Why are there no 'well known' brand name smart light switches?

[OM2]

You can buy plenty of 'smart' light bulbs.

I have rooms where I've got 14 light bulbs in the ceiling.
This would be stoopidly expensive to get 'smart light bulbs' for each room.

No problem.
Get a 'smart light switch'?

PROBLEM: these don't exist.
They do exist... but not in ANY well known brand names.

Why is that??

The conspiracy theorist inside of me tell me it's far more profitable to make smart lightbulbs that need replacing every 2 years - so they don't make the switches smart - which might only get changed every 2 years.

Search Amazon and you'll find PLENTY of Chinese brands. Hmm... I don't want to risk getting something that might blow a fuse and spark a few surges.

 

[Hadron]

Actually I can't see why a smart switch should be changed every 2 years, unless they are unreliable for some reason. If they are then replacing a bulb is much less inconvenient than replacing a switch.

And I suspect that that's the real reason: almost anyone can install a bulb, not everyone can (or should try to) install a switch.

One place where smart light switches would be awkward would be where you have 2 switches controlling the same light (e.g. at top and bottom of a staircase), because then each individual switch doesn't have an "on" or "off" position because it depends on the position of the other one. When you are physically there pressing the switch this is easy: you can see whether the light is on or off, so know whether to flip the switch. But if you are not there, controlling it remotely, then what? Put a smart switch at each end and set them both the same way (or opposite ways, depending on what you are trying to do). I think it would confuse the hell out of a lot of people.

 

[OM2]

@Hadron I think I chose my words wrong. I was trying to say lightbulbs need changing every 2 years (despite having a claimed life of 50,000 hours).

The problem you refer to exists and is handle by wiring standards.
I'm not expert or anything and am clueless...
But I know you can get one way, 2 way and even 3 way I think. This means turning a switch of on one end will cause the switch to turn on from the other end when it's pressed or depressed.

My question still stands
And my conspiracy theory still lives. LOL.

Yes you are right: switches are harder to change for the ordinary person.

 

[mikedt]

Search Amazon and you'll find PLENTY of Chinese brands. Hmm... I don't want to risk getting something that might blow a fuse and spark a few surges.

FWIW I'm in China, and I'm not aware of anyone I know who actually uses the things. From what I've seen of the smart-lighting systems that availabe here, they depend on an app running on your phone. So I'm thinking the real danger is that the app goes away and/or the servers are pulled for whatever reasons, and your smart-lighting system is rendered useless. Me and everyone else I know just has ordinary lighting, CCFL and/or LED, all with just regular switches.

 

[OM2]

@mikedt your response is for the whole eco system of 'smart' items
Do you live in a cave any chance and only use cash?

My take: you have to put your faith and trust somewhere
You might not trust smart switches
Do you trust your bank to keep your money safe? Or do you keep it hidden under a mattress

I can argue both ways - it's important to understand both sides

 

[AugieTN]

>>>>I was trying to say lightbulbs need changing every 2 years (despite having a claimed life of 50,000 hours).<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

More true words have never been spoken. I've had a few 50,000 hour bulbs last 72 to 96 hours.

I use LED bulbs with a regular switch. There are a few LED bulbs now that come with either motion detection to turn on or a light switch so they turn on at dusk and off at dawn

 

[Hadron]

@mikedt your response is for the whole eco system of 'smart' items

I rather read it as "What do you do if you buy one of those off-brand switches and the company goes away?". Of course the same risk applies to a larger brand, but much less likely (though given Google's propensity to lose interest in their products maybe a slight reservation about Nest ).

 

[svim]

IoT devices, like your 'smart' bulbs and switches, are part of a very, very proprietary industry. Because of that, you're still required to use the same manufacturer in order to have any full functionality of your IoT gadgetry. There are different standards and protocols that all the manufacturers choose for their respective product lines, and the reality is those different standards don't work with different, competing standards, no matter how much you might find it to be problematic.
There are recent developments like Matter, an allegedly common protocol that will allow support for different IoT devices to work with each other, but it's only slowly gaining traction as a viable alternative.

Matter (standard) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[mikedt]

@mikedt your response is for the whole eco system of 'smart' items
Do you live in a cave any chance and only use cash?

No, my response was to your "PLENTY of Chinese brands". Yes, and some of the cheapo ones might just burn your house down, or give you a lethal electric shock. As I said, I'm in China and I just don't trust many of them. Also I don't trust any product that depends entirely on a proprietary smart-phone app, and servers in the cloud to function.

I've seen some peeps on YouTube, mostly in America, who actually do have caves, and underground bunkers filled with food, water, clothing, generators, arms, etc. prepared for them to live in. But I'm certainly not that extreme.

My take: you have to put your faith and trust somewhere
You might not trust smart switches
Do you trust your bank to keep your money safe? Or do you keep it hidden under a mattress

I can argue both ways - it's important to understand both sides

I do trust my bank, but I don't trust it 100% to have my money available when I might actually need it for paying for things. I always carry enough cash to cover eventualities, e.g. a taxi ride home, or a hotel room for the night, etc. in case the smart-phone craps out, or cashless payments are unavailable for whatever reasons.

Remember the Scout motto: BE PREPARED! Or if you're around these parts, the Young Pioneers motto: ALWAYS PREPARED!

 

[nickdalzell]

I rather read it as "What do you do if you buy one of those off-brand switches and the company goes away?". Of course the same risk applies to a larger brand, but much less likely (though given Google's propensity to lose interest in their products maybe a slight reservation about Nest ).

Don't forget all those lifetime Revolv subscribers that got screwed over completely!

As for brand loyalty, it don't exist in the modern era. Once-great names such as Zenith, Curtis Mathes, Craftsman, Crosley, and Fisher have all been sold off to Chinese companies who still use the name and fool tons of poor schmucks into thinking that it means quality. I think it shouldn't even be legal to use a name such as Zenith if you're not Zenith myself. It's a tactic that only leaves a sour taste on a great American name.

Just come up with your own brand.

 

[Hadron]

Ah, but it's a logical consequence of capitalism: a company is failing, the brand is worth something, so they are fulfilling their legal duty to the shareholders if they extract some value from that. And their only legal duty is to their shareholders, so that's what they'll do.

But I don't even know these companies. Zenith to me is a Swiss luxury watch maker, while Fisher is an American scientific instrument company (bought by another American company a while back, still US owned). I assume the companies you are thinking of were in different kinds of business.

This is all off-topic however. The question was whether buying a smart switch from an unknown brand is a good idea and why the bigger brands don't offer them (and whether the answer to the last bit is "greed").

 

[mikedt]

Don't forget all those lifetime Revolv subscribers that got screwed over completely!

As for brand loyalty, it don't exist in the modern era. Once-great names such as Zenith, Curtis Mathes, Craftsman, Crosley, and Fisher have all been sold off to Chinese companies who still use the name and fool tons of poor schmucks into thinking that it means quality. I think it shouldn't even be legal to use a name such as Zenith if you're not Zenith myself. It's a tactic that only leaves a sour taste on a great American name.

Just come up with your own brand.

How about a couple of once great Japanese marques, namely Sansui and Nakamichi, who are now just names applied to cheapo chinesium tat.

I'm British, but I certainly heard of Zenith, mainly though watching umpteen Shango066 repair and ressurection videos on YouTube.

 

[Hadron]

Are you talking about Zenith the TV & radio company (who I'd not heard of), bought by LG at the end of the last century? Or the short-lived PC manufacturer of the same name (who I had heard of, but couldn't see qualifying as a "great American name") who were bought by Packard Bell shortly before they pulled out of that business themselves? Or is there yet another?

 

[mikedt]

Are you talking about Zenith the TV & radio company (who I'd not heard of), bought by LG at the end of the last century? Or the short-lived PC manufacturer of the same name (who I had heard of, but couldn't see qualifying as a "great American name") who were bought by Packard Bell shortly before they pulled out of that business themselves? Or is there yet another?

I'm sure that's the one @nickdalzell and I were referring to. Packard Bell, that's another once great US company. Who I believe is now owned by Acer, for their budget PCs and laptops.

If anyone is interested, Shango066 on YouTube is currently running a series about a 1960s Packard Bell colour TV, and what it takes to keep it working.

In the UK, there's a few once mighty British marques, like Bush and Roberts, that are now just names on whatever cheapos.

 

[nickdalzell]

Shango is a great channel!

Yes the Zenith radio corporation that later got into TVs. Packard Bell was another but eventually started making rather unreliable budget PCs and later got swallowed up by Acer, but Packard Bell as a brand hasn't existed since the early oughts.

Zenith's name got placed on a few later model CRTs (post-digital era, with DTV tuners inside) as well as some bargain basement A/C units, but those often failed shortly after the warranty expired, and the name hasn't been seen since. At least, I haven't seen it. It makes no sense to keep using a name that was once standing for quality and then just up and trashing it with garbage products. If LG for example expected people to rely on the Zenith branding to equate to the same quality it had when it made radios and System 3 Space Command TVs, then they screwed up by making crap that failed often. If they expected to keep customers they should have at least made quality stuff under that name, otherwise what's the point?

Similar issues are happening with "Nokia" as well as "BlackBerry". Neither name means anything anymore. They're just licensed like the Zenith and Packard Bell names.

As for Fisher, they were another stereo and TV (and even VCR) maker that lasted up until the mid-1980s. Then they got resurrected in the 2000s (Chinese company of course) and you would see their names on those chintzy wall-mounted CD players that were on many pop-TV shows like the dorms of Zoey 101 and iCarly (Nickelodeon)

 

[Hadron]

Maybe LG only sell those in the US - never seen them here. But then LG (who are Korean) have been an established name in TVs in the UK since the 1980s, with a decent reputation, so there would be little point introducing a sub-brand which has no heritage in this country (unless they'd wanted to sell cheaper stuff without damaging their main brand).

 

[nickdalzell]

Oh LG TVs are fine (although I'm not too find of 'smart' TVs since the apps stop working a year or two later). But Zenith-in-name-only TVs are a different kettle of fish. I think Shango even EOL'd one on video long ago, a post-DTV era Zenith (LG) that had a dying CRT after less than two years of use. It ended with a CRT implosion that left nothing recognizable in return!

I have a Zenith Digital System 3 TV (still the USA Zenith at the time) that only stopped working when the roof leaked and water got into it. That wasn't the TV's fault, and it was well over 30 years old at the time (I'm still working on it, got the sound and IF working but there's only a raster, no On-Screen Display and no video--just blank grey screen. Before it was a horizontal line, no sound, no controls working at all--plug it in and got horizontal line, now the controls work and it turns on and off, makes noise, switches inputs, but no video)

Here's one of those 'Zenith in name only' A/C units that Shango successfully fixed (the fins were all smashed in on the condensor and a control was not working) but it's just a HAIER unit that was rebranded as Zenith.

 

[mikedt]

Here's one of those 'Zenith in name only' A/C units that Shango successfully fixed (the fins were all smashed in on the condensor and a control was not working) but it's just a HAIER unit that was rebranded as Zenith.

Haier, well that's a brand I know very well. Mainly because it did some English workhops with their executives at the Haier HQ in Qingdao.

Of course my fridge freezer, washing machine, and A/C are all Haier. In Shandong province most electricals come from the local company, i.e. Haier. as well as Hisense.

 

[nickdalzell]

At our Wal-Mart, you can find identical products all sharing names. The HiSense, Midori, Haier, and many others are exactly alike except the names and sometimes colours are different.

Hadron, Crosley was a radio maker back in the '30s-40s and is now just a name slapped on really garbage quality record players selling at Walmart to those who are 'into vinyl' only they won't get any sound worth listening to on those.

Curtis-Mathes was a TV manufacturer in the '70s-80s. They were often found at Woolco, and neither existed into the 1990s. Woolco was a smaller version of Woolworth's. Kinda like a K-Mart.

Craftsman you should be aware of--they were Sears' in-house tool brand for years, later being sold at K-Mart, and nowadays is just made out of Chinesium and sold at Lowe's. At one time they were popular because they had a lifetime warranty--bring in your broken shovel and walk out with a free one. Today, the only 'lifetime warranty' Lowe's cares about involves their own in-house brand, Kobalt.

The only 'good' Craftsman that I trust uses the old 1960s 'sawtooth' logo, and even had 'Made in USA' in that logo. I have a few vintage hand tools, a tap and die set, and a couple of sockets that bear that logo and are of excellent quality today. Finding them is hard though.

 

[Hadron]

The main reason I don't know Craftsman is probably that I'm not completely sure whether I've ever been in a Sears, think I've been to a K-Mart once, and certainly haven't entered a Lowe's. I've visited the States dozens of times since the '90s, but mostly for 1-2 weeks for work, a couple of times for holidays (which both included visiting family). So none were the sort of stay where I'd be living "normally" and visiting such stores.

Woolworths was a major name on the British high street in my childhood (it was apparently originally part of the US company, but was sold in the early 80s), but shut down about 12 years ago. Allegedly there is still a Woolworths operation in Germany (another that was separated from the original US parent but still survives), but despite my having spent a fair amount of time in different German cities I've no memory of ever seeing one.

 

[nickdalzell]

I wonder if your Woolworth's was different than ours? I do know in Australia the K-Mart is nothing like the one in the U.S. was. The logo is the same but otherwise entirely different stores.

Our Woolworths (and the much-smaller Woolco's) were one huge megaplex of many departments from clothing to electronics, and even had a diner. There's an infamous photo from the '60s of a 'sit in' of blacks who protested the diner not allowing blacks to eat there by them sitting down there and setting an example for the Civil Rights movement.

Sears was similar in that it had many different types of items you could buy, from tools to housewares to clothing. If you're familiar with Mongomery Ward, it was a similar store. Both operated out of catalogues.

To address the OP, at one time there were certain brand names that were well-known for lasting a long time, and stood for quality. That was at one point the goal of a manufacturer, to keep customers retained, and hopefully gain a good reputation for quality. Those customers would go on to have kids, who became future customers, who had kids and process repeat. That customer satisfaction was the entire goal of any reputable business. I have no clue why shareholders are all that matters today. But then, you could be assured that if you bought a Zenith radio or TV Set, that 'the quality goes in before the name goes on'. Names like that indicated it'd last a long time, be servicable, and hopefully be a future hand-me-down. There was no culture that cared about 'obsolescence' like the one of today, where people "need" a new smartphone before their old one even dies, that replacing over repairing and handing it down to kids is suddenly the norm, and networks shutting down in order to "force" the few holdouts who don't want a new device to comply and get a new device.


I'd love to know what changed overnight....But OP, brand recognition today means little to nothing. The once-well-known goals of companies to make well-made, quality, long-lasting products has been dead ever since the whole shareholders lives matter movement gained traction.

 

[Hadron]

Woolworths in the UK was also a department store, clothes, toys, and yes, often a diner. I even worked in one for a while. Best known in UK culture for it's pick 'n' mix confectionery.

But I think brand does make a difference in something like this. If I buy smart lighting from say Philips or Hive then I've more confidence that it will still be usable a few years down the line than I would be with some outfit I've never heard of.

That said, if you have 14 bulbs in the ceiling then I can see the sense in wanting a switch! All I can suggest is researching further than just looking at Amazon listings. I've had a quick peek around, but what I've discovered is that both amazon offers and tech review site articles show almost no overlap between the brands of these things in the UK and US, so if I had experience of them it would be useless to you!

 

[nickdalzell]

I've tried many smart home platforms, from Samsung Smartthings to Google Home to Philips Hue to Tzumi to many others. None worked reliably enough to rely on them confidently and I just went back to ye olde switches on the walls. Besides, the whole needing internet to do things the internet shouldn't be needed to do makes no sense to me. Same reasons I won't have any 'smart' appliances in my home. There's a story about someone's smart microwave that got screwed by a botched firmware update that made it think it was a steam oven. If I can't be confident that the stuff in my home will work the way it has always worked I don't want no part in it. I spent a few thousand $$$ just to make my home a 1960s time capsule, with the only exceptions being the CRT TVs are from the '90s (couldn't find a '60s CRT TV anywhere), and of course my laptops and smartphone and watch. Although my laptops are old enough to be considered 'vintage'.

But one thing is for sure. All of that conversion will be working long after the whole smart home platform has long since EOL'd. I wish I had Shango066's luck of coming across TVs of the vintage he has on the channel. I've always wanted a TV/radio/phono console. Never found one that had the TV (I got a Magnavox Astro-Sonic from the '60s that has the radio/phono) or never found one where the TV actually did anything if it existed (many times the TV had a necked picture tube, or was removed for making it a cat bed).

I'd love to find one of these, a Zenith Space Screen 45. It's a regular old piece of furniture that has a 45" Projection colour TV screen rise out of it when used: