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Comment by mjg59 | Hacker News Reader

I was skeptical of this, but voice control of my lights has turned out to be incredibly useful. I can turn on the main lights while I'm taking my shoes off, before I'm in reach of the switches. I can dim lights from the sofa while watching TV. I can turn off individual lights. It's nothing earth-shattering in terms of importance, but it's something that does make my life better.

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I can see the use, but what confuses me is why there's so much emphasis on putting the smarts in the bulbs. It would make a lot more sense to me to use normal bulbs and put the smarts in the switches. I'm sure there are switches out there like that, it's just not what people talk about.

It's a heck of a lot easier to swap out a bulb than a switch.

Eh, it's a little easier. With the switch, when the lighting bits die (less common with LEDs now, but it still happens) you don't have to toss all the expensive switch electronics.

There are modules like this: http://aeotec.com/z-wave-in-wall-switches/170-micro-smart-ap... that work with hubs like wink or smarthings, but home electrical wiring isn't consistent, so the installation isn't like the 1-2-3 easy setup you get from something like Hue.

Others have chimed in on the ease of bulb installation VS ease of switch installation. One other point is that the most you can get from a remote switch-only installation is variance in brightness, no RGB control.

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