This was the issue I had before I moved a few years ago. At the time, I considered getting some Cync (formerly C by GE) switches, because that was the one major electrical product manufacturer I found that offered the style of switch I wanted without requiring a neutral wire (which I didn’t have) or a hub, and I’d already had good experience with their smart bulbs. Eventually I moved, though, and the newer house has the necessary wiring for most smart switches. I would’ve bought Wyze but they hadn’t released any yet, so I ended up with Kasa and have been very pleased with those where I’ve installed them.
I can understand why someone would want to have both smart bulbs in a lighting fixture and a smart switch controlling that fixture, but that’s not what I’ve elected to do. In areas where I’ve installed Wyze Bulb Colors (including BR30), I’ve also installed switch guards over the toggle switch cover plates to prevent someone (including myself) from accidentally cutting power to the Wi-Fi bulbs. I think those kinds of things are handy and have used them in places where I want a switch to stay on all the time (the wiring in this garage even made an electrician grin when I pointed out some peculiarities to him) or when I want the use of that switch to be unquestionably intentional (like the one for the gas fireplace that is low enough where a pet could potentially toggle it).
I dig. The places where I have switches covered and bulbs installed are all within easy earshot of Google Home smart speakers or displays, so people usually just trigger the lights by talking to Assistant. Something to keep in mind when doing that is that smart devices in Google Home can have at least three different names even before you start getting into things like Routines, so giving some thought to your naming conventions can make your life easier.[1]
I don’t know if any of this would be useful for your application. I’m just tossing it out there for consideration.
I’m interested to learn vicariously from your experience because I still have some Z-Wave and Zigbee devices left over in this house from the previous owner, and I’ve thought it’d be cool to repurpose those and be able to use them again at some point.
I’ll spare you the rant about what some family members have done with their smart devices that frequently frustrate me and instead just take a few deep breaths for myself. ↩︎