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You can now tell Siri to turn on your lights with the Eve Light Switch

By Lulu Chang October 26, 2016

eve light switch elgato room — Image used with permission by copyright holder

So much for clap-on, clap-off lights — now, the only sound you need to control the brightness of your bulbs is your voice. On Wednesday, Elgato launched the Eve Light Switch, heralded as “the world’s first light switch with HomeKit technology.” With this new smart home device, you can turn any single or multi-bulb light setup into a Siri-enabled system. That means you can speak to your iPhone, Apple Watch, or other Apple device and control a series of bulbs regardless of shape, size, or color.

By taking the place of a single-pole switch, the Eve Light Switch makes smart lighting an easy experience. With Bluetooth low-energy technology, Elgato promises its latest product is easy to set up while being reliable and power efficient.

“Controlling your light bulbs using Siri is a compelling experience, but up until now, you were out of luck if they were switched off at the wall,” Elgato General Manager Markus Fest said in a statement. “By integrating Bluetooth low-energy technology into the wall switch itself, Eve Light Switch is the first HomeKit-enabled product that provides seamless access to your lights.”

The simple white wall plate of the Eve Light Switch plays into its modern, elegant aesthetic. While you will likely only use Siri to control your lights from here on out, you also have the option of using the capacitive touch sensor for manual operation. Even if you are not at home, you can still control the smart light switch, as long as you have a fourth-generation Apple TV that is set up as a Home Hub. If you are looking to adjust brightness and color — as opposed to just turning your lights on and off — you can pair the Eve Light Switch with a HomeKit-enabled Philips Hue setup.

The Eve Light Switch is available for $49.95.

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Amazon's Alexa has become a ubiquitous part of the smart home, capable of handling everything from our day-to-day routines to keeping up with our shopping lists. Now, the smart assistant has a new feature: The ability to tell you if your latest load of laundry is finished or if there is running water somewhere in the home.

These new features are called Sound Detectors. Alexa already had several of these, like the ability to listen for a baby crying or the sound of barking dogs. Through Alexa Guard, the assistant can also listen for the sound of breaking glass.

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Updating your home lighting is a big project, and it may be easy to lean toward smart lights. However, smart light switches can deliver much of the same convenience at a lower cost. Let's put these two categories of products head to head and figure out which makes the most sense for your setup.
Do I need smart light bulbs with a smart switch?
You do not need smart bulbs to install smart switches. That's really what's so convenient about smart switches. They provide connectivity to lights without needing to change the bulbs themselves, so you can control them remotely from your phone, via voice assistants like Alexa and Siri, or by setting automations so they turn on at sunset. This feature is especially helpful when light fixtures are set at inaccessible locations, making bulb replacement challenging. Smart switches are also handy because they can activate other outlets that are connected to different appliances. This can give you the chance to remotely control a lot more than just lights.
Do smart switches work with normal light bulbs?
The vast majority of smart switches work with normal light bulbs. You'll need to check the packaging, though. Some smart light bulb manufacturers make switches specific to their light bulbs. For example, Philips has a dedicated switch that communicates wirelessly to all of the Hue bulbs in the house.

The smart switches that work with normal bulbs will have their own apps and setup processes where you'll have to wire them into your home's electrical. They'll also need Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to connect to the home network so you can control the switch from your devices and build automations. On that note, you'll want to make sure smart switches are in range of your Wi-Fi router to ensure consistent connectivity. So you may need to move your Wi-Fi router or get a network extender to ensure coverage.
Are smart lights or smart switches more expensive?
Smart switches tend to be cheaper than smart lights. You can certainly find cheap smart lights, and the fanciest smart switches can crest the $100 mark. Those higher-end smart switches will often have features like built-in speakers and microphones so you can use voice assistants like Alexa.

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Replacing every light in the house with a smart bulb can get pricey quickly. One easy way to add intelligence to a room's lights is with a smart light switch. Once installed, you'll be able to remotely control your lights, automate activation, or use voice assistants from Google, Apple, and Amazon as if you had full-blown smart lights. Here's how it all works.
What does a smart light switch do?

A smart light switch replaces an existing light switch. When you link it to your home's wireless network you can flip that switch off and on remotely or via voice assistants. Your light bulbs don't need to be smart lights, they just need to be the lights connected to that switch.