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>But where is money in doing things the sensible way, right?

the non-cynical explanation is that the lightbulb socket is the form factor that is most easily used by the consumer. Some sort of setup involving changing the lightswitch or the bulb socket might be better, but would also require a bunch of work and risk (live wires!) to install.

That, and I want to be able to control lights that aren't on a wall switch and to independently control lights that are in the same group.

We've been using about 50 Hue bulbs for years, without a single one going bust. But I'm sure you're able to buy cheap crap that is... well, crap.

Yes, cheap crap is crap. But the problem with even non-cheap 1500 lumen bulbs (which I have 3 in my ceiling chandelier, and it's barely enough to make my room comfortably bright) is that they don't last too long because of overheating: each drains about 20W and apparently it's very hard to dissipate that much heat through the plastic fitting.

Recent Hue bulbs go up to 1600 lumen. I haven't tested them personally, but based on my experiences with Hue bulbs, I'd bet they're reliable.

Having a controller in the bulb also makes it easier to handle things like colour temperature and hue, more difficult to manage from a wall switch. Agree wifi is clumsy, things like Zigbee work much better for these applications.

Commercial spaces and some houses in the UK already have 12V DC lighting and sockets for spotlights using the GU5.3 socket. It lets you have smaller and cheaper light-bulbs.

They're not great to have as a renter, though; many of the AC/DC converters were designed for Halogen light-bulbs, and have a minimum wattage requirement, so the more power-efficient LED light-bulbs don't work. Plus, since the fittings are less common than E27, the choice of light-bulbs is much lower.

If solar power and home electric storage batteries become more common, we might start having DC run directly into houses, to avoid the DC/AC conversion from the battery, then AC/DC back to computers/light-bulbs/TVs. But that seems years away!

P.S. smart light-bulbs need to have individual micro-controllers if you want to have colour control. I rarely use the funky colours like green/blue, but I do love being able to go from white light in the morning, to a warmer/orangish light at night.

12V DC is the way to go. There is a marine/RV ecosystem that uses 12V DC already in the market.

I'm picturing my future home though, festooned with "cigarette lighter" outlets throughout the house.

For lighting? Maybe.

But you won't replace all the 15A/30A lines on your home with 12V lines. it's not viable.

You're right.

But I have a van that I converted to an RV and it has a 12V fridge, 12V fans, 12V pump (for the water), 12V chargers for my phones and of course 12V lighting.

I think a good deal of electronics in a home could be run on 12V DC.

The Tesla Powerwall is 400V so you still need to step the voltage down for LED lighting.

1) Bulbs let renters have adjustable lights without having to rewire a house they don't own. That's 1/3rd of the market.

2) Replacing one bulb every few years is much less time/money than a wiring project IMO.

My local hardware store has a fairly large range of smart light switches. I had no idea they existed until now.

But the cost and difficulty of installation must drastically reduce their appeal. Sure they're not hard to install, but it's probably best not to encourage DIY electrical work.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/tcp-1-gang-1-way-smart-light-swit...

I would actually like someone knowledgable to chime in if possible: what is the actual risk here on a standard 110 switch? I’ve changed a bunch of switches (and even zapped myself a bit) without ever having the slightest of issues.

I can only add that I've been doing my own electrical work for over a decade now and have been successful.

Haven't been zapped either (I'm extremely careful about that, not so much when I was young).

To be sure though I have stopped at the point where a new circuit/breaker would need to be added to the panel, new wiring run. Although I do understand in theory how it is done, how to select the right gauge wire for the circuit, staying within the current limits of the panel....

I'd class swapping outlets, switches, and light fixtures, as among the kinds of home-repair stuff you have to know & do unless you're rich enough to never personally do work on your house. Like replacing a faucet, a leaky branch water shut-off valve, or the tank-innards of a toilet.

Have you tried shoving a smart light switch into a switch electrical box before? Not to mention getting neutral wires spliced in.

In the UK at least, the lighting circuit contains a neutral wire, so this shouldn't be an issue.

It does here also in newer homes. But just getting it into the switch and then shoving everything back in the box is a challenge. Smart switches are much fatter than normal switches, and by boxes at least were wired with hard copper that was difficult to shape. I had to take out the switch for my cabinets to make everything work.

Even a controller for a ceiling fan is a challenge. Sometimes, if you are lucky/persistent you can replace the box itself with a deeper one to make wiring easier.

I want to get a deeper box in eventually, but I have the feeling I should hire an electrician to do that, then the dry wall will have to be redone, and...maybe it isn't worth it now. Besides, I can get some good battery operated cabinet lighting to replace the ones I sacrificed the switch on.

if you're using 9vdc to power all your light bulbs from a central location, you're going to need a lot thicker cables since the amperage you're using is going to increase tenfold (or ~x20 for anywhere using 230v). and switching DC is going to be similarly more problematic since you won't have a 0-crossing 100/120 times a second to break any arcs, wearing out your switches

When I first saw smart lightbulbs, my first thought was that even shooting at a lightbulb to turn if off has less technical overhead.