In a haste to get out of the home, you glance back and wonder, “Did I turn out all the lights?” I’m sure you’ve had this experience at least a few times. You then go room-by-room, checking each and every one of the rooms for any stray lights that could have been left on.
Until I eventually resolved to do something about it, that identical situation was repeated over and over again in my home.
The good news is that there’s an easier approach, and it’ll save you time and money in the process.
Automate the lights in your house using smart home technology.
Smart home automation is the only method to switch off all of your house’s lights at once. In order to turn off all the lights, you’ll need to include smart items into your house, such as smart bulbs, smart light switches, or smart plugs.
Using your voice (“Alexa, Goodbye”), your phone, or even a single physical smart switch, you can manage your lights.
The best way to set up your house’s automation system
The installation of smart light switches, plugs, and bulbs requires varied amounts of time, expertise, and money.
This list of automated lighting devices is organized from the simplest/cheapest to the most difficult/expensive.
Smart plugs
- Minimal effort:
- Low-cost ($)
In the event that you haven’t already read my post on smart plugs, which I strongly encourage you to do, I’ll restate here: smart plugs are the cheapest and simplest method for you to involve in smart home technology.
For as little as $12 or so, you can get a pretty decent one that requires little or no work to set up.
My piece on smart plugs goes into more depth, but the simplest way to put it is that you’ll connect the smart plug to your app on your phone, from which you’ll be able to operate it.
As soon as the smart plug is set up, you can connect your lamp or light fixture to it and begin automating your lighting. You can also use Alexa or Google Home to control your lighting remotely.
Smart bulbs
- Minimal effort:
- Low-Medium (in dollars)
With smart bulbs, installation is a breeze and they’re reasonably priced. For the uninitiated, a smart bulb is a light that can be replaced with an app on your phone that enables you to operate it remotely.
In my opinion, smart bulbs aren’t worth the money due to the fact that they won’t operate if the light switch is ever switched off. This implies that the light switch must constantly be turned on.
You and your loved ones may have a difficult time remembering it, which is a shame. Smart home automation, in my opinion, should enhance existing features rather than replace them.
I don’t think it’s very wise to be unable to operate light switches in your residence.
Having said that, smart lamps have their place. If you don’t want to purchase and install smart light switches for your closet or pantry lighting, smart bulbs are a perfect alternative.
Smart light switches
- Workload: Heavy
- Cost: Very Expensive ($$$)
When it comes to controlling your home’s lights, smart light switches are the coveted holy grail.
With each smart switch you install, you obtain total control over a large number of light bulbs in your home, but you can also use the traditional light switch to control these lights as you wish. This is a major point of distinction between smart lights and smart switches.
However, nothing of value is ever simple to get by. In order to install smart light switches, you’ll need to have a good deal of experience and expertise.
An electrician can complete the installation for you if money isn’t a problem. Otherwise, plan on putting in some effort.
In spite of the fact that I’d never replaced a light switch before, I had no trouble replacing six of them with smart switches over the course of the last year. So, don’t be scared, but do your homework.
Bring it all together with smart speakers
Once you’ve set up all of your smart devices, you can connect them to a smart speaker and manage them all with a single app.
Google Home and Amazon Alexa are two of the most popular smart speakers now on the market.
As a precautionary measure,
There are certain smart home devices that do not communicate with each other. Make sure your smart speaker is compatible with any you want to purchase before you spend any money. Amazon Echo or Google Home compatibility should be explicitly stated. There are a slew of items that work with both.
Using Alexa as an example, I’m going to show you how to utilize the virtual assistant in your own house.
You may add as many smart devices as you like to the Alexa app and then organize them anyway you see fit.
A smart light switch in the bedroom can be controlled by an app, while another smart light switch in the living room can control a lamp. I’m able to name all of these lights as “Downstairs” in the Alexa app.
I can utilize the “Downstairs” group in the Alexa app to construct a routine that turns off all the lights in the lower level at once.
“Alexa, turn off the lights downstairs.”
Alexa, Goodbye” is a simple name for a routine that involves all of your home’s smart devices, as you integrate more and more of them.
All the lights in your home may be turned off by saying just two words.
Don’t do it all at once.
Keep in mind that you don’t need to automate each light in your house at once.
In fact, I strongly advise against it.
Instead, automate a few lights at a time and expand from there.
Taking this approach helped to lighten the load and make the task seem less onerous.
Start by purchasing a few smart plugs if you have lamps or any other kind of illumination that plugs into an outlet. Low-hanging fruit is lamps.
Move on to other areas of your house where smart lights make sense, such as closets and pantries, after you have automated this illumination.
Smart light switches follow smart plugs and smart lights in the automation process. In terms of time and money, they are the most demanding.
You’ll become enthused about the potential of smart goods and automations if you start with the simplest ones first. This will give you the push you need to make smart light switches a reality in your own house.
Turning off the lights at home has several advantages.
So now that we’ve covered how you may use home automation to turn off all the lights, we can speak about the reasons why you would want to do so in the first place.
Convenience
I can’t stress this enough.
It’s a game changer to no longer have to hurry downstairs before you leave the home to check your second bathroom, bedroom, or other area for a light that was left on.
Additionally, you’ll be able to switch on and off individual lights in a given room. “Alexa, I’m home,” “Alexa, I’m home,” and “Alexa, kitchen lights on” are some of the most common commands I use when I return home.
In the dark, you no longer have to sift through the clutter to find the light switch, which is a relief.
Effects on the environment
If you want to improve the health of our planet, you should not automate your home’s lighting system. But how much energy will we save if every home in our nation had lighting automation? Then, how about every decade after that??
It’s the total of the components that make a difference, not the sum of the individual parts.
Cost
Automating your home’s lights will not save you a lot of money, as you may expect. However, it’s worth considering the long-term cost savings.
Because of this, it is impossible to estimate the precise cost of a smart home gadget that someone purchases. Depending on the size of your home, the number of lights you can automate may vary.
To put that in perspective, my 1,200-square-foot home only required the installation of six smart light switches and two smart plugs, which cost me $162.
An estimated $200 is spent each year on lighting, which accounts for around 20% of a typical household’s annual electricity cost.
A 10% annual savings on my energy cost implies it will take me around 8 years to make even on my initial “investment” of $160 if I can utilize automation to switch off all the lights more often.
Because I want to stay in my house for at least the next 20 years, I think the investment is well worth it.’
It’s a lot of fun.
I like fiddling with home automations and observing them in action, regardless of whether it’s convenient, environmentally friendly, or cost-effective.
If you’re a fan of technology and have some patience, I believe you’ll like the process as well.
Seeing my wife utilize all the automations I’ve put up, and the thrill she gets from them, shoule be enough to keep me going.
When will you utilize this home automation system?
For some reason, it might be easy to forget how often you’re turning off individual lights, much alone how frequently you need to turn them all off.
As a result, I believe it’s important to discuss how this automation might be used in different situations.
The moment you’re leaving the home
The most apparent use is here.
You’ll be able to use this automation whenever you leave the house.
That’s around three or four times a day for me. If you have children, that number might easily be increased by two.
If you could switch off all the lights at once, you’d save a lot of time and stress.
Before you retire to your bed
It’s not something you want to think about as you and your wife are tucking into bed at the end of a long day.
From the comfort of your bed, you can ensure that every light in your house is turned off using this home automation system.
Our “movie night” automation shuts off all the lights, locks the front door, and turns on the TV inside your bedroom when it is activated. Automated processes may be entertaining. Despite the fact that they seem to be tough to set up, they aren’t.
Throughout the workday
You may use this automation to switch on and off lights throughout the day, depending on how you set it up.
Furthermore, my wife and I have made it such that each room in our house can be separately switched on and off.
I can simply say “Alexa, Downstairs lights on” or “OK Google, Downstairs lights on” if I’m upstairs and my hands are busy as I prepare to walk downstairs.
Before I even arrive, the lights in my basement are already on.
In your bedroom, living room, and kitchen, you may accomplish this. Because of its convenience, we seldom ever use the traditional light switches any more.
Conclusion
Smart home automation is the solution to the question of how to switch off all of your lights in your house.
You’ll be able to manage your lights with your phone, your voice, or even a single physical smart switch if you use smart plugs, smart bulbs, or smart light switches.
I advise against trying to automate all of your home’s lights at once. Add a few lights about the house, then add more as you go along.
There are a number of benefits to automating your lights, including convenience, savings in the long run and a lot of fun.
What’s keeping you from getting going?