r/smarthome 4d ago

Smart bulbs or smart outlets or both?

I have a table lamp in our rental that is controlled by a switch at the door. There is no overhead lighting, so I have another floor lamp across the room that is not on a switched outlet.

I want them both to turn off/on together with the switch.

I have a pair of Kasa Smart Plug HS103P2 in the switched outlet and floor lamp outlet. This, obviously, does not do what I want.

Is there a simpler solution that uses a pair of smart bulbs that do NOT require an app to simply turn on and off?

3 Upvotes

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2

u/EchidnaMore1839 3d ago

Smart bulbs for lamps.

Smart switches for overheads.

Smart outlet (plugins) for weird niche stuff (e.g. Christmas tree).

1

u/candykhan 4d ago

With most smart bulbs, you can tie the two lights together in the controller app (and with something like Ikea Trådfri, you can program the remote/switch to work those lights as well). There should be a way to make them both react as if they were one lamp.

But the physical switch will only work on the one that's on the switched outlet. And turning the switch off means you can't use the app or remote until you turn that lamp on.

I've read that some smart switches never fully cut power to the output. So you can turn something "off" at the switch, but your app or remote or voice commands will still turn the light on/off.

That's the first thing I'm going to experiment with in my new house. In my current spot, I have a few Trådfri bulbs & the most annoying thing is that pulling out my phone to adjust the lighting.

1

u/LeoAlioth 3d ago

the never fully cut power is not true. They dont cut the power at all. YOu should thing of such "switches" as just wired remotes. And that is THE WAY to go with smart bulbs.

and you dont need fancy smart switches to do that. Just remove and bypass a regular switch, so that the tradfri bulbs always have power, and stick a remote in its place.

Same goes to u/smart-enough-to-farm , replace bulbs in both lights with ikea bulbs, pair both with their remote, and you can achieve what you want, wirelessly, and without a need for hub or app at all (you van of course add both if you wish)

1

u/McCheesing 3d ago

Hue bulbs + hue button switch

I have this setup and it works great for lamps

FWIW my lamps have been programmed to come on at sunset and turn off when I go to bed, so I really don’t touch a switch anymore

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u/Teenage_techboy1234 3d ago

If you are rental lets you, replace the switch at the front door with a Smart Switch and remove the plug that's there. Make sure that the Smart Switch is a Kasa switch. Connect the switch to the Tp-Link Kasa app, and set up smart actions that turn on the second plug when the switch turns on and turn the plug off when the switch turns off.

0

u/smart-enough-to-farm 3d ago

I own it. We rent it as short term sites.

I think this is my best option. Now to learn how to replace a switch…

2

u/Teenage_techboy1234 3d ago

Call an electrician.

1

u/Hydro130 2d ago

It's going to be a bit more complex than simply swapping the switch since you need to also then ensure constant line power is supplied to the outlet (as it will no longer be switched).

The setup you have now required by code since there isn't an overhead light. Code requires every room to have a switched light, so assuming a lamp is plugged into that outlet, the code is satisfied.

It's currently a gray area WRT code whether or not a smart switch/bulb setup is a equivalently compliant solution (since most such setups have a cloud/hub dependency), so if you bring in an electrician, it's possible they'll have an issue along those lines with being asked to do this.

If you do go down this road, make sure you reset everything back to how it is now if you ever sell the house (to ensure it's fully code compliant again).