I recently decided to install smart bulbs in a couple of lamps. I set them to "on" permanently so that I can exclusively use the app to turn them on/off and adjust their brightness and warmth.

After having them installed for a few weeks, their benefit is mostly a wash. I'd rather just flip them on/off, but unfortunately one of the bulbs doesn't retain its "memory" of the last setting this way, so to use the features, I have to use the app and keep them on. Additionally, the app sometimes takes a second or to to connect to their service, so I'm standing in front of the lamp waiting several seconds just to be able to turn it on/off. This is definitely a case where a manual switch is so much better. It. Just. Works.

For this, I can’t recommend and isy994 controller and Insteon light switches and outlets enough. You get physical control, automation via scripting and events, app control, and I’ve never had a (noticed) problem with the devices remembering state.

Voice controls via Alexa or any other home assistant actually work pretty well for smart lights. No fumbling with a device, just tell the lamp you want it off. You can also group them together usually to turn off multiple with a single command.

> but unfortunately one of the bulbs doesn't retain its "memory" of the last setting this way

Yeah, my last smart light setup a few years ago had this problem too. I ended up running a script on Raspberry Pi that detected when a light bulb appeared on the network again and reconfigured it immediately.

But my ultimate conclusion from that setup was, smart lights make no sense without smart switches. You want to be able to both actuate physical controls and switch the lights through software.

I recently bought a few smart bulbs for my desk, which are always connected to power. But I also bought a physical switch that controls them. It's instant and turns them all on or off simultaneously.

To be honest I almost always use the switch, including changing the color. Cycling through colors with a button is still more convenient than opening an app and picking one. I really only use the app when I need to control individual lights.

If you are on iOS and your bulbs work with Apple's Home app (which most seem to these days), you can set that up and just swipe up from the bottom of the screen and use the quick controls. Works quite well. I think a similar thing is possible on Android with the Google Home app, and more vendors seem to support that.

Also going down the smart device route. Recently tied 2 switches and a remote fan into a single action. I've setup a time filter too and now my lights can be shut off and fan turned on when I go charge my phone before going to bed. I'd always wanted a "light alarm" to wake me up, now in the morning I set my lights to turn on if I'm not out of bed (phone still charging).

Are there better places you could use the lights? Where the flexibility is more useful?

I think standing in front of the light is somewhat missing the purpose of it being connected to the network.

I agree. I can’t even turn them on and off away from my home for some reason. That was the main reason I bought them. The other reason was for the color temperature and dim control.

What is the point then? I'v never understood it, except as a novelty (my kids think it's cool).

I am not a user, but I believe the idea is to have the light settings be part of a larger macro.

For instance, you're upstairs and you wish to watch a movie in your home theater in the basement. You hit the button on your phone and while you travel to the basement the lights lining the hallways and staircases come on (if off); the projector turns on and switches to the movie input; the receiver turns on and switches to the movie input; the theater recliner adjusts to your preferred position; the bias lighting turns on; and two minutes later the lights lining the hallways and staircases revert to their previous state.

Ok but this is still mostly for novelty though, right? It’s not really about saving 2-3 seconds of work I presume (probably takes an hour to program it just right), it’s more that it feels cool and futuristic I imagine.

Especially since this kind of thing has only been possible in really high end homes until now, so it feels exclusive. At least that’s my read.

With my new TV, I have a "modern" remote with few buttons because everything happens in the UI. When I watch TV I need sometimes to enable subtitles (only on non-French speaking channels). With a traditional bulky remote I had a subtitle button: simple and straightforward. With the new remote I must click on a menu, navigate through items, select subtitles, and close the overlay window. It's really annoying. I miss old big Sony remotes with a lot of options for subtitles, image ratio, sound, speed control...

While I agree with you in principle, I don't in practice.

The whole problem is that TV remotes keep changing. My TV now we have two remotes, one that came with the TV and one for Google TV.

I used the TV remote the other day out of necessity...and it took me about 20 seconds to find the mute key. On the GTV remote, it's one of like 5 buttons.

I'll always prefer physical buttons to menus, but not when the layout and meanings of said buttons change every year.

Our new* black TV remote includes a big, white with red text Netflix button. We don’t have Netflix and thus will never use this button. The rest of this remote is fine.

*a few years back now

I remember when someone brought an Amazon Echo Dot to a party to play music. It ended with a bunch of drunk guys desperately shouting what music to play next, with Alexa getting it right maybe half of the time.

I have two remotes: one for my TV, and one for my AV receiver. I realized I generally only need four buttons: the power button on each, and volume up and down on the AV receiver remote. Arguably that could be compressed to three; I very rarely want the AV receiver on and TV off, or vice versa (unfortunately neither remote supports programming it for the other device, so I can't use the "system on/off" functionality).

So for my regular use, I wouldn't mind voice control for this, though voice assistants have trouble hearing you when there's extraneous loud noise, so volume control (especially when a really loud scene comes up and I want to lower it) would be difficult.

I don't like the idea of a smartphone app, because there's the hassle of unlocking my phone and finding/switching to the right app.

The author also mentions using gestures, which also seems very error-prone.

So I guess a dedicated remote control is the way to go, though I wouldn't mind having a single bare-bones power+volume remote, so I could toss the full-featured remotes into a drawer and only pull them out when (rarely) necessary.

“Alexa, watch Daredevil” is much easier than turning the TV on, opening Netflix, and searching for the show. The remote can then be for just pause/play or volume.

Search is the only time I use voice commands, and it's only because "typing" with the directional pad sucks. If my remote had a mini keyboard instead of buttons for rarely used features or specific channels, I'd never use voice.