That Time We Talked about Caseta by Lutron Smart Lighting

This is episode number 60 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're 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 glad that you could join us. Today, happy Halloween, everybody.

That's right. It is that time of year.

Yep.

Halloween.

It's getting good and scary around here, man.

I don't know about you, but like around our house, we've got some people that really decorate. Like, like, I'm telling you, full out graveyard in their house, skeletons that they move at different times of, of the week and like put 'em into different positions and doing different things. And, um, you know, sometimes they'll be playing sports or maybe they'll be doing, you know, something scary or something.

But yeah.

The skeletons move around the yard. They do.

Do they have like any swinging banshees going through the trees or anything like that?

I, I promise you, if you give them an idea, they will do it.

Yeah.

It's, it's pretty insane. But man, yeah.

Um, do your kids wanna go trick-or-treating at that house?

Uh, most people do. My kids are scared of that house.

They're scared of that house?

Yes. They're scared of that house. Uh, they're Like, we don't want to go over there, Daddy. Okay, you don't have to go over there.

What if, what if you told them like their favorite candy was there?

Would they— I don't think it would matter.

No?

I don't think it would matter.

They would just send you?

I don't think my kids have a favorite candy. They get candy so, so little that it's like, candy, I don't care.

Whatever it is, just give it to me.

Yeah, I'm like, you do realize that's just disgusting, right?

Yeah.

They don't care.

Dude, there is some candy that's just gross.

It is. It is. And there's some candy that I think a lot of people like that I'm just like, why? Cotton candy is one of those things for me.

Dude, for me it's Twizzlers.

Oh, I hate Twizzlers.

I don't get it.

They don't taste like anything.

I want to eat a candle. That's what I think it is.

That's disgusting.

Yeah, let's just—

Now, Sour Punch Straws, I'm all over those.

Never had that.

They're good.

So, but like, I've never really been into like the actual like sugar candy.

Okay.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like, Jolly Ranchers do nothing for me.

Yeah.

I mean, they're just like— I mean, like, I get the appeal. It's just not for me.

Sure.

I mean, like, give me chocolate, cool. I'm down with chocolate. Something with nuts in it, yeah. Coconut, yes.

Speaking of nuts, uh-huh, uh, we can go a lot of places with that, but we're not going to. Here's the place I wanna go with it. I don't like candy corn either, for the same reason. Like, it's just wax and disgusting to me. I hate it. However, I really like Paydays.

Paydays.

Okay, now these are—

The peanut candy bar?

Yes.

Okay.

You would think these are very far apart from each other. However, if you take a bag of candy corn, right, and insert a bag of peanuts, uh-huh, and you shake it up, yes, and you just grab peanuts and, and candy corn, shove them in your mouth, tastes like a Payday.

Oh.

I know, weirdest thing ever.

And I feel like a particular kind of peanut, we're talking like honey roasted or salted or just regular salted Salted peanuts.

Okay. And I'm not a fan of candy corn. I love it that way, though.

Nice.

I know, it's really weird. You just insert peanuts. Fantastic.

I tell you the weird one that I've never tried, but I always used to— I grew up watching my dad do this, and like, even when I was a kid, I was just like, that's weird. But he used to take salted peanuts and put them in his Dr Pepper.

Oh, you know what? I know other people that do that as well.

I don't get it.

I don't either. I, of course, I've never done it, so I, I don't know.

Well, it just seems like it's an odd deli— like, one, it seems like it would be really hard to like get them in there, and then two, like, seems like it would be just as difficult to get them back out. Yeah, I don't know what they're adding to the drink or adding to the peanut.

Yeah, and especially like if that was a long time ago, it was before they had the like the wide mouth cans, you know what I'm talking about?

And if I really wanted to do that, I can make that happen in my mouth.

Yeah, I guess that's true. I guess that's true. So yeah, I don't know. My, my kids really like, um, they like suckers, they like gummies, they like— like Maddie really loves chocolate, but okay, my son, yeah, he doesn't care about chocolate.

Really?

He does not like chocolate. Wow.

More for you.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yep.

I can gorge myself on some peanut butter cups.

Me too. The other thing is—

It's pretty much my only weakness.

Peanut butter in general, for me.

Oh yeah?

Yeah. I love peanut butter. Have you ever put peanut butter on an Oreo? No.

I mean, I'd be willing to try it.

I just haven't done it. You need to make it happen.

So I grew up with the Nilla wafers and peanut butter.

Oh yeah.

That was kind of like the go-to.

Oh yeah.

sweet snack.

Yeah.

Which, I mean, it's not too— but that's, that's kind of me. I'm not like a super sweet kind of person. That's as good as it gets for me.

I love Halloween.

I just want to put some toasted coconut on that.

Yeah, then I'm good. Toasted coconut.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. I, I mean, I'm, I'm not a big fan of, of the holiday over overall, kind of in general. Okay. My favorite holiday. I much prefer Thanksgiving, Christmas to Halloween. That being said, who doesn't like free candy?

Right.

I mean, seriously.

I mean, yeah, if I had to rank them between Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween, it's going to be at the bottom of the list.

Sure.

It's still a lot of fun.

A lot of fun.

We really enjoy doing family-themed costumes. We didn't get to do it this year, but in years past, we've done several.

Well, you and Brandy alone did—

We did a couple costume.

Yes, a couple's costume, but the full family?

Yeah.

Yeah, that, we've not done that yet.

That's big fun. I'm sure it is. Like if you just decide to just deep dive on it.

Yeah.

So I think the best one we ever did was like Alice in Wonderland.

Oh, nice.

So, and that was epic.

Who was the cat?

Who was the cat? We didn't have a Cheshire Cat.

Oh.

Yeah.

Okay.

We did, so I was the March Hare.

Oh.

And Brandy was the Mad Hatter.

Okay, okay.

And then at the time our youngest, No, hang on. Yeah, our youngest was the Dormouse.

Okay.

And our son was the White Rabbit.

Nice.

And then our eldest was Alice.

Okay, that sounds fun.

Yeah.

What's your favorite costume you ever did?

My favorite costume?

Growing up.

Ooh.

Or maybe, or maybe, I mean, just favorite costume ever.

So when I was, when I was in elementary school, I went as Teen Wolf.

Teen Wolf?

Yes.

Nice.

And my mom actually got me an airbrushed t-shirt, which, you know, that was such a huge thing back then.

Yes, it was.

There was like whole stores just to go in and get a t-shirt airbrushed. So she got me an airbrushed t-shirt, a white t-shirt that said Teen Wolf.

Nice.

And we did like all my face makeup and we slicked my hair back. And yeah, I had like a— put like a dog snarling dog nose on my face.

Okay.

And like, uh, I put, uh, we, we put hair on my arms, which, man, I probably still need to do today. I can't grow hair, like, to save my life.

The hairless wonder.

I am, man.

That's funny. Well, my favorite costume growing up was Richie Rich.

Ooh.

Yeah.

Nice.

I was Richie Rich when I was probably 6 or 7.

Okay.

Yeah.

That was when like the cartoon was really big, right?

Yes, it was.

Yeah, I remember that.

Yeah.

So, so, man, what was the name of his robot? Do you remember?

I don't remember.

He had a robot though, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was like his personal assistant or something.

Oh yeah, well, he was super rich, man.

Yeah.

He was richy rich.

Who's richy?

Yeah.

The richest of riches.

That one. And, uh, I guess the other one that I really, really enjoyed, um, we did a couple's deal as well, and I was Mr. Clean.

Okay.

That was fun.

Nice. Yeah.

My wife was, uh, she, she, she was the, she was the wife that was, you know, she had like the mop and the other thing. She was the one at home, you know.

The actual clean.

Yeah. In, in the commercials, there's always the wife who's like, I sure am glad Mr. Clean's around. You know, she was that, she was that person. Yeah. That was Mr. Clean.

So she really had to pretend. Oh yeah.

Yeah. But anyway, that was fun. Oh man, man, uh, we got a good episode tonight.

We do. Yeah, we're gonna be, we're gonna be digging into some smart switches.

That's right.

So, uh, and this is, this is, this is sort of a unique situation in that I'm, I'm bringing, I'm bringing the technology tonight.

That, that's not normally the way this happens.

Yeah, usually you, you go get it or you, you research it and find out about it. Um, but this time it was, it was me.

It was kind of nice not doing anything for a change.

Oh, but so yeah, this was, this was, uh, honestly just a byproduct of all the renovations we've been doing in the house. And it was because we redid all the lighting in several parts of the house. Um, I wanted to go ahead and re-update some of the switches.

Yeah.

Um, and honestly, some of the wiring in my house was just not any good. And so it just needed to be updated. Yeah, and since we had all the ceilings off, it was a good opportunity to do some of that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I mean, it's one of the things whenever you're doing any type of remodel, one of the smartest things to kind of think of is like, what do I really want here, right? Because now's the time to do it. I mean, whenever we did a major remodel, um, on our, like, our living room area in our previous house, and one of the things that I always wanted was I wanted a pre-wired, uh, living room for sound.

Okay. Yeah.

And so we, we put in all of the, uh, the pre-wiring for all of the speakers. And so super clean look.

Yeah.

Because there was no wires anywhere because it was all running through the walls. We used banana plugs, you know, uh, banana plug outlets. So we just unplugged those things when we left and the, the new, the new buyers, they, all they had to do is plug their new stuff in.

Yeah.

And so, you know, that kind of stuff, just kind of thing. I mean, it may have cost us a little bit more money, but in the grand scheme of things, not only was it a lot less expensive than doing it afterward, just the ease of being able to do it right then.

Yeah.

So yeah, I mean, you got, you got ceilings down, you got exterior— I mean, interior walls exposed. Think about this stuff.

Yeah. Well, and I'm glad you mentioned that because that was actually something I thought about doing with, with our downstairs area because that's really like our main like TV area. And I love having surround sound, but Uh, I don't know if you noticed when you, when you came in, but, uh, you know, we reoriented the whole room.

Yeah.

Where the, like, the TV was and the sound's coming from. And, uh, one of the reasons I didn't, uh, wire it for sound like that is I didn't want to lock myself into, like, one position where we couldn't, you know, adjust things if we wanted to. Um, and I was in, in the back of my brain, I was like, it'd be really nice to have it hardwired in. but I know I can just do this wirelessly now.

Sure.

And I don't— I really wanna talk to somebody that's had that experience with the wireless surround sound speakers and see if they've had a good experience with it.

Yeah, well, I actually have one.

Oh, do you?

Our subwoofer is wireless.

Okay.

Kind of, kind of.

What do you mean? It still has to be plugged in the wall.

Yeah, it's a powered sub and the device is basically, it's a Bluetooth, uh, signal. And so, um, so yeah, it, it is wireless, so to speak, but it's perfect.

Yeah, it performs well.

I am— I was really surprised at how well it performs.

Yeah.

And I'm sure they're just gonna get better and better and better.

Yeah, I really need to do some research on it because, I mean, we have a system that's capable of, uh, what is it, like 6.2?

Yeah. something like that. Probably 7.2.

7.2, that's what it is.

Yeah.

Um, and so I, I'd like to have that, but I mean, like, 7.2 is honestly a little overkill. But yeah, um, I like having the option.

It's fun.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, nobody needs— I don't think anybody, especially in the size of our space, needs 2 subwoofers.

Yeah, you'd be surprised.

Um, but yeah, anyway, so one, one of the things that we did is we, we redid all the lighting in the downstairs living room. And then because of some unforeseen circumstances upstairs, I ended up installing some new lighting upstairs that really turned what my wife deemed as a tragic situation into something kind of fun, actually.

Yeah, it looks great.

So, and if you guys go back and listen to the episode with Affordable Air with Jehu and JoJo, you'll hear him talk about some of the stuff that he had to do on my house. And part of that was they were, we had to redo all the ductwork because of, you know, previous issues. But because of that, there was ductwork exposed in my upstairs living room, and we had to figure out a way to cover it so it's just not like this ugly silver tunnels going through our living room. So we framed it out and covered it with tongue and groove, which actually turned out pretty neat.

Yeah.

And then hardwired it with some LED lighting underneath it. kind of create some reading spaces and some, just some additional lighting for, for a space honestly that didn't have great lighting before. Um, and that's actually what was the catalyst for doing this whole project. Uh, so we ended up with a whole new smart lighting system. And so the, the, what we're gonna dig into a little bit tonight is the, uh, let me, where is it? The, uh, the Lutron Caseta, uh, wireless system. Um, and these are essentially smart light switches for your home. They have a whole suite of products that work all together to change the way that you interact with your lighting in your home.

Mm-hmm.

For several reasons, this ended up being the best option for us. It may not be the best option for everybody. Honestly, one of the biggest considerations was whether or not you had to have that additional wire Okay. In the wall. I mean, I think you mentioned that back on our thermostat episode. Yeah, you had to run an additional— was it like a—

Yeah, I had to go up into the attic and open up the air conditioning system and basically jump a wire from one place to the other. It— that sounds really horrible because jumping wiring is not a good thing to do, right, typically, but Basically, you're just adding a wire. I think it's called a C-wire in the thermostat that is important for that system. If it's anything like that, it's just an extra wire.

I think that's an important tip for everybody to realize. If you're going to be converting your house to some of these smart objects, some of them require wires beyond black, white, and ground.

Yeah.

Um, but black, white, and ground is typically what you use to run your power outlets, your switches, all that. And it's just traditional. I think what we had was 14-gauge wire for these lights. Um, and, uh, all of them, all the new lights that we installed except for 3, are all LEDs.

Sure.

Uh, and so they're, you know, low voltage, uh, and don't require You know, they don't, they don't need big gauge wiring in order to operate.

Right.

Um, and so it was, but, and they were, this, the switches themselves were super easy to install. They basically installed just like a regular switch.

Yeah.

And so like, if you have a home with older wiring, it's just something to pay attention to because it's not pronounced in a lot of the packaging, um, that you're gonna need that.

Right. The, the, you need the switch.

That you need that additional wire.

Oh, the additional wire.

Yeah. It's not, you, you really kind of have to dig down into some of the how-tos, some of the manuals, some of the, uh, you know, some of the, some, just some of the literature on their websites, honestly. I mean, it's just not, it's not pronounced on the packaging.

Right.

Which, I mean, I, I don't blame them. It's not something like attractive that you wanna put on the packaging.

What's, what's the process of making sure that you have the right wiring?

Really, you just need to open up your switch, which again, if you're not experienced with doing, you know, messing with electricity in your house, don't open the switch.

Don't do it.

Just don't do it. You know, call an electrician, uh, you know, or someone who's licensed in your area to actually deal with these kinds of things. If you don't have experience with electricity, I mean, you can kill yourself.

Absolutely.

So, you know, so, you know, big disclaimer, if you're going to be messing with this kind of stuff, you know, make sure you know where your breakers are. Make sure you know where those breakers go and what they're attached to and and where all your switches are and where your plugs are and what those plugs and switches and which, you know, breaker they go to. Because you can be in one room and have the switch turned off at the breaker, but all the outlets could still be on, right? You know, you just, you know, unless you're really familiar with that stuff, you know, don't mess with it.

Yeah. Um, but, but if you don't, let's say you don't have the extra wire, right? What do you have to do in that case?

I don't know, because I mean, I was in that situation where I didn't have the extra wire. And so I was having to figure out, you know, how, how could I do this? without basically rewiring my whole house. And the wires in my house are not easy to get to. I mean, a lot of people's wires run through the attic.

Sure.

I don't have an attic.

Right.

And so I don't have the ability to open ceilings and get behind those walls. I have that ability in some instances now just because of some of the remodeling we've done. But for the most part, the electricity in my house, good luck. It's just not accessible.

Right.

And so I was kind of, I was in kind of a pinch To go, I'm, I'm gonna have to deal with what I have and make it work. Well, this system, um, for, and for this one reason alone, there are other systems that don't require, um, that don't require this. So here, here's basically what it comes down to. Um, if you want, there are, there are existing systems out there that you can install in the wall that don't require a hub. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Typically those are gonna be the ones that require the extra wire.

Oh, okay.

Um, and, and so like they just, they are their own broadcast.

Mm-hmm.

And I, that may be what that extra wire's for.

I don't know.

Sure. You know, I'm not an, I'm not an electronics guy or anything like that. I just know, I just, I kind of picked up on the pattern that the ones that don't have a hub, they have the extra wire.

Okay.

And they don't require the hub. And then those, those typically have an app and they can connect to your Wi-Fi. And so, and that's, that's how they get connected. This system doesn't require a hub, it just adds additional features with the hub.

Okay.

So, so you can buy this system— or not this system, you can buy these switches and have them fully functional without the hub and without the app.

Okay.

But you can't use the app and you can't use, uh, voice command without the hub.

Okay, so, so that's kind of just a control center.

Yeah, yeah, it just, it just adds additional features to that light switch.

So, so just like you would use any regular dimmer, um, on your house, a switch that turns on, turns off your lights, you can use this switch and it's going to give you the ability to do a few things.

Yes.

But Well, and one of the things it gives you the ability to do, if I understand correctly, is give you remote access to your Switch, because does it not come— it comes with a remote, right? Right. Yeah. So there are some features that just having the Switch gives you, but—

And I don't know what the distinction is here, but they're very adamant about it not being a remote, it's a Pico.

Okay.

And I don't know what the difference is between that. To me, it's a little tiny remote control.

Yeah, it's a remote. So you can call it whatever you want to, at the end of the day, It's a remote. And so the hub, or I think it's actually called a Smart Bridge.

Yes.

So, so that—

Which again, like, they're using nomenclature that, like, who cares? It's a hub.

It's a hub.

Yeah.

Um, but it basically gives you the ability to now use it as a smart device.

Yes.

Whereas before it's just a device.

Yes.

Just like any dimmer, any switch that has, you know, if you've got a fan that's got a remote with it, anything like that, it's fine, but it doesn't give you access through an app or remotely, those sorts of things.

Correct, except for the Pico still works with it.

Okay, yeah.

So regardless of whether it has the smart bridge/hub, whatever, the Pico still works with it, which is really cool because they actually make wall plates for the Picos, um, so you can install them and they look— I mean, they look almost identical to the actual switch. They just don't require any wiring.

Okay.

You know, Occasionally have to put those little goofy batteries in them if they wear down, or you can just throw it away and buy a new one, which kind of expensive, but yeah, you could do it. Don't do that. Yeah, because you can— I mean, and you can, you can pair as many of those Picos to that one switch as you want.

Oh, okay.

Um, I, I mean, I didn't read anywhere that it had any sort of limit. I don't know why you would need more than 2.

I want 49.

Yeah, I mean, I guess in theory you could do it.

Don't do that.

But yeah, because it's a real simple pairing.

Okay.

Uh, yeah, I mean, it took me 5 minutes to do it. There's no big deal. And the switch itself was really easy to install as well. I mean, I basically took the old one out after I had turned the breaker off.

Yes.

Right. And safely removed the switch. Then I just basically wired the new one in and it just went right in. No big deal.

Are they the size of a regular— what you would call a dimmer switch?

Yes. Because They're almost identical, same size.

Yeah, because some of these dimmer switches, depending on how old your, your house is and what kind of electrical boxes they put in, those sorts of things.

Yeah.

Sometimes they get kind of tight.

Yeah.

In there. But they're made to go in there.

Yes, they are. And then like mine fit fine. Okay. It was no big deal.

Yeah.

So, and I think one of the things that's, that's good to point out is they have a whole suite of different switches.

Okay.

Now the ones I, ones I happen to get are dimmers. Um, but they do make fan switches. They do make light switches. They just make them that are just on and off. Um, but the thing that really sold me on this, on this set of products was I was having a real difficult time upstairs with, uh, this, you know, ductwork framing out that I would— I wanted to put lights underneath it and I, uh, I wanted to put these LEDs. And the reason I wanted to put the LEDs is because I had very little headroom in order to install lights. And so I didn't have room for cans and I didn't want anything hanging down because I was gonna lose more space that way. And so the LEDs just provided this really great option cuz they're

pretty much flat.

Yeah.

Um, and so I put in 4-inch, 4 4-inch LEDs underneath this thing. Um, and I, I think your comment when you saw it was like, man, that's a lot of light.

It's a lot of light for, I mean, not a lot of lights. Right. Uh, for the number of bulbs that are there.

Yeah. And Uh, I was having this— I don't know why.

I'd—

my plan was I was going to go ahead and put in a traditional switch, um, and then later upgrade to some smart devices or smart switches. I just wanted to make sure I could get it wired in properly. And for whatever reason, man, the switch kept tripping the breaker.

Huh.

It would turn the lights on just fine, but whenever I turned it off, it would trip the breaker. And I was like, this is just annoying. And, and I was like, you know what? I don't need a switch. What I— these are just lights. I can wire them together as if they were a lamp and just plug them into the wall.

Okay.

And I was like, but I'd really like to have dimming capabilities. Well, the, uh, the Caseta Suite is really like the only one out there that has a smart plug option that offers dimming capabilities.

Interesting.

On their devices. And so it's basically just a little wall plug. You plug it into an existing outlet and then it has 2 plugs on either side of it. So you can plug up to 2 lamps into it. And then you have remote control of that lamp and/or voice and app control if you have the Smart Bridge.

Okay.

Of that lamp.

Wow.

And so, you know, it, it, it actually negates needing like, like the Philips Hue system. You don't need smart light bulbs. And that was the other thing is this is one of the, one of the few products that works with all the different types of, types of dimmable light bulbs.

Okay.

So, you know, CFLs and halogens and, um, LEDs, and it's just got to fit the housing, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and so like if it's a dimmable bulb, whatever kind it is, it'll work with this switch or plug adapter. Um, and, and so it solved that problem for me. Um, and the, the wall plate itself that you plug into the outlet, it has all the buttons on it just like a light switch— on, off, fade up, fade, fade down— which is not terribly convenient.

Yeah, because typically where it's plugged in—

Yeah, typically a wall plug is going to be down. Sure. So you're gonna have to bend over to hit it, but each of their smart plugs comes with a Pico remote. And so, you know, for us, we just, you know, one, you can pull it off the wall, but we're gonna, we're gonna set it in with our bank of switches. And so it's basically gonna be a wall switch just like all the rest of them. Um, so it gave us a lot. It really opened up a lot of options for us.

Yeah, the flexibility is really huge.

Yes. So, and like, now we don't— we never use the wall plate.

Right.

I mean, because it's down behind stuff, it's not convenient. It's not convenient, but the functionality is super convenient. Yeah. And the, the Pico is really, really convenient.

And if for some reason you can't find the Pico, yeah, you can, you can use that, use the voice command, use the app, all that stuff. Yeah.

So, and it was, um, it was one of the, uh, one of the few that worked with pretty much every platform out there.

Okay.

The big ones being Alexa, Google, HomeKit. I'm trying to think if there's another big one that I'm missing.

I mean, those are the primary ones. There's probably some others that it uses, but yeah, Alexa, HomeKit, and Google Assistant are the primary ones.

Right. You know, it's, it's, it has been sort of revolutionary in, in just, you know, you don't really realize how much you can change a room by adding that dimming effect to a bank of lights.

Sure.

Um, and like in particular downstairs, like I said, was kind of our TV area. You know, it's really nice to, you know, because before, and this is honestly part of the big reason we even started the whole remodel project, is we had, uh, fluorescent lighting, like office-style fluorescent lighting in those old-style, uh, built-in light cabinets.

Yeah.

In the ceiling.

Yes.

That are just awful.

That, man, they're harsh. They're harsh.

And so it was, it was like the lights are either on or they're off.

Right.

Um, but now we can, you know, if we're watching TV, we can dim the lights a little bit and—

Yes.

And, and, you know, change the mood of the room a little bit more. Um, so it's, it's, it's been a huge upgrade for us. And then, you know, not only just having the functionality in the house with the Pico remote, the voice control, app control from our smart devices. And by the way, we can do that, you know, we're not just limited to our Apple devices because our kids use Amazon devices like the Kindles and things like that.

Yeah.

And so we have a few of those and we can install those apps on those.

Uh, for—

so if we wanted to upgrade any of the kids' rooms to smart switches, we can give them an app, allows them to control the lights in the room, all that kind of stuff.

Nice.

Um, and so, and it's— that's part of what's nice about having a smart bridge like that is you can, you can bring in multiple sources to control that whole system. And I think you said you were reading like it can integrate with like the Ecobee. Yeah, it can integrate with all kinds of the IFTTT I-T-T. Yeah. Is that, is that, did I say that right?

Yeah.

I always get that wrong.

Yep. Um, that, that's the if then, if this, then that.

Yeah.

And, and there's other things. Um, you know, there, there's, you mentioned fans. There's also shades, you know, right. You know, automatic raising and lowering shades. Um, there's other things like Xfinity Home. AT&T has their own. Uh, there's a lot of different platforms that basically if you're using, uh, a well-known platform, this works with it somehow. And so one of the things that I, that I, we were talking about this earlier that I really liked was that, you know, sometimes you walk into your house and it, you know, it's a dark house and it's kind of nice to not have to go searching for the light switch, even though it's kind of muscle memory almost, you know where that light switch is.

Yeah.

But I mean, you never know. I mean, a lot of times I'm walking in and I've got backpacks and all kinds of stuff in my hands and, you know, trying to make sure the dog doesn't run out of the house, all this kind of stuff all at once. But we've mentioned on this, uh, podcast multiple times, uh, that I have smart locks at my home.

Right.

And we've actually reviewed those as well. And with this, I can set an automation for my front door to unlock and the lights to come on.

Right.

And it just does it.

Yeah.

Uh, if I want to. So which—

that's the beauty of the, the IFTTT app because like you could just automatically integrate that and be like, you know, if front door unlocks, turn these lights on.

Exactly. And, and the other thing that I think is probably, uh, even a little more slick than that even is that my locks have an automation to run that if at a certain time uh, you know, certain time of night they're unlocked. Yeah, they lock themselves. I could also make it to where if my lights are on, it turns the lights off.

Yep.

So I mean, the, the functionality— what, once you integrate that hub? Yeah, then the— it just opens up a whole new world of possibilities with, with your lighting. You know, a lot of people are probably out there going, I, I mean Really, I don't, I don't know that I'd ever use that, right? I, I think the reason you would never use that is because you've never had the opportunity, right? You— I've only ever been able to turn the light on, turn the light off. Yeah. And once you start using, uh, smart devices, it's amazing how often you're— you use that and go, man, that's really handy.

Yeah, it's one of those you just, you really don't understand the— all the benefits until you like start digging into it and actually use it.

Right. I would agree with that.

It's— this one in particular, I think, is just— it's just been a good one for us. It's really changed the look of the house. Uh, you know, we, we put in new lighting as well, so that helps. And we wanted to take full advantage of what those lights could do. Yeah. Uh, which you can't do— and I think I was even showing you earlier tonight, we have one that we haven't upgraded yet. And it's just not as functional as satellites. You know, it goes on, it goes off.

Right.

And it's just meh.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah, and all of a sudden you're like, I wish that was a little bit smarter.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you know, I think that again, like I was saying, once you start getting into these things, the realm of possibilities open up in really big ways. And the thing I really liked about these honestly was, like I said, The, the light output was huge.

Yeah.

And they're small bulbs. Yeah. These, these are not things that you walk in and you're like, oh, there's a light. Yeah. It's not a massive fixture. It's just a can light basically, but they're small.

And, and the thing is, well, and just so everybody knows, I mean, like what we're talking about, 'cause I think traditionally in a home, your, your, your canister lightings are gonna be like 6 inches, right? These are all 4-inch lights.

Yeah.

Um, which are not, I mean, like low profile.

Sure.

Like they don't, they don't look real big 'cause they're not real big.

They're not.

Um, and when I say like, and this is just the size of the can, that's not the size of the lights.

Right.

The lights are gonna be smaller than 4 inches.

Yeah. They're closer to probably like 2 inches. 2 inches.

Yeah. Um, and, but, but sorry, to your, to your point. Yeah. They're, they're small.

They're small, but they put out a lot of light.

Yeah.

And, and the other thing is, you know, I, I've heard you, Craig, say the one thing that you don't touch is electricity. Yeah, like it's not really something you're interested in messing with.

Not typically, no.

Yeah, but this was—

this was easy.

It was easy, it was doable. And again, don't, don't hear us say go out and anybody can do it. I would not say that anybody can do this, uh, but if you're willing to do the research— and, and one of the things I love is on their website, um, they've got all of the instructions on how to install these things.

Oh yeah, they have really helpful videos. Yeah, not just, not just for how to install the switches, but also like how to set up the Smart Bridge, how to install the app, how to use the app. I mean, they've really done a good job on putting together not just like a good product, but like a good communicated product.

Yeah.

Um, and, and as far as like messing with the electricity, uh, you know, this was, you know, Honestly, we're kind of at a point with our project that I'm, I'm having to do all the stuff that's left over, right? I mean, we're just, you know, the, the budget, the coffers are empty as far as getting other people to do these, these things. And honestly, most of the things that we have left to do are things that I, I kind of enjoy, yeah, taking care of. I, I was showing you like the countertop I made tonight for the bathroom, which is really slick, by the way. Thank you.

Um, but, uh, I mean, there's polyurethane on it, so it literally is kind of slick.

It is.

Yeah.

But, uh, I literally went and got a, uh, a book, uh, and it's, it's an old book on how to, you know, old school ways of wiring switches and plugs. Yeah, because my house is old.

Sure.

And I knew that this, you know, and not much has changed. Yeah, there's some things that have changed.

Yeah, well, but, but it's still sending signal from point A to point B, right?

So I mean, like, before I touched anything I read that thing.

Yeah.

And I looked at it and I read the diagrams and I made sure that what I was looking at looked like what was going on in the book. Um, 'cause I, like, like you said, I don't mess around with this kind of stuff. I, I take it very, very seriously.

Yeah.

Um, and I, you know, uh, don't enjoy being shocked. I like breathing.

Yes.

It's one of my favorite things.

Yes.

Um, so, and I want to continue to do that, so I don't mess around with electricity.

No. You know, no, I, you know, my, my brother-in-law's an electrician and, uh, when the first, first house we owned had all 2-prong outlets all over the house. And so I wanted them switched out to be functional, you know?

Yeah.

And, uh, and, you know, I was over there making sure the breakers were off and he was showing me exactly how to do it. And so I'd put them in, no problem. And, uh, walk into one of the rooms, I'm like, hey, uh, do you want me to go turn the breaker off? He's like, nah, I got this. And the dude was just wiring them up. Yeah. With a breaker on. And, but, but he's an electrician, he knows what he's doing and he's comfortable. He's done it, you know, thousands of times.

Sure.

Um, I, and, and if it's funny, cause he was like, yeah, I, not only do I know what I'm doing, I know what it feels like whenever I don't do it correctly. And I'm willing to take the risk at the moment. He said, but don't ever do this. Yeah. So, um, anyway, yeah, don't, don't mess around with it. Uh, it, it, it's literally not worth it if you don't know what you're doing. And, and honestly, these things are so easy to do, to have someone come in and do it, um, probably is not going to be all that expensive, um, to, to pay someone to come do it. Yeah.

I mean, like, if you're, if you're at a point where you're like, you know what, I'm going to do every single switch in my house.

Well, yeah.

You know, and, and to be honest, if you're doing that, you're spending the kind of money for these. I mean, because these switches aren't cheap.

No.

Um, I think just the single switch with the Pico is like $64.

Right.

Uh, the, the starter package, which is the switch with the Pico with the smart hub, is $100. Yeah.

And like a regular on-off switch is what, like 49 cents?

Yeah.

So, so yeah, on, on, off.

And like, like a regular switch with like a dimmer on it, I think is like $12 or $15.

Well, yeah. And, and some of those are even $25.

Yeah, they can, depending on what, what they are, right?

Um, but these are, these are up there in price.

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, like, uh, and so, and then I think the plug, uh, adapter with the Pico is $54.

Okay.

So, but I mean, like, I was willing to spend $54 on that thing just because it solved a major problem.

Sure.

Um, and, and, you know, I couldn't figure out where that short was.

Um, and it wasn't worth it.

No. And this, this eliminated that.

Yeah.

Uh, and it was worth, you know, it was worth the money. Sure. Because I wasn't gonna have to spend any more time on that stupid switch.

The other thing I will say is that you didn't spend that much on each of, each of the cans. No, they're, they're relatively inexpensive in comparison. So, you know, you're— one of the things that we were talking about before the show was if you're looking to, to do new lighting in your home, And this is an interesting option for you. All of this is going to be less expensive than going and buying fixtures.

Yes.

Because fixtures are expensive.

Fixtures are very expensive.

And if you're wanting something that hangs down off your wall and produces the amount of whatever light array that it's going to put out because it's on the wall or it's on the ceiling or whatever it is, uh, which some of these are directional Yeah, yeah. So I mean, you can point them where you need them to go, uh, and you're gonna spend a lot of money.

Yeah, like, because we, we, we bought new light fixtures for our stairwell and for our dining room, um, and I think I spent as much on those 2 items as I did all of the switches and light fixtures in the house.

Yeah.

And that includes these new smart things.

Yeah. And, and a lot of times we're reviewing some of these things going, okay, you know, you could buy this for a whole lot less, but this is going to be this much. You're going to get these functions, but it's worth it because, you know, right, technology— we love technology. But honestly, this is a— even though there are certain aspects of it that are kind of expensive, when you put it all together, it's pretty affordable.

Yeah, yeah. And I, I— one of the other— and then we didn't even talk about this, but like one of the, one of the cool things about the smart hub and then having the app on your phone Is I know for us, I mean, a lot of times in the mornings, we're just lucky to get out of the door on time, get the kids to school and head to work. And I, the number of times I've come home and just been so frustrated with myself for leaving all these lights on, you know? And so this allows me from anywhere to kind of pull up my home and go, okay, what lights are on?

Right.

And I can turn those off.

Sure.

And save myself some money.

Yeah.

by just turning the lights off.

Right.

You know, and, and, you know, yeah, we're, we're trying to be efficient by using LEDs and different things like that, but it's still using electricity.

Absolutely.

Even if it's an LED, it's still— you're still using the electricity.

Yes.

And so you're gonna, you're gonna pay for that.

Yes, you are.

Um, but now if you've, you know, if you forgot, you can just pull the app up and go, you know what, I forgot to turn those lights off, let's turn them. Um, or if you're out of town, you know, and you're— you know, for, for me, it's not as big of a deal because our house is so far off the road and we just don't get many of that pass— many passersby. Yeah, but if you're in a regular neighborhood and, you know, it might— when you're out of town, it might be helpful to just kind of flip the lights on.

Yep.

You know, some randomly in the room, someone might be watching and they'll go, oh, someone's at home.

That's right. It could be a deterrent.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and you can, you can even set up schedules.

Oh yeah.

For it to, you know, turn on, turn off. While you're gone.

That's nice.

So it just gives you— it opens up a whole opportunity.

Yeah.

Of options. Now, I mean, granted, you could probably hardwire those in with some old school timers.

You could, but why?

It sounds like a lot of trouble.

It is. It is a lot of trouble. I mean, I've got a timer on the outside of my house. It's ridiculous. It's like the size of a telephone booth.

It's like, what is this thing? No one knows what those are anymore.

I guess not. But, but I literally, I, I was asking my inspector, what is this? He's like, oh, it's a timer. For what? He's like, no telling. I said, does it work? He said, it might. But, but it's like one of those deals where it's like, why would you go to that trouble?

Yeah.

Whenever you can do the same thing.

Yeah.

A whole lot more simply.

Which, by the way, have you, have you noticed? I mean, and this is just a bizarre thing to me. you mentioned telephone booths. Like, our kids are gonna grow up in a world that they don't know what those are, right? Because they don't exist.

I know. I, I did— I was somewhere a couple of years ago at a park. I was like, there's a telephone booth.

That's crazy.

It didn't work.

It's got to be gone by now.

I don't know, maybe. But yeah, it was crazy. It was there.

And yeah, I mean, like, like public phones. Yeah, like our— the generation coming up behind us will live in a world that has never had public telephones.

That's weird.

It's a weird thing, man.

It is.

And you got to think of like, that used to be a pretty good revenue stream for those phone companies.

Sure, a quarter every time you want to make a call.

Yeah. What I'd be interested to know is, do they own the real estate that those phone booths used to sit on? Because to me, that—

Well, most of them were Surely they were.

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know either.

It's a public utility.

Someone tell us. Yeah, we— that's it. Someone send us a message.

Do the phone companies own the real estate that the booths used to sit on?

Huh.

I assume that's not the case in England because property rights are a little bit different over there. And I think they still have phone booths.

I couldn't tell you.

But they're all but gone in the US.

Well, what would their purpose be? I mean, literally, I mean, no, but first of all, nobody knows phone numbers.

Yeah.

Who are you gonna call? You don't know their number. I promise.

But I, I remember when like every phone booth used to come with a phone book. Yeah.

There was a phone book there. It was attached to a chain.

You didn't have to remember the numbers.

No.

They were there.

I guess that's true. That's back in the day whenever you named your company AAA Realty.

That's right.

In front of the phone book.

All those clever guys. Yeah. Where are those names now?

Well, they're still there. Probably. Yeah.

They're still there. But like They're not, they're not helping their Google ranking.

No, they're not. They're just annoying. A, A, A, A. Yeah. Yeah. Oh well. So if you're that company, I'm sorry.

Was there anything we didn't, we didn't cover with these light switches?

Not that I can think of.

We'll have some links where you guys can find them on Amazon and some other places.

I do have one question.

Yes.

Could you make them, um, What, uh, pendant lighting?

Pendant lighting.

Yeah, could you create them to be pendants?

Are you talking about the—

The one that, you know, like they hang down over a bar?

Yeah, I know what a pendant light is. I'm— what I'm wondering is, are you asking if the canned lights can be converted to pendant light, or if you can use these switches on pendant lighting?

That— I'm wondering if you can use like the canned lighting system with the switches and everything for pendants.

Now the, the cans themselves, I don't know. The switches, absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah.

I, I just think that, you know, for your kitchen, that might be really kind of— if you're trying to set a mood, right? You know, maybe over a bar or something, dim the lights down or something. Yeah, that could be cool.

It could be really cool. Um, I mean, I, I— you could, you could do it one of two ways. I mean, you could, you could hardwire it into the wall.

Okay.

Um, and put a switch in, or you can do what I did and hardwire the pendants together as if they were a lamp and use the smart switch or the smart plug.

Okay.

Um, interesting. Yeah, because, and part of the reason that's a, why I bring that up as a cool feature is if you have a space in your house where you need lighting, a lot of people don't realize that, you know, fixtures and things like that, I mean, like they're lamps.

Yeah.

The wiring is exactly the same.

Right.

I mean, it's, it's black and white and neutral, and sometimes not even neutral. Sometimes it's just the, the black and white. They don't, they don't require a ground wire.

Yeah, the difference is just the housing that it's in, whether it's a, it's a, it's a cord, you know, we call it a cord, right? Or Romex or whatever, you know, it's, it's kind of right housed in.

Yeah. And so, so everyone knows what I did upstairs is I just, I took these, uh, LEDs that are intended to be you know, wired-in lights, just like you would like a regular— into the wall with a regular switch on the wall. That's what it was intended to be. I just rewired them as if they were a lamp.

Okay.

And ran them and then wired them together into a plug. So, and you can do that with any kind of lighting in your house. You know, there's probably a few exceptions that are, you know, sucking a lot of power that are big lights and different things. But for the most part, if it's a house light, it can be set up like a lamp, which means you can wire it into a plug. And so like if you're in a spot in your house where you don't have that wiring in the ceiling or that wiring on the wall where there's, you know, access to put a switch in or any of that kind of stuff, you can

just wire it like a lamp and plug it into the wall and then get one of these smart plug adapters and just— and that way it'll, it'll still function like, like a regular light.

Yeah. A lot of older homes had switches that were um, that were wired to an outlet, right? A lot. In fact, the, the first home that we bought, the living room did not have a light in the ceiling, and the only way to have light in that room was to plug a lamp in. And if you plugged it into this one switch, it's flipped on with the, uh, or with this one outlet, it flipped on with a switch on the wall, right?

Right. Yeah.

And that's the way a lot of older homes were built because it was— yeah.

That's the way mine is.

Yeah. And so since that's the case, it's a great option.

Right.

And it's nice that they are recognizing that and giving you an ability to, to do this easily.

Yeah. And I'm— there may be an electrician out there listening, no, that's totally wrong. And if we're wrong, let us know. We'll, we'll amend our statements on Other episodes.

We're not wrong. I'm not wrong. You may be wrong.

I, I could totally be wrong. I'm wrong all the time, so my wife tells me.

I, I was almost wrong once. Oh man.

Anything else?

I think that's it, man.

All right, well, we, we have a, uh, we, we have an amendment to make.

Yes.

So in, in regards to some of our drone quote stuff.

That's right.

So if, if you in the past have clicked on one of our links, we have an apology to make because our links have not been working.

Yeah, you probably went somewhere. If you clicked on it, it took you somewhere and you went, well, this isn't what I expected. Right.

So, so here we don't know exactly what happened. We just know that we've fixed it.

Yes.

So DroneQuote has been an incredible sponsor of the show. Uh, and we wanna make sure that, you know, they get all the, you know, traffic and attention that they deserve from you guys, cuz they're a great company to work with. And, and so if you have previously tried to get in contact with DroneQuote and the links that we provided with you took you to like some weird login screen, you know, sorry, we apologize. Uh, and, and that has been fixed. And so if you click on our links now, it's gonna take you to their page. It's gonna give you easy access to get in contact with them. If you want to get a solar system put on your house, if you want to get a

new roof put on your house, they can help you find those 3 quotes and get that set up, especially now that the link that we have for them is working.

Yeah. So, so here, here's the thing that we ask. If, if you have previously clicked on that link because you're interested in, in anything about them, maybe you're just curious or you actually, you know, are going, man, I need some solar. uh, or I need a new roof, something like that, uh, go back and click on a link. We've updated all of them. And so, uh, you know, go, go click on it again because it will work this time.

Yeah. And, and, and if nothing else, please click on it and let us know.

If something's wrong, if it doesn't work for you, just, you know, send us an email at info@homemotorshow.com or, you know, send us a message on Facebook or Instagram. Don't do it on Twitter. Uh, then, then, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll see it and we'll get it fixed.

Yeah. And, and thank you guys who, I mean, because we have seen where you guys have been, you know, going and checking them out and, you know, now we now realize that you guys have been just going somewhere weird on the internet and not where, not where you needed to be.

Right.

So we're, all those are fixed, up and running.

We got 'em for you.

Yeah.

And, uh, if you don't know about Drunk Quote, you should know about Drunk Quote because Drunk Quote's awesome.

Yeah. So, and we actually had a whole episode on that if you guys want to go back and listen to that. They're great, great company. Um, also, if, uh, if you're like, well, where do I get these links? They're in the show notes every single week, which you can usually access through whatever app you're using to listen to the show on. It also goes out in our weekly email. Uh, if you are not a subscriber to the weekly email, we have an email that goes out every single week telling you exactly what the episode's about with links to that episode. So if that's an easier way for you guys to stay in contact with us, join our email group.

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I didn't. No, no.

So reviews are a great way to support the show. Uh, this is, this is really how, uh, you know, this is—

It's how we get populated. Like, so, so if, if someone comes looking for our show, the easiest way to find our show is, uh, by typing in our— the name, The Homeowner Show. That being said, Um, there's a lot of other word keywords that'll kind of get you here, right? But the more reviews we've got, the easier, uh, iTunes knows this is a legit podcast. We want to push them.

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That's a good review.

It is.

That's exactly what I want to hear. But the new review that we heard this week was from— we got this a few weeks back, but this is the first chance we've had to talk about it— was from FatJoe54321. Thank you, Fat Joe, for the 5 stars. Fat Joe said, great podcast that covers a variety of topics. The hosts are down-to-earth, relatable, and talk about a variety of relatable topics for their audience.

Cool.

Thank you, Fat Joe.

Thank you, Fat Joe.

So good to hear from you, buddy.

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