When looking at smart lighting options, there's a vast array of choices – and some of these choices may be fraught with pitfalls! We'll cover the top 5 things to consider when choosing a smart lighting option for your home!
Good article but missing one major point.
A lot of smart switches - especially dimmers, require that your wiring provide a neutral to the switch. Here in the UK it is still common for houses to not have neutral available at the switch. My own house was rewired just over 20 years ago and even then neutrals were still not being provided to light switches.
There are also some issues peculiar to the UK, for example bathrooms and toilets are required to have ‘pull cord’ light switches so as to avoid the risk of electrocution should you touch a normal light switch with wet hands. Also it seems in some circumstances light fittings need to have a physically wired on/off switch to allow isolating the circuit meaning you cannot bypass the switch to permanently wire it on and stick a wireless switch in its place.
Excellent point on neutrals! That’s a common concern in the US for older homes as well! Seems to be one of the reasons that Lutron Caseta and Inovelli light switches are popular choices here!
That a really interesting insight on the pull cord requirement in the UK! I wasn’t aware of that, so thanks for sharing!