I always knew my husband was special but it didn’t take long after we were married for him to show his true colors. In fact, it was less than 72 hours after we said I do that I learned how… truly special he was. We were checking into our hotel at the Venetian in Las Vegas… I’d been to Vegas before but it was Trevor’s first trip. He was truly bright eyed and bushy tailed… I really don’t blame him Vegas is quite spectacular!
Especially the Venetian… it’s kind of like Heaven. At least I imagine Heaven is big and ornate and pretty with a ceiling like the sky and pretend canals running through the hallway… anyone else? I guess I’m special too then!
Anyways back to Vegas! We checked into our room and headed up the elevator. We opened the door and while I was enthralled with the gorgeous linens and furniture I realized quickly that I would have to confiscate ALL remotes from the hubs.
You see while I was petting the duvet cover he was learning that the drapery could be opened and closed all by touching a button. Then he learned that another button controlled all the lighting… and so on and so forth. Yup, the entire room was controlled with one teeny tiny little remote controller that was clutched quite devilishly in my new husband’s greedy paws.
He was ecstatic!
He looked at me with delight and said: “I want one!”
Well, honey… here you go! It’s not quite a remote control for your drapery’s but these little light bulbs are definitely the next best thing… and way more practical. I mean my draperies are shut 90% of the time anyways but I turn lights on and off all day long.
These little guys are the perfect solution for giving the hubby his very own smart home… on a budget!
We have two different options here but the first one is the Smart Bulb… y’all this little guy is awesome. It’s super quick and easy to set up but the best part is it lets you schedule your lighting.
Right now I have it set to turn on at 4 when the sun starts going down and to go off right around bedtime. Of course, I can manually turn it off before that but the main goal is that I don’t have the lights on all day when I really don’t need them.
It saves so much electricity! Kind of like turning the water off while you’re brushing your teeth… it doesn’t seem like much but four gallons of water just went down the drain.
Here’s the easy four step process to hook these babies up to your smartphone… I didn’t even get a chance to set it up for myself since the hubby stole them out of the box (screaming like a banshee with excitement) and set them up in like five seconds.
But on the upside, it only takes five seconds to install!
I have a couple more of these bad boys to install so I’m going to snag a video of the next installation for y’all… so you can see how easy it is.
UPDATE:
Here’s the video of my adorable hubby installing one of our new light bulbs on the front porch!
Now the hubby loves the scheduling feature…, especially with all this holiday travel. You can set the lights and forget about them while you’re gone! They’ll still turn on and off just like you were at home. Mom always had these old fashioned light timers when I was a kid… I think it’s time to upgrade her system!
My favorite part is definitely the color picking option… these little babies can be just about any color you like! It’s as easy as selecting a button… plus you can pick between normal LED light, white light or any color on the spectrum.
See what I mean?!
Here’s a better visual… the left side is a normal LED color. It’s definitely a yellow light but it matches the other LED lights in our room. The middle light is a white light which I love! It really shows everything in your room true to color this way. I can’t wait to install the rest of our smart bulbs so that the entire house can have white light!
Of course, the third photo is the hubby’s favorite… green. It’s his favorite color and he loves turning the lights to green now, must be a boy thing. I’ll come home from work and see green light through the living room windows… he really knows how to live it up!
Isn’t that white light pretty?! Of course, it isn’t all the hubby I had a little fun when we were installing these babies too… pink!
The best part is that these little lights look just like regular light bulbs! They’re a little heavier on the bottom (that’s where the smart technology lives) but once they’re installed they look exactly like every other bulb.
The light bulb might be my favorite but that’s just because I haven’t had a chance to play around with my little Smart Plug yet. Right now I have our tall floor lamp plugged into it (since the hubby wanted the entire living room wired) but I can’t wait to replace the plug with another bulb… then it’s going to get funky!
The plug works the same as the bulb… you can set it to turn on and off on a set schedule or for certain amounts of time with a little timer!
I’m thinking it’s the perfect solution to turn my old non-smart crock pot into a smart crock pot for those 12 hour days when I can’t get home from work. I can turn it on for 4 hours so that my slow cooker teriyaki chicken is ready when I get home.
Now I’m hungry! Of course, the timer would be handy in those situations where I need to make sure my glue gun gets turned off in time. Or perhaps a hot iron! This little gadget is going to be awesome!
If you’re as excited as I am you may want to buy a few smart products for your own smart home… just use code: TPLinkSmart for 20% off either product! The sale runs through December 31st so you’ll be set for Holiday parties and Christmas presents!
These little guys are the coolest thing you’ll have under your tree this season!
Those smart bulbs look pretty cool! I love how they can change colors from your phone. Smart tech seems so fun! Thanks for sharing!
Great post! I agree that you can start with smart home products that are less daunting (like the lights and outlets). This gets you used to how they work. Are you trying any more smart home products? Great information here!
This is amazing! I haven’t seen these in stores but this is definitely going to be worth the investment!
This is amazing! I haven’t seen these in stores but this is definitely going to be worth the investment (I bet it’s really going to feel like an investment for me because we have more than a dozen plugs in our home and my wife sure loves her lamps! LOL)
Thanks for sharing so much information. Innovative products like these are bringing about a revolution in the truest of sense! Look forward to using them real soon!
I definitely like devices you can schedule and I’ve used electric outlet timers before, but you can’t control them while away from home unlike what you showed here.
The LED bulbs are pretty neat, too. I’ve seen some in a store display but should have stopped to check one out.
the scheduling feature is such a boon for me because I am often travelling for meetings for weeks at a time
Great guide and video in particular! Why do people use more and more often TP Link smart tech?
Hey Betsy, I like your style, you make everything seem so easy!! The smart plug reminds me of the good old mechanical timers that were used to control the lights in the house. We’ve come a long way. Thanks for the details and the good pics!