What need to do before installing smart light switches

There are two things you may not comfortable with the house, wiring and plumbing. Installing a smart light switch is one of the most hands-on experiences with home automation you’re going to have.

Knowing which kinds of wiring you have in your home is the most important thing before your smart switch installation, as it will pretty well dictate whether you can have smart switches in the first place. Before installing a smart light switch, you need to make sense of what’s inside your light switch box. The smart switch you’re about to install will probably be making use of more wiring and space inside your existing light box, and it’s important to know that you have everything inside the box you need.

You probably don’t have to do this, but you will need to ensure that you have a ground wire in the box available to use. Without one, functionality might be spotty or altogether non-existent. If you’re not sure which wire is the ground wire, they’re usually colour coded and outlined in the diagrams that come with switch instructions. One other thing to keep in mind is whether you have multi-gang or single-gang switch boxes. A multi-gang setup is one where you have more than one light switch in the same box.

If you’re having a hard time choosing between smart light bulbs and smart light switches, you’ll have to do a bit of research before jumping in. The easy recommendation is that if you’re going to install smart light switches, use regular light bulbs and those compatible with the light switch’s parent function .

The recommendation to avoid both in the early days is because many smart switches cut power completely to the socket, which would immediately shut your smart bulbs off. Despite a “dumb” light switch being off, smart bulbs were still able to get a very minimal source of power to stay connected to all home networks. With the number of homes with voice assistants out there, it shouldn’t come as a shock that just about all smart light switches out there nowadays are enabled to work with Google Home and Amazon Echo. The best part is the flexibility you get with some switches.

With kinetic switch and smart controller from Ebelong, and through connecting both to Wi-Fi system, you can turn all of the switches off at once, or pick one room at a time. If there is a dimmer controller, you can verbally command dimming to a certain percentage too (i.e., Hey Alexa, dim my living room lights to 75%). It’s been a great help if you come home late at night and it’s completely pitch black inside the house.

And having a strong Wi-Fi connection is a really important part of having smart switches in your home. Since your switches run both at home and remotely through the strength of your home network, you’ll need to ensure that you have a strong signal wherever you’re installing the switch. The most common issue you’ll run into with a weak connection is a failure to sync. This can be both annoying and bothersome because your app will never recognize whether the switch is on or off.

– Vincent