Home Automation

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Home automation is the residential extension of building automation.

It is automation of the home, housework or household activity.

Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.

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I don't know if it makes more sense to get Smart Switches or Smart Bulbs (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by beegeepee@alien.top to c/homeautomation@selfhosted.forum

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I have an old house (built in 1970s) so I am guessing my light switches don't have modern wiring. I need to check when I get home. I don't know if/how this impacts which route I should go.

I don't necessarily care about the ability to change the colors of my light bulbs (although being able to change the temperature between 2700k-6500k would be nice).

I primarily want the ability to turn my lights on/off/dimmed without having to walk to the switch. My house has the light switches in not very convenient places which requires one to walk through dark rooms to turn them on/off which is annoying.

If I do just get light switches, is there a general recommendation? Is Caseta by Lutron a good option or is there something else that is generally recommended?

Lastly, if I wanted to add some sort of TV backlighting, would this potentially require me to get some sort of hub or can this also be controlled through smart switches?

Thanks

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[–] Adventurous-Mud-5508@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I have some of both. Started building a hue collection when I was a renter, now I own and I still use hue but also some zigbee switches from Inovelli. I use home assistant and zigbee2mqtt so I don’t need a hue hub at all, and my smart switches and hue bulbs all join the same zigbee mesh. The inovelli switches do not require neutral wires, but they may require you to wire in a dummy load if the switch is only connected to one or two bulbs (this is a tiny $15 gadget that you wire in behind your light fixture) the smart switch was especially great for my dining room chandelier because it would have been like $250 to buy all the little hue candelabra bulbs whereas with the inovelli switch I can just use regular dimmable LED bulbs from Home Depot.