Controlling un-switched basement lights?

Hi folks,

I’m hoping I can get some guidance. We’re moving in to our first house later this month, and I’ve been looking at my options for smart lighting. I’m planning to add a smart switch (specifically Leviton Vizia Non Dimming Switch with LED) to control the basement lights. The switch I will be replacing has two lights attached to it. That part is easy.

There are two separate lights in the basement which have pull cords attached to them that I would like to turn on at the same time. If I replace the lights with a standard GE compatible z-wave bulb, can I have SmartThings turn them on and off to match the state of the light switch? Or is this where I have to start looking at CoRE?

Thanks for sharing your knowledge,

Nigel

Smart lighting can do this

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My kitchen has 3 lights only one is on the main switch, the other 2 are smart bulbs. When I hit the main switch all the lights turn on/off and I also added a motion sensor that does the same. With the motion sensor we rarely use the light switch as the light is always on as we enter the kitchen and shuts off 2 min after we leave.

You could also look into z-wave in-wall relays like the aeotec micro switch. You wire them up in the fixture box.

Thanks Mark, just to confirm, this is the item you’re talking about? Amazon.ca

That’s a neat way to do it, unfortunately it’s about double the cost of the switches I am looking at.

Nigel

Yeah that looks like one of them, they have a few related models (some are dimmers, some can monitor energy usage). Are you in Canada? The link was to amazon’s Canada site. Can’t say what they usually cost up north, but in the US the regular switch without energy monitoring is usually ~35 USD.

Yep, I’m in Canada where everything seems to cost about 1.5 to 2 times as much. :frowning: