Here is a detailed description of my system. I have 7 Phillips Hue lights (BR30) in the family room along with a Phillips Tap switch. The Hue system has been flawless. The Phillips Tap switch is convenient in that it can be set on the table next to the love seat for convenient control. However, the Hue system is ridiculously priced. I only recommend it if you really REALLY want the fancy color effects.
The kitchen has 9 GE Link PAR38 bulbs. These replace 60 watt spots. They consume less power but are much brighter and add the ability to control each light individually. I also use 6 GE Link PAR38 bulbs as outside flood lights. These are nice lights. They connect to a Wink hub. Additionally I have two Wink Relay units - one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom. When I first put the lights in, I quickly found out that an old style physical light switch was easier than taking out the phone to use the app. So... in went a Relay. The Relay is nice and works well. However, if the hole it goes in is more than one switch wide you will see the sheetrock cuts. I modified a 3-gang switch plate such that it looks fine. If someone decides to get a Relay let me know and I will send a doc file showing the issue and the fix. The Relay is an expensive solution. Yeah, it shows time and temp and gives you access to all the stuff in the phone app but it is still a pricy solution. It does look cool.
The Relay in the bedroom was so I could easily turn off all of the lights in the house when going to bed. It also has a shortcut to turn on lights in the morning.
I tried using the geofencing so the floods would come on when I came home. Initially it worked well all the time until one day when it didn't. That was about a year ago or more so it might work better now. The issue seems to be with the phone. Phones don't keep GPS on all the time. GPS burns too much power. Instead cell towers are used for initial location. Somehow, in my house, it started thinking that going from the first floor to the second is me coming home. It would turn the outside floods on when I went upstairs to go to sleep as opposed to when I drove to the house.
The Wink system initially had many issues. Lately, however, it has been great. Very recently Wink released a big deal update. It lets the phone app talk directly to the hub. That means that the Relay units and the phone app can control the lights even when the Wink servers are down or internet service is down as long as all are on the same local network. This is huge.
The rest of the lights are regular dumb bulbs. They are controlled either by Quirky TAPT switches or Lutron Cassette dimmers. The TAPT switches look great, have excellent packaging and great overall functionality. If they were reliable they would be great. They aren't. They lose pairing with the Wink hub easily. A recent firmware update is supposed to fix this. Forcing that update is a pain that involves throwing breakers. I haven't gotten motivated to go through the pain of this so I don't know yet if the fix works. Most of my TAPT switches are currently unpaired. The Lutron Cassette switches are a different matter. They are awesome. To pair you need to place the hub in close proximity but once paired they work great no matter where the hub is. The GE Link lights and other smart devices form a mesh network so full house coverage is easy to obtain. Even if you don't use the Cassette dimmer for smart home control, they are the best way I have found to put a dimmer on a 3-way switch. One end of the 3-way is tied off (all wires together) and the other wall switch connects to the Cassette dimmer like a regular dimmer. The tied off box gets a wireless Cassette remote that mounts in the box like a regular switch but needs no power. It links to the main switch. The result is the ability to dim the lights at the top of the stairs and the bottom. Pairing both dimmer and remote to a Wink hub means adding in remote control.
Now comes Alexa (Amazon Echo). Up to this point the home automation had a lot of cool factor but nothing killer. My girlfriend liked the ability to turn on the outside lights before getting to the house. She also liked the increased light in the kitchen and the ability to turn on only some of the kitchen lights. Adding Alexa took it to another level. All of a sudden she started talking about how great the system is. She now wants an Echo in the bedroom. There is no way a conventional switch setup could give the individual light control the kitchen now has. Alex makes it easy to turn on just the lights you want. An example would be loading the dishwasher. I can have Alexa turn on the appropriate light without having to touch any switches while my hands are full. It all sounds silly until you do it day after day. I liken Alexa to using voice control in the car to dial the phone. It's easier and hands free.
