Being a new home owner comes with a lot of things that you’re not aware of till you’ve actually lived in a new place.
My buddy Danish and I are new homeowners and passing our 1st year anniversaries on homeownership and reflecting how we feel about it.
We decided to look at our last home purchases and deem the best one of all.
For me enabling HomeKit/SmartHome features were on top of the list. I didn’t want to do such enhancement in a house I was renting, although it would’ve been possible if I were to use the Phillips Hue line of products.
When we moved into the new home we realized how dark the house was. The dark walnut shade wooden floors throughout the house made it for a dim dark place. The 30 foot tall trees in the back yard also provided for a lot of shade over the house during summer days.
How to brighten up a room, a home.
To make the new house a home and we decided add some recessed lighting fixtures. We added a total of 32 recessed fixtures, 2 ceiling lights, 2 chandelier replacements, 2 island lights (for the kitchen island) and 5 ceiling fans in 5 rooms (2 of which were replacing older fans). We still have one more chandelier replacement left for the dining room as it is still quite dim in there.
Now to make all of these lights to be smart, I was not going to buy 32 Phillips hue lights although it would for a much more customizable experience. I needed a much simpler and inexpensive solution.
I decided to instead replace the light switches and make those guys smart. I researched a lot and looked far and wide to figure out which switches to consider. The first place I went to was Apple’s website (of course). They already spent a lot of time in bringing together a list of products, categorized them and put it all under the HomeKit section of the Apple online Store.
Lutron Caséta
The Lutron Caséta system was the winner that took the cake. Upon searching there’s a total of 4 popular companies that make smart wall switches
- Instead Smart Wall Switches
- Leviton Wall Switches
- Lutron Caséta
- GE Smart Lightning Control
There’s many more switches in the market with more being added. To understand how a smart home works, you have to take a look at the underlying technology that is enabling communication between all of the devices.
So why is this the best purchase for the home? I can tell Siri via HomePod, my iPhone, iPad or Mac to turn off the lights or set the scene.
One of my favorite features is when we return from somewhere and its late at night, as we arrive the lights turn on and light the house so we don’t have to worry about turning on the lights or leaving lights on when we’re away.
I’d recommend everyone to get some sort of smart lighting system and automate their home lighting for a lasting experience.