#006 Smart Home Lighting: How to install smart lighting and control your lights with voice using Amazon Alexa.
One Hour Smart Home Podcast Episode: #006 www.onehoursmarthome.com
#006 Smart Home Lighting: How to install smart lighting and control your lights with voice using Amazon Alexa.
One Hour Smart Home Podcast Episode #006: Hosted by-James Both
"Smart lighting can be simple and easy, smart plugs that work are a good place to start and then you can expand your smart lighting system with your needs. The great thing about smart plugs is that you don't need to do any wiring, you just plug them in and they are ready to work for you" -James Both
In this episode we discuss how to install smart home lighting and how to control your smart home lighting with voice. You can install smart home wifi light switches that work with your existing home wiring and allow you to control your smart home with voice or using your phone from anywhere in the world. Smart home lighting and smart home light switches are a dramatic upgrade that will increase the functionality and value of your home.
We cover the three different ways that you can upgrade your smart home lighting:
1. Smart Home Light Bulbs
2. Smart Home Light Switches
3. Smart Home Plugs
Upgrading your smart home with smart lighting is one of the best upgrades you can make to your home, because the average person turns on/off light switches over 30 times a day. There is nothing better than laying in bed at the end of a long day and telling Alexa to turn off the lights for you.
Advantages Of Smart Home Lighting Automation With Alexa
1. Makes Your Life Easier
Automating your home with smart home lighting will make your life easier, you don't need to worry about if you or your kids left the lights on downstairs just ask Alexa to turn off the lights for you. Don't want to get out of bed to turn off the lights? Just ask Alexa to do it. Did someone leave the lights on in the basement, just ask Alexa to turn them off.
2. Save Energy
With automated control of your lighting you can set schedules to automatically turn off your lights when you leave for the day. It's an easy way to save energy if you forget to turn off the lights. Having full control of your lighting form anywhere in the world also makes it much easier to keep tabs on what is going on in your home and turn the lights down to help you save energy.
3. Increase the value of your home
Automated smart home lighting will increase the value of your home, over 73% of new home buyers are willing to pay more for smart home technology in their homes.
4. Schedule lighting to turn on while you are away to make it look like your home.
Are you going on vacation but you want to make it look like your home? Forget the old school plug in timers, now you can turn your lights on while your sitting on the beach enjoying your vacation.
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This Episode Features:
How to install smart home lighting in your home
How to connect your smart home lighting to Amazon Alexa for voice control.
What you need to know before you install smart lighting in your home.
How smart home lighting works.
Three different options for controlling your smart home lighting: Smart Light Bulbs, Smart Light Switches & Smart Plugs.
Using voice to control your smart home lighting.
Check out our blog posts (https://www.onehoursmarthome.com/blog/) and other podcast episodes (https://www.onehoursmarthome.com/podcast) for more episodes.
#006 Smart Home Lighting: How to install smart lighting and control your lights with voice using Amazon Alexa.
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Want to hear another Podcast related to getting started with a smart home and what devices will work with voice?-Listen to our podcast about "How to Start Your Smart Home: #001"
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Our Products:
Smart WiFi Controlled Plugs-They work with wifi, Amazon Alexa & Google Home to give you seamless voice control of your home.
Smart Wifi Controlled Switches-Our Smart Wifi Switches work with Amazon Alexa & Google Home to give you control of any light switch you want to replace in your home. Our switches don't require a smart home hub and
QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What devices do you already have in your home from the Episode? More importantly, how do they make your life better?-Please let me know in the comments below.
Scroll below for links, show notes
Links from the episode
Smart Devices Mentioned:
Phillips Hue Lights Starter Kit White Light Bulbs (Works With Alexa)
Phillips Hue Lights Starter Kit Full Spectrum (Works With Alexa)
One Hour Smart Home - Smart Plugs (Works With Alexa)
One Hour Smart Home - Smart Wifi Light Switches (Works With Alexa)
Amazon Alexa Dot-The most affordable Amazon Alexa device
Amazon Alexa Spot-My favorite Amazon Alexa device.
Amazon Alexa Show-Amazon Alexa with large screen
Eero-The best Wifi System for a smart home
Show Notes (Time Stamped)
Episode #6 How To Control Your Lights With Voice
1:00 We will teach you to automate your lighting and control it with voice
2:00 Everything you need to know to automate your home lighting with voice.
2:24 You can find our smart light switches on Amazon.com here:
2:55 Three primary ways that you can control your lighting:
Smart light bulbs
Smart light switches
Smart plugs
3:00 Phillips Hue is the leader in smart light bulbs.
3:57 One major issue with Phillips hue lighting is that the light bulbs will only work when they have power 100% of the time.
4:45 Smart light bulbs don’t work unless they have power 100%
5:45 Install a smart light switch in lieu of a smart light bulb as it is
6:30 Z-Wave light switches require a smart home hub in order to work such as smartthings or wink.
7:00 You have an extra layer when you are using hub. With a z-wave light switch or a zigbee light switch.
8:00 All smart light switches have controllability via the phone interface. But most often people use voice control.
8:39 smart home wifi light switches work on wifi networks without the need for an additional hub.
9:00 smart home wifi light switches are the future because of their simplicity.
10:00 Wifi light switches require a neutral wire to be wired in so that they have constant power.
12:00 What happens when the wifi network goes down will a smart wifi switch still work? Yes it will.
13:14: The next step after installing a wifi light switch is that you need to download app to connect the wifi app and network.
14:00 With z-wave or zigbee light switches you will need to connect the switches to the hub app for them to then connect to the network.
14:30 Some z-wave or zigbee light switches have different ways of being placed in pairing mode.
15:30 How do you connect a smart wifi switch to Amazon Alexa? You need to enable the smart skill in the Amazon Alexa app. To do this you go to the Amazon Alexa app and then add the skill to Amazon Alexa
17:32 You should be thoughtful about how you add your light switches to the Amazon Alexa app to make them easy to use. You can then group the smart wifi light switch names into a group for a specific names.
18:34 Give a light a specific name such as “couch light” or “fireplace light” then you can group these smart light switches together so that they can be controlled with Amazon Alexa in a group like living room.
19:39 Taking the time to think through your light switch naming convention will be helpful to make things easier in the long run when setting up your home automation system.
23:00 You can automate your lighting with smart plugs for lights that plug in such as a standing lamp or a bedside lamp.
23:40 Smart wifi plugs are easy to set up no wiring required. The light switches can be placed in pairing mode and connected to the app very quickly.
24:35 once you have a smart skill already added to Amazon Alexa if you add additional devices from the same manufacturer you don’t need to re-enable the smart home skill. Amazon Alexa will automatically search for the new devices and add them to your smart Amazon Alexa control.
25:45 Smart wifi plugs are a great place to get started with smart home lighting control.
26:00 Lighting is one of the best features you can add to your home.
26:40 Adding smart home lighting to your home will increase the value of your home.
28:13 You don’t need to have a proprietary smart home system to have voice control of your wifi smart home light switches
32:00 Eero is a great wifi router for large homes and is easy to install. Eero is the best system for smart home networking.
33:00 all smart home wifi light switches connect on the 2.4 GHZ network for connection.
34:00 tune in next week for our interview with Joel from Lifedoor.io
Related & Recommended Posts
What devices do I have in my smart home?
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DEVICES MENTIONED ON AMAZON