Smart Bulb or Wall Switch?
What you should consider before you make your light smarter
So recently, I’ve taken an interest in smart home. I tried making my apartment smart and it surprised me that there were actually so many things that I need to consider. I installed smart wall switch in my apartment and I want to share how I ended up with the smart wall switch I have now.
The Device
The smart wall switch that I currently use is this one. It is a Zigbee-based smart wall switch. Since it uses Zigbee protocol, I also use Sonoff Zigbee Bridge flashed with Tasmota to control it.
Consideration
1. Bulb or Wall switch
So the first thing that I considered is whether I want a smart bulb or smart wall switch. Both of them give us the ability to control our light from our smartphone or even Google Assistant.
Smart bulb is usually the choice between those two for anyone who just want to easily control their lights. It is, based on my research, cheaper than smart wall switch and obviously easier to install.
The drawback of using smart bulb is that you have to keep your current wall switch on the “On” position. If you accidentally put it on the “Off” position, then the smart bulb will be turned off and you will not be able to control it from afar.
For smart wall switch, it is basically the opposite of what I’ve described before. It is usually more expensive and harder to install. You might even need an expert to help you install that and that requires some additional cost.
Despite all that, it stands out in another area. Supposedly your wall switch controls multiple light bulbs, if you use smart bulb, you will need to buy that same amount of bulbs, but you only need 1 smart wall switch. By using smart wall switch, you are also given freedom to choose whatever bulb you want. And the most important thing is that you don’t need to keep you wall switch in the “On” position.
The reason that I choose smart wall switch over smart bulb for my apartment is that some of my wall switches control multiple light bulbs. Also, I read this part of blog post that inspires me to not use smart bulb. I recommend all of you to read that post. As for installing, I’m no expert but I’ve seen enough how-to from my brother and online videos to be confident enough to do it myself.
2. Wifi or Zigbee (or Z-Wave)
The next thing to consider is whether you want to have a Wifi-based device or Zigbee-based device (in Indonesia there is not much, if any, Z-Wave-based device, so I’m not going to consider that).
Wifi is usually the preferred one here because it is cheaper. It is also easier to setup as you just need to open the companion app for the smart device and connect it to your Wifi.
One thing that you need to consider is that your router can only contains at most around 250 connected devices, which usually includes your smartphone and TV. You also need to be aware on where will you put your smart devices as it cannot be too far from your router to be able to connect to it. You might even need to consider buying extender to solve this issue.
Zigbee on the other hand is more expensive because something related to its licensing. Not only that, but you need to buy a Zigbee hub before you can control your smart devices as the hub is the brain behind all of those devices, which by no means cheap.
The area coverage for Zigbee will increase as the more Zigbee devices scattered in your home because each device will also act as extender.
For the reason as why I choose Zigbee-based one, it is actually nothing related to what I explained above. I live in Indonesia where almost all smart devices are based on Tuya brand from China. I personally value my privacy really high so I try to avoid any data posted to any server. That’s why I try to handle this privacy issue and then I found something called Tasmota.
Tasmota is open-source firmware for ESP8266 device. They have the list for which devices can be flashed, but I’m not able to find if any of smart devices sold in Indonesia can actually be flashed with it. So I decided to buy a Zigbee bridge from Sonoff which can be flashed with Tasmota. Then, I connect the Zigbee-based smart wall switch to the hub. By doing so, my smart wall switch cannot directly connect to the internet. As for the hub, it is also guaranteed safe.
3. With Neutral vs Non-Neutral Wire (Smart Wall Switch)
For this part, it’s not actually a consideration as this is something that you must know beforehand. If you want to use smart wall switch, you firstly need to check whether your current switch have a neutral wire connected to it.
The neutral wire here helps to keep power flows to your wall switch, so that it may connect to your Wifi or hub. If your house doesn’t have a neutral wire, you need to find the wall switch that also supports no-neutral wire.
I didn’t really deep dive on how they can keep their wall switch on without the neutral wire, but the way they handle it will most probably cause your light bulb to flicker. That’s why most of them will also provide you with anti-flickering device, which is actually just a capacitor that you need to connect to your light bulb.
Don’t forget to check whether you have neutral wire installed in your house because you definitely don’t want to waste your money on something that doesn’t work when installed.
For me, my apartment doesn’t have neutral wire for the wall switch socket, so that’s why I am always looking for wall switch that does not need one.
4. Design
This point might be more subjective, but I think you also need to consider whether the smart devices that you buy will match with your home design. It might not matter much if you use smart bulbs, but for you who choose smart wall switch, it might.
The first thing that you need to consider is color. Some wall switches come in black or white color. The easiest thing to do for me is to choose the color that is similar to your old wall switch.
You might also need to consider how it looks. By looks, I mean some wall switches might have weird sticker or icon pattern on it. For example, you can look at Sonoff T4EU1C.
Sonoff T4EU1C actually fits my need as it can be flashed with Tasmota and can work without neutral wire. But one thing that annoys me is how they have Wifi icon in their wall switch that is pretty big. I don’t want people to see that icon in my wall switch, I just need a simple slick-looking wall switch. It is actually personal preference so some of you guys might not care about that at all.
So, to conclude, there are many things that you need to look out before you buy smart bulbs or smart wall switch or even any other smart devices. Take your time to research it and buy it when you are confident enough with your decision.
