U of A engineering researcher has developed a wireless light switch that could reduce the cost of wiring a house by as much as 50 per cent.
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.