Save my marriage. Does anyone have suggestions for someone whose wife is a lighting freak

Hardware
,
1

My wife is very sensitive to lighting, how much, what color, what direction it’s coming from.

She was also quite suspicious, maybe rightly, so, of Alexa and Siri.

I am not sure if there’s been a recent podcast on Mac Power Users that discusses home automation, but what I’m looking for is a smart home that can be used by less technical users.

Ideally, I would like a lighting solution that I could tune with Siri and the Apple home products but that could also just be activated by a wall switch.

It seems like there are new products in the lighting space every day.

Many of the new bulbs have Bluetooth built-in, and say they don’t need a hub, but I imagine that if I got bulbs that were supported by home kit using my Apple TV as a hub, I might have more flexibility.

Before I got married, I put in 12 cans of recessed lighting in the living room, unfortunately, I put them all on one switch. These are no longer working for us.

I would like to close off some and then put bulbs that can be adjusted by my iPhone to set the color and the brightness and then once adjusted allow my wife to just use the switch on the wall.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to start, is Matter something I need to make sure is included, has Apple Home Kit reached Party with the other Proprietary lighting hubs.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You could save my marriage.

Steve

3

I use Nanoleaf bulbs with a HomePod mini. Works well if you use the Home app to control them, less so with Siri.

Each bulb is around $20. I suggest you purchase one for testing before you commit to them.

4

I use Meross smart bulbs and a few smart plugs for lamps with odd-size bulbs, along with the Home app. I’ve had no problem using Siri to activate Home Scenes.

I believe there are plenty of companies selling buttons you can stick on a wall and activate a Home Scene. I have not tried them.

All the limitations mentioned by SpivR apply; my setup is Wi-Fi dependent. However, it is relatively economical. I have heard great things about Lutron Caseta. I understand they are not cheap, but it sounds like your situation is dire and it might be worth whatever you need to spend.

Best of luck.

5

I believe Hue bulbs remember their brightness and color temperature even after they’ve been deprived of power, so he could set the desired color/temp using the Hue app then control on and off using Lutron Caseta switches.

7

My only comment is that make sure that if you go the Alexa route for any reason be SURE you have all the relevant items on a UPS so that you don’t have ot re-program the entire system when there is a powerfailure, and personally, I’d stay away from all home automation. IMO it’s STILL not ready for prime time. This is after trying to get Alexa to properly handle raising and lowering the blinds in a house where for that size blind the only option is motorized and with 2 electrical engineers and 1 software engineer we gave up after several hours and just barely managed to get the physical remote device to work with it properly again. This is after a power failure in the house and having to replace the batteries on the shade.

No not our house.

My hardware hubby said and I quote “If I thought that home automation was going to work consistently and accurately I’d have installed it years ago. I keep checking and no, still not ready and reliable.”

I trust my in-house hardware guru. :grin:

1 Like
8

Take a look at this product. If you don’t want dimming so just on and off, it allows you to use the existing switch to toggle the light (while saving your marriage), as well as HomeKit which means automating it.

9

I have had great success with the IKEA system. It has a good range of products, including individual bulbs, outlets, led rails, led panels, lamps and even Sonos + AirPlay compatible speakers. It also has easy-to-use physical switches and controls that you place on the wall for the set of devices you want it to control.

It has been rock solid for me, and the current generation is compatible with HomeKit as well.

I also have a different system requiring a professional electrician to mount, called Plejd (Swedish manufacturer) that is used to retrofit your legacy switches. This system uses a Bluetooth mesh for communication and also has a HomeKit compatible hub.

Both these systems allows for “traditional” (non-app) control of the light sources via physical switches AND you can build “Scenes” to pre-set the brightness (and I believe the tempratue) of the light.

10

+1 for Lutron and @SpivR’s comments.

I’ve had 6 Lutron switches (5 switches and a dimmer) for just over a year and I can’t report a single hiccup - ever. If you can adjust the temp/color at the bulb and use Lutron as your switch it would be pretty fool proof. Not cheap, but I trust them privacy-wise, and like I said - ROCK solid.

1 Like
11

Honestly, getting Nanoleaf lights and setting them up with HomeKit has been one of the best decisions I’ve made. The integration is seamles and controlling the lights with Siri or the Home app is super convenient. customize the colors ,create different scenes is definitely a game-changer to set your desired mood . Highly recommend ! Although , It is a bit pricier on the side , but it is worth investing that is top notch quality .

12

I have some rooms where I have fitted an aqara switch in place of the wall switch and others where I have hue touch buttons or hue smart touch dimmers to sit next to the wall switch or elsewhere in the room.(e.g next to the bed to turn things on or off).

The Hue touch dimmers allow you to program in six scenes which happen in turn when you touch the lower button, while the upper button allows you to turn on and off the room lighting - you can choose whether you it turns on to what it was or to a known “start” scene. The touch panel also has + and - buttons to brighten or dim everything in the current scene. I can use Homekit apps and automations to control everything but my wife and visitors can just use perfectly reasonable wall switches that deliver pre-programmed scenes.

I have one room where I’ve installed hue bulbs in downlighters which were all controlled by a single power switch. With a hue touch dimmer I can set up six different scenes (with all or some of the lights) and even vary the colour of a couple of the bulbs to change the mood. Hue is expensive, but utterly reliable and it was cheaper and more flexible than having all the downlighters rewired.

13

Yes, lighting fetish here as well. If she wants home-kit enabled lighting everywhere I would go w/the Meross lighting strips as they work (have mine for a few years now) and more affordable than many others. Get her input on what would satisfy her first mind you, as you could get all your furniture and picture frames in the home glowing to discover her passions continue to expand to ceiling trays, landscaping and a second mortgage.

Just noticed this thread is a year old, so more importantly - are you still married? If so, congratulations and what was the solution that saved the marriage?

1 Like