Building a New Home - Advice Needed

Long time Smartthings user here who was with the platform back in 2014. I sold my house last summer and relocated and am renting an apartment until my house is ready this summer or fall (we are building). In the new house, CAT6 and Wifi coverage will be plentiful and I am determining what light switches and ecosystem to setup. In the past, I used HomeBridge to get my ST Zwave devices to talk to Homekit and it generally worked pretty well, except for the constant zWave issues I had in my house with devices dropping off, failing, etc. I am extremely leery about going zWave again.

I am considering going with the Meross Wifi switches that support both Smartthings and Homekit natively. I love the simplicity Homekit provides with Siri (I find it works way better than Alexa for Voice Control). I don’t love the lack of flexibility than with automation Homekit provides and took advantage of the Smartthings/WebCore in the past. What I love about the Meross switches is they support both Homekit and Smartthings natively so I can get the best of both worlds.

Lastly, Cost is a factor. The Meross switches are roughly $18 bucks a piece and I will probably be installing 50 switches throughout the house (I haven’t counted recently) so I do not want to spend $40 a switch.

I am open to other ideas, hence why I am posting here :slight_smile:

A new house is always exciting!

50 master switches or 35 or so master switches plus some 3 way auxiliaries? I ask because in some model lines, the auxiliary may be less expensive, bringing the cost down overall.

Meross are definitely a good candidate for budget switches. Excellent safety certifications, decent engineering, work locally with HomeKit although cloud to cloud with SmartThings. I use their smart plugs and power strips, although personally I prefer Lutron for wall switches. But the Lutron are definitely more expensive, so probably not a candidate for your project.

1 Like

Thanks! Good to see you are still manning the forums @JDRoberts! I definitely will have aux 3 way switches. I have to do an inventory.

1 Like