A client wants me to put wall sconces on either side of a large window in their living room. Below each location is an outlet, I’ll be able to fish power up to each light. However, each would need to be turned on separately. They would prefer a single wall switch for both of course but are willing to go with individual switches.

It’s the ground floor, I could possibly go into the crawlspace and put in a switch about 6 feet away. There’s no way I want to cut into the sheet rock. It has an attractive plaster texture finish that I could no way duplicate.

I got to thinking about wireless switches. In the past I’ve had difficulty with that sort of thing; the wireless doorbells rarely worked for long. But who knows, Wi-Fi has gone through a lot of development, maybe that stuff is no longer in the toys realm.

I did a search, don’t know what to make of it. Amazon has a bunch of choices, most of them around 30 bucks and another brand called Runlesswire which is over 100.

The last thing I want to do is install some sort of crap that will fall apart in short order . But higher price is not necessarily a sign of higher quality. Runlesswire touts its compatibility with the Hue smart bulb system. That might explain the higher cost. I’d rather not try to sell my clients on any smart bulb action.

Anybody used this sort of product?

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

There are a number of 'home automation protocols' out there.

I spoke with a guy a few years ago, he had a bunch of "X10" equipment in his house - that uses the power wiring to send signals. That seems like a solid choice here, but Im not sure if any 'site prep' is needed (do they need a full time admin computer, on the X10 network ? or can you setup a switch to switch 2 outlets and walk away ?)
Zigbee and Z-wave are other bigger names in home automation. The reason I looked this way is because once you have a few pieces of home automation, its easier to be swayed into buying more, and automating more lights, garage doors, security system, timers on lights...and then all of a sudden you are in a sci-fi movie...wait...wut ?

I now know a number of people with wifi thermostats - they have no compliants- however every wifi thermostat has 'local' controls in case wifi gets lost or their wife gets too hot in the afternoon...

Lastly - Google Home/Amazon Alexa - Most 'smart speakers will work with some flavor of 'smart home devices', and they make 'smart light bulbs' now - so if the customer had an 'Alexa' or google home device, it can be paired to a smart light bulb, and then they use the smart speaker to turn the lights on and off. If they already have a smart speaker, this is the easiest to implement.

Sorry I have no direct experience - I am an EE and love reading/geeking about this stuff. If I had more time and money I'd probably have automated my home by now with something (but Googlezon speakers are too much intrusion for me...)
-John

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2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)

We have about a dozen Phillips Hue bulbs installed, both color and warm white filament.
Once the the Phillips hue app is installed Alexa can pair with it.
To turn lights on you say " Alexa bedroom lights 30%" and the lights come on at 30%.
To turn lights off say "Alexa living room lights off"
Or the app is on the wife's phone and she can control; on, off, %, and color from her phone.

I don't think we will install them every where, they do have their place.

My client is an IT professional, not sure what flavor. I texted him my thoughts not long ago today, haven't heard back. One advantage is we could test the wiresless set-up w/o putting a hole in the wall for the switch. I gather that at least with some of them they are held on by strong two sided adhesive tape or some other glue. The Runlesswire switch gets it's power for sending the signal from the movement of the toggle switch. One article I read mentioned that there is a small effort to the movement, only makes sense, not sure I can find a retail display to experience that ahead of time.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

It does sound interesting. Not sure if they use Alexa.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

If the client is an IT pro, he will love some of the advanced features.
https://www.philips-hue.com/en-us
Installed behind flat screen TV the color and brightness sync with what's on the TV screen.

We are just using them as dimmable lightbulbs, so I have not tried any of the more advanced features.