I’m in the process of installing smart light switches in every room of my house. Usually, my family didn’t have strong opinions about my wild tech experiments, but when I put new switches in my kids’ room, they were so overjoyed, I had to ponder why.
Smart Switches Can Make a Dull Thing Exciting
I decided to go with Tapo light switches for our home because they work with any smart hub, thanks to Matter compatibility that is the entire reason I’m now comfortable making a smart home. Plus, they’re affordable. I was able to order 50 of them at once for less than the price of my wife’s new tablet.
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If your house has rocker switches, switching to a Tapo switch might not feel as stark. But my home is transitioning from good old-fashioned light switches that I can’t recall anyone ever describing as attractive. Replacing them with a smart switch makes a house feel like it’s leaping forward in time.
Our New Switches Have a Glowing Light the Kids Like
With kids, it’s often the small things they like most. My daughter noticed the first smart switch I installed right away because of its glowing light. All Tapo lights have a circle that glows to indicate when a switch is off. To a child’s mind, lights make these switches exciting.
Bertel King / How-To Geek
These lights can also lead to confusion, as they did one night when the kids got home to see their switches glowing red. I had tinkered with our networking and hadn’t updated the switches yet. They were glowing an ominous red to let us know.
Buttons Can Feel Easier Than Switches to Small Hands
My smart switches aren’t actually switches. They’re buttons. That’s the reason they have lights, because there otherwise isn’t any indication whether they’re on or off.
Matter support
Matter certified
Voice
Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant.
Tiny fingers aren’t quite as adept as adult ones at maneuvering things. It can take a young kid conscious effort to properly push a switch up or down. But buttons? Even infants have those figured out. All they have to do is smash.
I Know When the Lights Are on Past Bedtime
Bertel King / How-To Geek
For me, there were practical reasons I wanted smart lights in the kids’ room aside from my completionist streak. My kids share a room, and sometimes they stay up late with the lights on. A smart light gives me insight into when they’re up playing way past bedtime.
Sometimes my older kids, who sleeps well with lights on, likes to turn them on in the middle of the night, waking up our younger child who sleeps better with the room darker. Smart lights can show me when this happens.
This Degree of Surveillance Does Feel a Tad Creepy
While I have the power to control the kids’ lights remotely, I employ that power sparingly. I understand that there is something disconcerting about having the lights suddenly go out. I also don’t want to take my kids’ current excitement by revealing this new power I have, turning a source of excitement into a frustration—or even a fear.
I rather deploy the power while they’re likely asleep, saving myself from having to get out of the bed in the middle of the night. While our kids do let us sleep without interruption most nights now, it’s still not yet something I fully take for granted. So much of the past decade of my life has been devoted to trying to get enough sleep in the face of tiny people who value neither my sleep nor their own. I’m happy to have technological solutions that can possibly help with both.
I Have Put Their Lights on a Schedule
Fortunately, smart lights offer another solution. I can set the lights to turn off on a schedule. Right now, they’re set to go out at 11PM. To be clear, I tend to turn the main light off manually much closer to the kids’ bedtime, but just in case I forget, or the kids turn the light on after I leave, the light still won’t be on overnight.
Plus, a light set on a schedule doesn’t come with the specter of being watched. I can tell the kids the lights are automated if the question comes up.
Having this remote insight into which lights are on and when does remind me just how creepy this information can be. And if I feel this way as their parent, it’s even more concerning reflecting on a stranger having this kind of insight into our home.
This is enough to make me want to speed up our transition away from Samsung SmartThings to Home Assistant, an open source alternative built around privacy and keeping control over our smart home consolidated within our home itself, rather than in the cloud. Those values spoke to me already. They speak to me even more when I think of the children.
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