Ecobee Switch+ Review – Smart Light Switch

This is episode number 173 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad that you could join us for another live episode here from The Homeowner Show studios. How you doing, Kev?

Well, other than the fact that I sound a little bit like a frog. I mean, not— I don't know.

You're not so much Kermit-y.

No, no, no, it's gotten better. I've, I've not gotten—

More Jeremiah.

Oh, boom, we just turned it off.

We're playing with new gear, folks.

Yeah, we are. We got, we got new Christmas toys, right?

Yeah.

So, uh, yeah, other than sounding a little weird, um, I feel great. Things are great. Life's great. It's colder than, uh, something. I, something I'm not gonna say online. I had something that was about to come out. I filtered myself.

You don't want evidence of that particular colloquialism?

No.

All right. That's fair.

No, I'll tell you later. It's a good one.

Uh, but yeah, dude, we, we had, uh, and I, I, I saw a post about this the other day. It was in Texas. Like the, we had like a, almost like a 100-degree variance across the state.

Yeah.

Because like in the Panhandle, it was like -15 degrees.

Yeah, it was ridiculous.

And, and then down at the, you know, the tailpiece, it was like 90.

Yeah.

Something.

Yeah. I, yeah, it, it was a weird, weird day yesterday.

Yes.

I mean, I, I was thinking about this when I woke up. I was like, okay, here's, here's the crazy thing. Before advanced weather systems came about, If you went to bed last night going, okay, I'm gonna wear shorts tomorrow.

Yeah.

You would've been a little bit surprised.

A little bit.

This morning.

Yeah.

It was odd.

It was, like, it was, it was, what was really weird about it is because usually around here, if we're gonna have a cold front, we have, like, a little bit of wet weather roll through. And, and, and it usually happens around sundown.

Right.

You know, if we're gonna have a shift in the weather. Yeah, but it was 9 o'clock last night and it was still close to 80 degrees.

I know.

And it wasn't till about 4 or 5 in the morning today that it shifted down to like 30.

Oh yeah, it, it was, it was nuts. It happened quick. Now I felt it getting a little cool last night about 11:30.

Uh-huh.

I let the dog out and I was going, okay, it's kind of windy, it's a little bit different. But, uh, oh, it was, it was beginning. It was beginning. But I'll tell you the dumbest thing I did.

All right. I'm always interested in hearing that.

Yeah, I, uh, I almost, uh, I almost cut my thumb off.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

What were you doing?

Well, so, you know, um, you know how toys these days are, are made to be adult-proof?

Sure.

You know what I'm talking about? Like, you can't get them out of the packaging. So, um—

Were you using like a, like a, like a construction knife to—

No, no, no, no. It was, it was a legitimate pocket knife. Um, so, uh, it— my, my daughter had gotten one of these. Uh, she's big in American Girl dolls, right?

Right. Yeah.

So she got one of these American Girl doll, um, horses. And so this thing is, um, put in together with quarter-inch zip ties.

Okay.

I mean, like, like some thick stuff, right? Yeah.

The, the ones that are like, hey thief, run away from here.

Right, exactly. Like, why would you ever steal this item? Because you're never going to get into it, basically. Um, so, so I've legitimately got— I've got everything ready. I'm, I'm going, okay, I got the first one off, but the second one was like maybe an inch wide.

Uh-huh.

I mean, there wasn't a lot of space in here. And why we didn't have some good scissors around, I don't know. We had a pocket knife. So I I go to, I go to like, like get this thing off, right?

Right.

And, and I'm giving it a little bit of oomph and it's not going anywhere. So logically, what, what would you do? But I, I gave it a little bit of a rotation, like to come at it as an angle.

Yeah.

And I was, I was gearing up and I was like, okay, like I'm, I'm ready. I'm ready for this. Let me make sure I'm gonna get in the shot here. So I'm ready for this. And before I was ready for it, it popped on me. I, I wasn't ready. I wasn't even giving it anything. And my finger went, ooh. And, uh, I just said, nobody else knew it was happening cuz this gift had already been opened. It was, everybody had moved on except my daughter who was ready for this thing to be opened permanently.

Right? Right.

And so I just went, oh, cut myself. And so I knew it was bad though. So I got up, I went to the, I went to the, uh, to the kitchen. I told my, my brother-in-law who's a firefighter, I said, I just cut myself. And, uh, he goes, oh, okay. And I go, you should probably follow me. And so, so he followed me in there and I've got this thing and I'm holding it, you know, just trying to keep pressure on it.

Yeah.

And, uh, I mean, it probably took a good 15 minutes for the bleeding to stop. And then, uh, do you get any of that good purple blood?

Yeah.

And I, and like, not only that, like, and this is, this was the weird thing is I started feeling weird. Uh-huh. Like, not like I'm not, I'm not woozy around blood or anything, but it was, I think it was a combination of the fact that I was losing blood and I was putting enough pressure on it to keep it from bleeding that I was like, I'm feeling a little weird. You know, and it wasn't bad enough that I was concerned, but I think I was starting to lose some color even.

Yeah.

Um, but, uh, it was Christmas Day when this happened, right? So my sister was like, he knows all the paramedics, like, you're gonna be fine. And I was like, I'm not worried about that. Um, I don't think I'm gonna need stitches or anything, but I am gonna need something. And so, um, super glue.

Hey, that works.

We put super glue on it and honestly—

Sealed it right up, huh?

Yeah, sealed it up. And honestly, I've, I've kept a Band-Aid on it because I've, I've wanted— because it's still— I mean, that was a week ago.

Was it like hot super glue or was it— No, no, no, no, no, just like in the tube.

Yeah, it was, it was just, it was just in the tube. It's just, uh, you know, like Gorilla Glue basically. Uh, but it's still on there. Like, the, the super glue is not worn off. It's still there because it's been been wrapped in a Band-Aid.

It might be a permanent fixture of your thumbnail.

Yeah, it may be. I feel, I feel like eventually it's going to be healed up enough that I'm going to be ready to be like, rip that thing off.

And then you'll have a whole new wound.

Then it'll be different. But yeah, so that was my graft.

Yeah.

And the thing is, like, I, man, I can't tell you how many knives I've wielded in my life, whether it's cutting for cooking purposes.

Yeah.

Or for you know, camping purposes, backpacking purposes, like all kinds of ways that I've needed a knife. I've used them always very carefully. In fact, my hand was a long way away. It just— before I was ready, man, and it just came all the way across. So it could, it could have been worse.

You never get hurt in like the cool ways. No, no, it's always like, like the story that you don't really want to tell.

Wait, are you talking about me specifically?

No, me too. I mean, like, it's, it's always like, yeah, I was, I was unpackaging a plastic pony from—

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, that zip tie.

It wasn't like I was stabbing a Nazi.

Exactly.

And went right into my thumb. Right, right.

This ninja came out of nowhere. I pulled out the knife, flipped it open, stabbed myself instead of him. Yeah, that would have been way better. But no, no, this was just carelessness.

So it reminds me of the past 3 days, honestly. Oh, really?

Yeah. Why?

Because I went hunting.

Oh.

Yeah.

Okay, so I don't know anything about this other than the fact that I said Hey, how were the deer today?

And you said there were no deer.

There were no deer.

There were no deer ever. No. I mean, like, I heard stuff.

Yeah. And like, but those could have been like raccoons.

I could have been, could have been, could have been. Never saw anything. So like, so I, I, I spent 3 days hunting in Sam Houston National Forest. Okay. Um, which, I mean, like, for those of you that don't know, it's, it's public land. Yeah. Public land hunting. It's not a lease or anything like that. You just kind of wander off in the wilderness and, and there's, there's regulations, right? I mean, you have to be like so far away from roads and trails and those kinds of things. So I followed all the rules, um, but like saw nothing.

Man, that's so disappointing.

Um, and, and to be fair, it's the end of the season. It's really the only time I had to go. Um, but you know, like with— and I, I try and approach this with just about everything— with any great failure, there's lots of good lessons to learn.

Okay, so Don't wait till the end of the season to go.

Well, you know, because you have no more opportunities. One, I mean, you're talking about— I want to say I'm doing this from memory. So I think Sam Houston National Forest is like 66,000-some-odd acres. It's pretty big. It's a massive place, but it's broken up over a great space too. So it's not like one big stretch, right? So going in—

And there's, and there's a lake.

I mean, like, there's, there's several components going on here, um, and, and there's even parts of it that aren't connected at all, right? Um, there's, there's some of it that's in further east that, you know, you can't even get to through the national forest that's right by here.

Sure.

So, which is part of the reason I did it is because it's right here, right? Um, so it was easy access. I could go out in the afternoon, spend, you know, 4 hours looking for deer, and, you know, And my, my, the optimistic end of me was like, well, you may not see any deer, but you'll probably see a pig or two.

Sure.

Didn't even see that.

Oh.

Didn't even see that, man. So, and you know, there was probably several factors going into it. I really need to start earlier in the year scouting and, and, and seeing some places that I really want to spend some time. Yeah, see some evidence. I was guessing. Sure. Never been out there before. Don't know anybody that's been out there before, right? I joined a Facebook group of people that are out there, but like, you know, hunters, when you're dealing with like public land, they— and for good reason— don't want to share their spots.

Sure, I get it. And this is like me, like you're describing my fishing experiences. That's why I don't fish. Yeah, because I would prefer to be a catcherman, but I'm not. I'm not a catcherman.

Not a catcherman.

No. And partly is because I have no idea what I'm doing, no idea where I should be going. And the people that know where they should be going are there and won't tell me. They're not telling me.

Yeah, you know, so here, here's what I learned. And like, so here's some big takeaways from my Sam Houston experience. Okay, one, I need a tree stand.

Oh yeah.

Um, I didn't—

how, how, how— again, I'm not a, I'm not a huge hunter, but like, to— because you got to pack everything in and pack everything out.

Yes.

How, how involved are some of those things?

Are they It's pretty involved.

Oh, that's what I mean.

I mean, for what I took, it took me about 2 days of prep.

Okay.

Well, and longer than that just because there was some stuff I didn't have. One, like, one of the toughest ones for me to get was ammunition.

Oh yeah. Yeah, that's, that's tough.

I needed— well, I— because I needed enough to sight my rifle in. Yeah. Before I went, because I didn't want to go out there willy-nilly, you know, hoping that I would hit if I had something to aim at.

Sure.

Um, and then, you know, just, just some of the other gear, like, and, and, you know, just getting ready because you have to read all the regulations and make sure that you have everything that they're requiring you to have before you go out there. Um, so I mean, there's a lot to it, but like, all in all, it probably took me 2 full days in time. Yeah. To get ready just to go out.

Sure.

Um, and, and then just having it all organized where I, you know, and like, man, while I was out there, I even lost a piece of gear that I'm gonna have to replace. So, which was annoying. Um, yeah, but like the places where you want to get to, where you know that you're probably going to be able to see something, it's next to impossible to pack anything out if you even get anything.

Oh man.

So it, you know, it's, it's a challenge, which I enjoy.

That's part of the difficulty of— it's why some people don't want to hunt on that land is because you can't take a mule or a four-wheeler or anything like that in, right? They— I mean, it's, it's walking only, right?

Well, in, in some places. Okay. Um, so there's, there's ways around that.

Okay.

In some areas. But yeah, for the most part, I mean, you're, you're, you're having to pack in any— what you can carry on your person.

Sure.

And, and, and no matter what, because of how far you have to go into the areas where ATVs are not allowed, you're, you're gonna be hauling Oh yeah, dead weight, dead weight no matter what.

Oh yeah.

Um, so, so they, I mean, like, they have carcass, uh, haulers. Okay. That you can pack in. Um, I mean, they're basically like, you know, deer dollies, right? Um, but I mean, I, my, my problem with that is like, I don't want to own a piece of equipment that I use for like one thing, right? One time a year, maybe twice a year. I just, I'm just not interested.

You just need better friends.

Yes.

That have land who's like, look dude, come hunt here.

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, tree stand is paramount because I mean, like there's so much low-lying brush.

Yeah.

That you can't see anything.

Sure.

Unless you get up. And the only option to get up is pine trees.

Yeah.

Pretty much.

And there's no way to climb those things. No.

I mean, there's tall poles.

Yeah, I mean, it could easily be 30, 40 feet before you hit any branches on some of those things.

Yeah. So, and the, the other trees worth climbing, I mean, like, they're— most of them aren't worth climbing.

Sure.

Um, so anyway, tree stand is paramount. And then just, you know, doing, doing your homework.

Yeah.

Is, is going to be key. I had, I had a lot of fun. I, I enjoyed my time out there. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Yeah.

even though I didn't get anything.

Yeah, um, time in the woods is always good.

Yeah, so like, you know, I'll be doing it again and I'll probably be checking back in with you guys and letting you know how it goes. I mean, the season is still active if you're muzzleloader.

Yeah.

I've actually considered going back out because it's youth season now.

Oh yeah.

And I could take like my oldest daughter, uh, out there, um, but I'd need to get a gun that she— she can't shoot mine.

No.

Um, I'd need to get something she could actually shoot.

Yeah.

Um, what's cool about youth season right now is you can actually take a doe Yeah. Um, well, the kids can take a doe, the, the adults can't, right? Um, but it's— I mean, like, if you've never hunted on public land, I think it's something worth trying, especially if it's nearby. Yeah, that was the main reason I wanted to try it. I was like, this is stupid. Like, I live less than 30 minutes from a national forest that you can hunt on, right?

Like, for free.

What?

I mean, with, with the license.

You gotta have the license, right? There's licenses and permits. Um, and you have to have both in order to hunt on.

But still, it's essentially free.

It's—

you got to have that to hunt anywhere. Anywhere.

So you got to have a hunting license to hunt anywhere, right? The permit is specifically for, for the state park public land in Texas.

Yeah.

So that's going to be— and I think that's true in most states, probably. And then some other states actually have like lottoes and, and different, you know, aspects to how that works. But in Texas, for the most part, you just need the permit.

Yeah.

So cool. It's, it, I mean, like, it's, it's a cool thing. And plus, I mean, like, you know, it's, it's public land. It belongs to you.

Sure.

Use it.

Use it.

Yeah.

No reason not to.

I'm like, if you, if you live in a neighborhood, like a neighborhood where you have like small plots, this is land that you technically own, you have access to. And it seems silly to me, like you're talking about, like, you know, if, if my memory is correct and somebody may You know, correct me while we're listening to the show. If it's 66,000 acres, I mean, like, that's land you— I mean, like, even if you're not hunting, just go wander it, right?

No reason not to.

There's— I mean, like, in hunting season, all you have to do is wear orange, right? Wear an orange vest and a hat, you can wander all over the daggum thing, right? And there's really cool apps that let you know where boundaries are.

Oh yeah.

So like you're not wandering onto like private land and different things like that.

Sure.

Um, so anyway, um, we're, you know, we're 16 minutes into the show. We're not actually here to talk about all that. Um, no, we're not. Your thumb or my hunting experience.

Nope.

So, which, if you'd gone hunting with me, you never would've cut your thumb, man.

That is just throwing it out there. Well, no, that's actually, that's actually not true because that happened on Christmas Day and we were never planning on going hunting.

Yeah, but we could have made up a cool story while we were out there.

That, that's true. Yeah, that would've been a much better story. Maybe much better story.

We, we'd find out what kind of writers we actually are.

No doubt.

No doubt.

But no, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about something completely different. Um, so I got a Christmas present that we're gonna review, and it's, uh, it's the Ecobee Switch Plus.

Okay.

So, so here it is on the screen if you're, uh, following us on, on YouTube or on Facebook right now. Um, and it's a light switch. That's all it is. Um, and it's a, it's a pretty standard little light switch as far as what it does. But I'll tell you, I was— so, so I pulled it out of the box. I will tell you, it's got a— Ecobee does a good job of packaging their stuff well, right? Like Apple does.

Yeah. Oh, they make it look cool.

They make it look cool. I mean, you open it up, it's all presented very nicely right there. It comes with a— with the actual plate cover that has no screws, it just clips. So it's very clean. Um, and whenever you pull it out, um, you don't have to, to fiddle with the frustrating, um, electrical—

There's no zip ties, is that what you're saying? No zip ties.

Uh, but you know, whenever you're— a lot of light switches that you use, you got to make the little, the little hook and like put it around a screw and screw it in.

Oh yeah, yeah, I got you. It's like Is it one of those that you kind of like, you take the wire and you just jack it in?

No. Although those are the best.

I didn't—

those are by far the best. No, these are just pigtails.

Okay.

So you pigtail, it's got pigtail wire nut, and that's all you gotta do.

Okay.

So it's pretty simple. It's not as easy as the— although I will tell you that some of the ones where you just push it into the backside or whatever.

Yeah.

Um, depending on how deep your box is, I've, I've run into a scenario where that becomes problematic.

Oh, because you don't have enough. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So, uh, so I did the smart thing. I turned off my electricity first. Uh, I went out and flipped a breaker and, um, and I went in and I was gonna put it in my living room and got it all installed. Actually, I had to call my, my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law's an electrician. And this is the same one that's a firefighter, also electrician.

Yeah.

Um, and I was like, All right, dude, like it tells— so another thing that's cool is all you do is open up the Ecobee app and it walks you through how to install it.

Oh, so it works with the regular Ecobee app? Yes.

Okay. It works with your regular Ecobee app. You don't have to have a separate app from your thermostat or anything like that.

Okay, that's probably actually an important point for people to— like if you've never heard of Ecobee before.

Yes. Like it's an ecosystem in and of itself. The thing where we first came into the Ecobee world was like episode 2 or 3.

I think so, yeah.

Where we reviewed a thermostat that I actually had 2 of them in my house, and then you went out and bought one.

I did.

Um, they're, they're great. I still love mine.

I still have mine.

Yeah, and, and very, very good. And they've got updated versions now even. Um, they've got them that are Alexa enabled.

Yeah, those are, those are actually pretty cool.

They are pretty cool. Um, so anyway, uh, so you just open up your Ecobee app, go to the plus sign in the top right corner, and it basically shows up the Ecobee Switch Plus. You tap it and it says, do you have this? Yes. Do you want to install it? Yes. And so it walks you through the process. Um, so I actually had to call him because there's 4 wires. There's a, there's a white neutral.

Mm-hmm.

There's 2 blacks. positives and, uh, and a ground. Okay.

So 2 positives.

There's 2 positives, which a lot of, a lot of the, the larger switches take 2 positives. So I had to kind of, I was like, okay, it, it asks me, do you have a white wire coming out of the wall? And I was like, not really. Um, I don't see one because they weren't really, because, well, there's a reason I said that because it was daisy chained.

Okay.

Um, this switch was daisy-chained to the one next to it, and all I had was 2 black wires off of it. And so I was like, that's all I got. And so I sent him a picture and he said, okay, all the white wires are actually bundled in the back and they're all just tied together, which is very, very common. Um, so he said just tie it in there. So I unscrewed that, hooked the white wire up, wire nutted that thing on. wrapped the, the ground around the ground wire, and then the 2 blacks are— they're reversible. Doesn't matter which one is which. There is technically a hot one and a not hot one, but it didn't care. Wired them up together, put it back

in, turn the electricity on. This thing works flawlessly, and I was very disappointed.

Why were you disappointed?

Because—

Did it, did it turn your lights on and off?

Yes.

Okay.

It did turn my lights on and off.

All right.

Um, so there's, there's a couple of features to this thing, um, that I should go ahead before I tell you why I was disappointed. Um, so this thing is an Alexa device.

Okay.

A standalone Alexa device. So you can literally use it as an Alexa. It's got a speaker on the, um, on the device itself.

So, okay. Let's circle back around to that, but keep going.

Okay. So I'm, I'm, as I'm showing you right here, if you're looking on online, there's, I'm circling the, the speaker function. You can see here. So it's got the, you know, the little blue light for Alexa. Right? You say, Alexa, turn the lights on. And it actually, the first time you do that, it asks, is this a light switch? And you say yes. And then it asks, where? It's in the living room. And so I said, okay, I'll remember that. And so now you can say turn the light on and it remembers, or you can say turn the living room light on and it'll work, right? It worked flawlessly as far as that goes.

On/off was good?

On/off, perfect. Okay, I can touch it. It's got a little, you know, you, you press it and it's got just a, a haptic feel, I guess, a little bit.

Oh, okay.

Um, So, so you press it on, press it off, no big deal. You can tell Alexa turn lights on, tell it to turn it off. You can, um, tell it that it's either an indoor switch or an outdoor switch. So, um, there are different functions. If it's an outdoor switch, you can set it to do things like, uh, come on at dusk and go off at dawn type of thing.

Okay.

Um, and I assume— I've not installed it outside, but I assume that that works just through the internet. And I'm gonna come back to why I think that. Um, but indoor, uh, it has an automatic on function. So if you walk into the room, it'll turn the lights on.

That's kinda cool.

Yeah, so it's got a proximity function. Pretty cool. Um, if after 15 minutes it does not detect motion, it can turn it off. You can toggle that feature on and off. I turned it off pretty quickly because as we were watching a movie, uh, the lights kept going off. We were also eating. So we were eating and watching a movie. The lights kept going off after about every 15 minutes. So I was like, turning that function off. Um, but here's the reason I was disappointed. I was disappointed because that specific switch, again, we watch movies in there quite often. We like to dim the lights.

Mm-hmm.

There's no dimmer on this thing.

Hmm.

And I'm, I'm looking through the app going, what did I miss? Where is it? It's in another page. It's in another part of the app, something. I'm searching through it. It's pretty simple. There's not a lot to it. It's either you do— there's like 2 or 3 functions it can do, um, and it's either on or off.

Yeah.

And so there is no dimmer function on this thing. I was really shocked. I'm like, why would you— why would you build a, a light switch like this, um, that's pretty sophisticated, honestly, but it doesn't have a dimmer function. Yeah, I think most good, um, expensive light switches these days have the option.

Yeah. Did you, did you try asking Alexa to dim the lights?

Yes, I, I did. I tried that and, um, it just didn't do anything.

Didn't do anything.

And, and so I did find that there is a workaround. It's a fairly expensive workaround. Your workaround is to go buy Alexa light bulbs, basically. Oh, like, like light bulbs that you can tell to dim without the switch anyway, without the— so it's a workaround because at that point you're telling a device to do something to the light bulb, to another device.

Yeah.

It's a workaround, but it's like, well, you don't even need the switch in order for that to work. Um, anyway, it's kind of a— it's a workaround.

Yeah. Um, it's honestly, it sounds— I mean, from your description, it sounds like this switch was built for 2 purposes really, really well. It sounds like it was built for garages.

Yeah.

And commercial application.

Yeah, I, I think that—

well, because when you think about like, uh, ultraviolet lights, yeah, I mean, it's on or off. There's no dimming those, right? You know, and so like in order to save money, offices will set timers and motion sensors in order to turn lights off when people aren't in rooms, right? Or to turn lights on when people come into rooms so that they don't have to bother with going there and flipping switches and all that kind of stuff.

Yep.

That's what it sounds like it was built for. Yeah.

And, and I, I just don't— I guess I don't understand. I would love for someone from Ecobee to actually reach out to me and tell me why they didn't add this function, uh, because you're talking about the dimmer function. The dimmer function. Because to me, that That's a— I don't know what all mechanics are involved in making that happen.

Yeah.

But I do think that it would be fairly simple in the size of box that they have to add something in there, even if it's a toggle switch, like that you literally have to move up and down physically. They could have added that.

Well, I mean, I know that like dimming is a very specific function in home lighting.

I know. I agree.

And the only reason I'm even cognizant of this at all was because I was fine when I was installing my Lutron system. The only reason I went with the Lutron system is because they were the only one at the time, and I don't know if this is still true anymore, that had a smart plug that had a dimmable feature on the smart plug.

Right, which is pretty cool.

It is pretty cool. But like, you know, like we were talking about with the, uh, what was the— what's the model of the, the Kasa? The Kasa smart plugs.

Oh yeah.

Those don't have a dimmable feature on them.

But they're, they're a whole lot less expensive. The price point's a whole lot—

Yeah, yeah, 4 for, you know, $20.

$20.

Um, you know, and on/off scheduling and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So you can, you know, you can do all kinds of stuff with that, right? Um, but for whatever reason, it seems like the dimming feature with these light switches is the thing that really kicks it up a notch.

Sure.

As far as price point.

Yeah.

And it is as far as, you know, um, luxury.

Yeah, so, okay, so to that point, You also can't schedule this thing.

Which is weird.

Which is weird. I mean, you would think even if you don't have the dimming function, the scheduling is pretty easy.

So, I mean, by scheduling you mean like a regular routine scheduling, right? You could probably say, hey Alexa, turn on living room lights at 6:30 in the morning.

I don't know, honestly. That would be something that I've not tried. I would— I probably should go home and try that.

Yeah, but The motion sensor aspect of it though is pretty cool.

Okay. So here, here's what happened. So moving forward, I was like, this installation is not the best use of this device. I've got a couple— I mean, we've got an outdoor option that it's, it's a, it's an indoor switch that, that I'm using, but it's for an outdoor light. It's the one that we use most often just to walk outside, let the dog out. It's front door. Right? So I was like, okay, we could do that. Well, my daughter said, what if we put it in the playroom?

Mm-hmm.

And I got to thinking about it. So, um, our playroom is awesome. Like, it's probably one of my favorite rooms in the house because it's the very back room in the house. There's huge floor-to-ceiling windows in that place. Uh, it's got a vaulted ceiling, so even the windows up high, and it's just a golf course.

Right.

Background. It's beautiful. Um, but the light switch in that room is in the middle of the wall, and it's actually very difficult to get to. Um, I, I have no idea. So there's a pocket door there.

Yeah.

And so maybe they didn't put it there because there's a pocket door, but they could have put it on the other side of the door. frame, but they didn't. Uh, I don't know why they put it in the middle of this wall, and it's a pretty big wall. I have no clue. But I started thinking about it and I go, okay, um, we, we hardly ever dim the lights in there. And if we did want to do that, our fan has a light kit on it that'll dim if we really, really want that function.

Yeah.

Um, but the hardest thing is like getting to the light switch.

Right.

And oh, by the way, that light switch is one of those, um, It's one of those that's on a knob.

Oh yeah.

But then part of it was broken, and so there's no knob on it. And so you're like turning this little thin piece of metal. It's dumb. So I was like, look, I hate that switch anyway. Let's try it.

Yeah.

And I absolutely love it in that room.

There you go.

So, because here's the deal, uh, so I, I, same thing, installation. It says, by the way, it could take up to 45 minutes to install this thing. If you've ever installed a light switch, you, you can—

It shouldn't take you 45 minutes.

10 minutes.

Yeah.

Tops.

Maybe 10 minutes to find the screwdriver.

Yeah, exactly. From, from maybe the moment you begin to the moment you're like cleaned up.

Yeah.

Maybe 45 minutes, but it should not take that long. Uh, so I installed it. Um, so my kids really dislike walking into that room at night. Because again, they're little, it's dark, it's hard. I mean, you never know what you're gonna step on in there going to the playroom, and there's Legos galore, right? Um, so you walk into the room now, light just comes on.

That's cool.

Super easy. And if the kids don't want to walk all the way in there, they can stand at the doorframe and go, Alexa, turn the lights on, and she does. And you can walk out and say, Turn the lights off. She does. I can turn the light on and off from the app as well. So if I don't want to walk back there, open the app, turn the light off, no big deal. So that—

but that's through the Ecobee app?

That's through the Ecobee app.

So my question earlier was, so now that you've got it installed in the place where it's going to be.

Yes.

So did you have to set up the Alexa aspect of it through the Alexa app?

No.

So Is it connected to your Amazon account?

I would assume it is. Yes, it is.

That's—

I didn't have to— I didn't have to do it through the Alexa app, but it basically told me go to Amazon and say something. Right. When I— it, it said itself.

Is this the first Alexa device in your house?

No. It's the second one.

Second one?

But we—

What's the first one?

We, we had a puck. Oh, just—

okay.

Yeah, one of those pucks. Uh, we, we don't even have it plugged in though.

Okay.

Um, we had it for a while and my kids were driving me nuts with it trying to do all the things that Alexa does, and so I just unplugged it. It's somewhere. I actually know where it is, but it's, it's not installed. But it was, it was very easy, easy to, to do.

Okay.

No big deal. But you know, you can ask it what the weather is, you can ask it to play music, and it does have a speaker. Don't expect any type of great sound out of that speaker, but it does have that function.

Could it, could it connect Bluetooth to an actual speaker?

I don't know. I've not, I've not tried to do that. Huh. I don't, I mean, my understanding—

Usually the way Alexa devices work is you, Bluetooth can be kind of weird because you can Bluetooth typically to an external device or you can Bluetooth to a device that's sending information to you.

Okay.

Yeah.

I, I honestly, I'm not as versed in Alexa as you are. You've got it everywhere. I don't. Um, but it should be pretty easy to do that kind of thing because it does have, I mean, it is connected to the Wi-Fi. Connected to Wi-Fi.

I mean, I have it connected to Wi-Fi. Then you should be able to connect it to, I mean, like, in theory, you should, and like, if you had like a Bluetooth speaker, I do, then you, you ought to be able to go into your Alexa device or Alexa app.

Okay.

and pair it, okay, to a legit speaker, okay, and be able to play good sounding music out of it.

Interesting. That— no, that's, that's a very interesting idea. I need to try that.

The only downside to it would be, um, because if you ask it a question and the answer is going to come out through the Bluetooth speaker, right?

If it—

yeah, so it could be really loud.

Yeah, I mean, I guess it all depends on how you have that kind of—

But if you just have the Bluetooth speaker turned off, then it should come out through the normal native speaker.

As long as it— yeah, as long as the— yeah, that makes sense. So, um, here's, here's one of the reasons that I was frustrated with the fact that it did not include the dimming function. You're talking about price point earlier.

For sure.

So This thing is currently on sale at Amazon, but its regular price is $80.

Okay.

And I'm going, for $80, give me a dimming function.

Yeah. So here's my question.

I—

because I've never— I've never— what was that?

Oh, no worries. It's just my chair.

Just your chair falling apart?

You've sat in this chair before.

Okay. Yeah, I understand. I hope you just You know, be still, Kevin.

So, so far so good.

Okay.

Don't make, don't make me laugh. Don't make me laugh.

I don't— what is, what is the regular price point, like, on a regular motion detector switch?

I, honestly, I don't know. And, and I'll say this.

We should be able to find that out.

It's, it's $41.50 right now. So it's, it's— Oh, the—

it's on sale.

It's almost $50 off right now. So, so if I go to Lutron, right? Lutron is— or no, what's, uh, what's another one? Um, smart light switch, um, motion sensor. Okay, let's just see what I got. I mean, okay, so some of these— so Casa actually has one.

Uh-huh.

Uh, it's a light switch. Uh, it's $35. Wi-Fi smart motion activated dimmer light switch.

What?

Yeah.

Concept for the win.

Yeah, it actually says dimmer on this. Um, so this is at Best Buy. Um, smart Wi-Fi dimmer switch, motion activated. Yep. $35.

So here, here's my problem with the motion activated is there's only certain places in my house where that, like, because in a bedroom to me, That would be terrible.

Sure.

I mean, like, in our family, like, I typically go to bed later than my wife.

Yep.

If I walk into the bedroom—

Yep.

And the motion detector turns the lights on—

That's no—

I'm in trouble.

Yeah, of course.

You know, and so, like, that's no good.

No, it needs to— and you can turn that off, by the way.

Right.

You can toggle that function on and off in the app. So if you don't want it to, to turn on the mo— by motion sensing, you don't have to. Just leave that toggle off.

Um, now again, okay, just, just FYI, so just a standard, uh, 2-amp, uh, motion sensor light switch from Lutron. This is not a smart one, right? But just a regular motion sensor light switch. Yeah, $20. Okay, $19.97. Now this is, now this is at Lowe's.

Uh, sure. Now, you know, you're, you got to understand, you're getting an Alexa device with this too, right? Okay, fair. I mean Your, your, uh, your cheapest Alexa devices are pretty inexpensive, but $20 to $30, right?

Yeah.

For an Alexa device. So we're probably still in the ballpark at, at, but at $80.

Right.

If you, if you had to pay full price for that thing, um.

I'm trying to see if they have the smart one.

Yeah.

That Lutron makes.

So my, my thought is to, to, for $80, obviously it's available as a dimmer. I mean, you could do it.

Sure.

Through Kasa. Uh, that's K-A-S-A, by the way, um, if anybody's looking. Um, it— I mean, that's $35. So now hear me, I am not disappointed in the product overall. I actually am very happy with the way it functions, its ability to just connect with you know, my Ecobee app. I don't have to have another app on my phone. Um, it's all right there. And the Alexa function, pretty cool. Its motion sensing capabilities, very good.

When I walk—

as soon as I walk into the room, light comes on. Um, I'm happy with it.

Right.

I just don't understand why there's not a dimmer function.

Yeah.

That's the only thing that is a little bit shocking to me. You take that out, like if it added that dimmer function or if dimming was never an option, I would be totally happy with it.

So here's, here's what I'm finding so far is it doesn't look like there is, I mean, at least I'm looking at some of the other brands that Lowe's has and I probably need to look over at Home Depot as well.

Yeah.

I'm not seeing a smart one that has motion detector except For Eaton.

Okay.

Um, Eaton has, but this isn't really like a smart one. It's a Z-Wave. Oh.

Which is. That's its only option?

Yes.

Yeah.

And okay. Eaton's Z-Wave single pole smart occupancy motion sensor.

Uh huh.

Hundred and twenty two dollars.

Oh wow.

So like, and that's like the only smart option now. LeGrand. has like their upper echelon, like fancy light switch, and that one's $50. Um, but that's just because it's like a, uh, architectural light switch.

Sure.

I mean, and it has some motion detecting capabilities. All the rest, like Lutron's most expensive one on here, and I can't tell if that one has any sort of smart— it doesn't look like that was a smart kit. It's like $37.

Okay, well, okay, so, so something to, to kind of keep in mind here, um, this one, the, the Ecobee, um, it works with HomeKit, it works with Alexa obviously, right? It works with Google Play, it works with, uh, SmartThings. Um, and like, for example, the, the other one we were talking about, the Kasa, it's a— it works with Alexa, it works with, um, Google and it works with SmartThings. Um, so it doesn't work with HomeKit. So if you're using HomeKit, uh, Apple's version, which I know most people don't, but if you are, um, that could play into why you purchase one over the other.

Yeah, for sure. That Kasa one you mentioned though, I'm interested in that one. Yeah, that was kind of cool. So like, here's why. Like, I don't know why, but my wife and children are perfectly comfortable doing pretty much everything in the dark. Oh, like I'm walking, like they'll, they'll be sitting at the dining, like the dining room table.

Uh-huh.

Having breakfast in the dark.

Why exactly?

And, and like, I will walk into the room and I'll turn the light on. They're like, oh, that's much better. And I'm like, what?

Yes, you, you could have done that as easily as I did. It's not a big deal.

But like, if I just had something that was like motion detecting, it would just turn it on for them when they walk in the they're— they would probably be so much happier people.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, not mole people.

Yeah. Well, so anyway, that's the review. I mean, I, I don't think there's anything else really to discuss with it. Um, I, I would honestly— I would buy another one.

Yeah, I, I think there's lots of good practical applications for this switch.

Absolutely. I, I would buy another one. I would recommend it to someone. I would probably say, look, if you want it to dim don't buy it.

Yeah.

But if you don't need a dimmer function, it's a really, really cool option.

Yeah.

You know, so the—

I, I'm really interested to hear whether or not you can pair it Bluetooth to a speaker. Yeah, I'll try that. Here's the only downside to that.

Okay.

That, and like you mentioned, I have Alexas all over my house. And the reason that we do is because we like, or I, it's probably just me, but I, I like being able to play music throughout the whole house.

Sure.

And Alexa devices give me that capability on the nicer Alexas, right? So unless you're doing a hardwire out of the Alexas into a bigger speaker, if you pair one to a Bluetooth device, it is then unavailable for multi-room streaming.

Oh, interesting.

So, so if you're, if you're, you know, sending it Bluetooth like a really nice speaker, that system is now unavailable to stream music throughout the rest of the Alexa devices.

Okay.

Um, for whatever reason it works that way.

Interesting.

I mean, it makes sense. It takes— I mean, like, it's probably taking up a lot of bandwidth to go from one device to another, probably, in order to sync it up with other devices. It probably needs as little interference as possible.

You would probably get delays, and then they'd go, why, why is this— Yeah.

And I mean, like, it honestly these days with— because we have generations of products now Yeah, it struggles now.

Sure.

Because we have some devices that are older than other ones, and I don't know all the reasons, but like sometimes it just struggles.

Yeah.

Um, it's not perfect. It's not great. It's not as— I would say it's not as efficient as those Sonos products that I've, I've never seen those have any problem, you know, streaming across rooms and different things like that. This one, you know, like when it works, it works great. Sometimes it just, you know, yeah, has a little struggle.

Cool. So Well, man, that's it. Um, I got anything else?

That's it, man.

Okay. Well, uh, thank you guys for, uh, downloading today's episode. We are very appreciative. Look, we're excited about 2022. Thanks for hanging with us.

Yeah. Happy New Year, y'all.

Happy New Year. We got a lot in the tank, so stick with us. Subscribe if you haven't. Do all the things. And until next time, we'll seal it. See ya.