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Smart Dimmer Switches

Starting off a smart home conversion can seem like a daunting task. With so many options not only in terms of products, but also product types, it can be hard to choose where to start.

One of the most common places people start out with smart homes (myself included) are the lights.

Essentially there are two ways of having smart lights; first is with connected light bulbs such as the Philips Hue lineup or LifX, GE Link etc. The other is by changing out your light switch with a smart light switch.

Personally I’ve found that the latter option is more convenient (which is kind of the whole point of a smart home in the first place), and can be cheaper in the long run.

This comes down to a few factors; firstly, when you have smart lights, they must always be left “on” at the switch, otherwise they lose their connectivity. This can make them annoying to turn on quickly without some sort of dedicated remote.

Secondly, if you have a lot of light fixtures, or recessed lights in your home, replacing all those lights can end up being quite costly. I’ve found that smart lights are better served as accent lights to add some flair and color to your home.

Appearance

So that’s why we are looking at the Koogeek Smart Dimmer Switch today.

It’s a HomeKit enabled dimmer switch that connects directly to your WiFi, and you can control it either with Siri, the Home app, or the Koogeek app.

There aren’t a lot of smart home products out there that don’t require a Hub, which is a big benefit of this device. However, Hub’s do serve their place, as often times when you connect too many devices to a WiFi router it can affect the performance of the network, leaving you with slow responses and disconnections to the device.

Let’s take a look at the device itself, and then dive into more details and installation.

It’s a pretty nondescript rocker type switch, with an off-white color, and matching faceplate.

On the front it has a green LED at the top and bottom of the switch to indicate the status, and also to provide a nice nightlight if you’re looking for the switch in the middle of the night.

On the back are the three cables you will need to connect in order to get it to work; Live, Load, and Neutral.

You’re definitely going to want to make sure your home has neutral wires before buying this, because it cannot work without them.

Even though it looks like a standard rocker switch, it doesn’t actually rock up or down depending on where you press it; it’s a single button. However since it is a dimmer, it does recognize when you want to dim the lights up or down, depending on how long your hold the top or bottom of the rocker for.

Installation and Setup

Installation is pretty straight forward; you connect the Live, Load and Neutral wires with the same ones in your wall. It comes with the necessary wire caps for connecting the wires, and the two screws that you’ll need to make it sit in the wall.

Remember to always turn off the circuit breaker before doing any electric work, and if you’re not confident in your abilities, call a professional to help out.

Once the wires are connected safely, you can turn the breaker back on, and the LED’s on the front should light up, and pressing the switch should turn your lights on.

When you download the Koogeek app for your phone, you’ll create a quick account and add the device by scanning the HomeKit code that is on the back of the faceplate and also in the box the dimmer came in.

Within about 20 seconds it’s all connected, and you can rename it and place the switch as you want within the Home app.

Performance and Reliability

Performance and Reliability are two of the main criteria people look at when it comes to putting smart switches in their homes.

Performance is good but not great, there’s a slight delay between the click of the button and the light turning on, same with the dimming; but I learned to live with it quickly. Additionally when you control it from your phone or with Siri, it matters even less.

This is because you’re already spending a bit more time activating a Siri command, or getting your phone out to turn the light on, so the slight delay of the light turning on won’t be as noticeable.

Reliability has been excellent so far, with no disconnections and “no response” errors popping up on my Home app, which can be a common occurrence on less reliable products. There have not been any issues with the automations not working either.

Like I mentioned before, this dimmer requires a neutral wire, and it also only works with 1 way switches.

Meaning if you have a hallway light that is controlled by 2 separate switches at each end of the hallway, this is not the smart dimmer switch you are looking for. These types of switches tend to require an additional remote or accessory switch to be fully compatible with 3-way wiring.

It also comes with its own clip-on faceplate, so it’s ideal for replacing single switches that control a single light in a room.

If you want to use it with a 2 gang faceplate, I found that it’s a slight luck of the draw depending on how rounded the corners of the cutout are on the faceplate. The corners of the Koogeek dimmer are quite rectangular, so they may not fit perfectly in an existing 2 gang faceplate. However if you were to file down the corners of the faceplate just a little, you could easily make it work.

Alternatively, Koogeek sells their own 2-gang switch that can replace your 2 side-by-side switches with 1 vertically stacked switch.

The compatibility with HomeKit is excellent, with immediate support in the native Home app on the iPhone. It plays nicely with all the automations I have created as well. My particular favorite is connecting it to the Philips Hue Motion Sensor, so that whenever I enter my closet, the switch turns on the ceiling light automatically, and turns it off after 2 minutes of no motion being detected.

All in all this is a great smart dimmer switch to start your home conversion with.

Conclusion

That brings us to the golden question:

Should you buy this?

At about $40 it costs about as much as most other HomeKit smart dimmers; the only downside is that it only works with Homekit, so it’s not going to be controllable by a Google Home or Echo device.

I think this is outweighed by the fact it doesn’t require a hub, is easy to install, and has great reliability.

This makes the Koogeek Smart Dimmer Switch the perfect way to start your smart home conversion, one light switch at a time.