The question of why people prefer switches over bulbs is covered in the FAQ on that topic:
But the short answer is usually one of the following 3 Reasons:
- Smart bulbs need to always be on power. So you have to figure out what to do about the switch to keep people from manually turn the bulb off. There are a lot of different ways to handle this, including smart switch covers which fit over the existing switch and then give you buttons you can push for on and off. But that means buying an additional device which adds cost. If you live alone, it’s not usually a problem. But as soon as there are visitors or kids or even just other family members who want to have a switch on the wall, you have to address the issue.
There is an FAQ on This:
FAQ: Philips Hue and Other Smart Bulbs - What sort of light switches to use with them? (Long FAQ)
- they have an existing fixture which doesn’t work well with the available smart bulbs, such as a fluorescent tube fixture
Three) if you have a power outage, most smart bulbs will come on to full brightness when the power is restored . smart switches will usually go back to whatever state they were in before the power outage, or they may stay off, depending on the exact model.
This behavior really bugs some people, and doesn’t bother other people at all. Personally, I like to be awakened if there was a power outage and the power comes back on, since it alerts me to check the house for any problems. Other people would prefer to sleep through.
There is a smart app that one community member developed that will reset all the bulbs after a power outage so basically they were just blink on and go off again. That solves the issue for some people, but not everyone.