Greetings,
I have existing:
Incandescent lights with dimmers.
I want to go all LED lights and I’ve read online that LED lights do NOT work well with (non LED) dimmers. What has the best out come?
Replace Dimmer switches & lights with:
Thank you in advance
-daniel
I have “Dimmable” LED lights that seem to work well with every dimmer I have tried.
My preference is smart switches and dimmers. I loath the idea of smart bulbs. I perceive, perhaps in a Luddite fashion, that bulbs are consumable. I don’t want to buy smart consumables. Second, I think this could disable the functionality of an existing wall switch in some cases. Smart Bulb Off, Wall Switch no longer works.
One case where i might consider a smart bulb is where a fan/light was wired with a single circuit and I want to be able to control them independently and there isn’t a remote… something like that. Bottom line, when there are no other reasonable / immediate options.
I would recommend smart dimmer switches and dumb dimmer LED Bulbs.
Reasons - power outages will turn all your smart bulbs on. It is super annoying. Also, guests will still use your dumb switches for your smart bulbs. Smart switches can be used physically, via automations or via app.
It’s going to be up to you and your personal preference. I went with smart dimmers (LED compatible) and dumb LED bulbs because I wanted full manual control when it’s either not possible or not convenient to use either the app or voice commands to do dimming and on/off. We also have people over frequently who don’t know how to use the smart stuff. I also had no need or desire to have lights that can change colors, so I wasn’t giving anything up by going with dumb bulbs.
With smart lights on dumb switches, there’s the issue of someone inadvertently turning the switch off, so even if you want to voice/auto control the lights, you’d have to turn the switch on first.
On the other hand, if none of these are issues for you, you might be inclined to go the other way and do smart bulbs and dumb switches, or even always-hot smart bulbs. Depends on what you’re looking for and how you plan to use everything.
Greetings,
I will be going with smart switches and dumb lights. The power issues with smart lights wasn’t known to me.
Thank you!
I prefer switches. But there are some of my boxes that do not have a neutral wire and I had to go with smart bulbs. Plus I like the multi color bulb so it worked well. But I have over 25 switches currently.
Interior lights I use smart dimmers, exterior (but protected) lights I use smart bulbs.