[gambiting]

1) we have one in our bedroom - wife loves to crotchet in bed, but of course then inevitably I'm the one being kicked out of the bed to switch the light off. Smart bulb solved that issue, I can just switch it off from my phone.

2) yeah smart switches sound great but it's physically impossible to get them installed in the UK thanks to the unique way our electrical wiring is done - the switch on the wall only has the positive terminal in, the ground is wired directly into the bulb socket. So smart switches just don't work as they don't have anywhere to pull their own electricity from.

[segfaultbuserr]

> the switch on the wall only has the positive terminal in, the ground is wired directly into the bulb socket.

This is the standard practice in many countries. Wiring the return wire is unnecessary.

> So smart switches just don't work.

This is false.

There are remote controlled switches that are designed to work with a single wire. I have one right now in my room, they utilize an energy-harvesting circuit to obtain energy from the changing magnetic field surrounding the AC line to charge a capacitor to power itself. Also, it uses 433 MHz RF, so it means it doesn't have Linux and IoT craps embedded inside, no firmware upgrade, no factory reset.

Yet, I can capture the control sequence using RTL-SDR, and use a 1$ RF transmitter from my Raspberry Pi to control my light programmatically if I want, though I never needed to, fortunately.

[gambiting]

Interesting, but I suppose I got something wrong then, as there must be a reason why pretty much no company offers smart switches in the UK market even when they have smart switches in other markets.

[segfaultbuserr]

> no company offers smart switches in the UK market even when they have smart switches in other markets.

Honestly I don't know, I'm not sure about the UK.

Perhaps those "smart" switches can't be powered by this technique due to their higher power consumption? But then, why can't one just use dumb RF switches, and put the heavy-duty digital "brain" inside a separate unit as I suggested? Because the encoding scheme doesn't scale? But it should...

In all possible ways, the same principle should be fully applicable in the UK... Sorry, I don't understand, it should be answered by someone who knows better than me...

[michaelmior]

I believe the Lutron Caseta switches work in this scenario. Instead of shutting off completely, the power flow goes down to just enough to keep the switched powered, but not enough to actually light up the bulb.

[Hamuko]

There's Philips Hue compatible smart switches that don't require any power.