A few years ago we bought a great house that needed lots of upgrades, lighting, wallpaper removal, floors, and most of the wall outlets, light switches, etc. It’s been quite a journey! Since we were upgrading anyway we decided to delve into the new WiFi Light switches so we could control our lights remotely, put them on a schedule, and control them with a Google Assistant.
We researched several dimmer switches and landed on Leviton, both for price and brand dependability. They’ve been around since 1906 and have consistently had quality products with good reviews.
One thing to also note, we decided to try changing our switches rather than just get WiFi lightbulbs. This is mainly due to cost and not knowing how long a WiFi bulb will really last. With a switch, we can use any normal bulb.
The Leviton DW6HD-1BZ Decora Smart WiFi 600W was the dimmer switch we picked. Highlights of why picked this are:
- No hub required (meaning Google assistant can control it directly)
- Works with both incandescent and LED lights
- Best price with good quality. We paid around $40, where most out there were $60-70.
- Great App. The app is easy and reliable. There’s a lot of functionality with scheduling.
This particular install was a single pole, meaning one switch controls one light. When you get into 3 way and 4 way switches, it gets really complicated depending on how your house is wired. There are not many standards for houses. 😉 Here’s how I installed this single pole light:
- Turned off power (very important) 🙂
- There was a hot wire (usually black), neutral (usually white) and ground (usually copper or a green wire). I connected all of those wires to the correct places, which are all labeled.
- You can get a wire tester to see which one has power if your colors don’t match or you’re confused.
- The wall boxes are usually small and theses dimmers are bigger because of the electronics for WiFi. Luckily, I was able to use the the same wall box. (I wasn’t as lucky for other places.
- Once this was done, we turned on the power and then went through the simple setup process through the app. It was super easy. Of course, it also works manually if WiFi is down, etc.
Here’s a short video of everything this light can do:
