jdroberts has covered a lot of this, but here’s my take:
- I think you meant bulb, when you said hub. The gist is you have 1 switch tied to 4 lights. and you might like to only turn some of them on. presumably for less light in the room.
you could use 4 smart bulbs and keep the dumb switch or remove it, wire it to always on and put a plate over it, or one of the other examples roberts gave.
OR, if you consider the goal as to adjust the level of light, then use dimmable bulbs and put a smart dimmer switch in. Rather than individual control of each light, you make each light put out less.
Depends on your exact need and desire for control. I prefer switches.
- this looks like a 5 gang setup, US standard I hope. I’m not sure the exact question, but maybe you’ve never seen inside. Inside, it should be 5 individual switches. So if you pop the cover off, it will look crowded, but you can work on replacing one while largely ignoring the others.
I’m not sure what you mean by “switched together”. My assumption is that a 5 gang with 5 switches leads to 5 independent lights/devices. They reside in the same gang box but otherwise have nothing to do with each other, right?
- sounds like a 3-way switch scenario. I’ve got one in my house. You get 1 smart switch and 1 add-on switch and follow the wiring directions. I use GE/jasco and ordered a 3-way kit which was both products.