If someone is building a new house is it better to have wireless control of the lighting by having bluethooth/wifi built into:

1. the switch/dimmer controlling those lights
2. the light fixture
3. the light bulb

I ask because I saw LG and Samsung both announce LED bulbs with blue tooth built into them this week. And I thought to myself.... thats probably a terrible way of doing it. Each bulb is going to cost more and when you replace one you have to sync it with your control device. I mean it might be the best solution for someone that wants to avoid any type of construction at all and doesnt mind synching each bulb so I'm glad it exists but I sure the hell don't want it.


For the record, I am not building a new house I just appreciate good advice from smart people and that seemed to be the easiest case for comparison. The lights That I would want to be able to control wireless are on a dimmer, all on one circuit, and i would never want independent control of the individual lights on that circuit so a Bluetooth dimmer seems like the best option for me.

IMO it is better to have an expandable Home Automation system in place that will allow you to do what you want, control what you want when you want it!  There are very affordable HA systems available now, like Z-Wave and Insteon that will do everything you just said you wanted and much much more.  Some examples are, lighting control, HVAC, door locks and deadbolts, security sensors, cameras, audio/video, etc.

If you get a VeraLite for $160+/- then you can expand from there with individual dimmers and light switches that control CFL's, LED's, can even dim them too.  You can get dimmable LED's for about $10 on sale nowadays.

Insteon is another great way to go and they already have dimmable but controllable LED's that just include into your network and can be controlled altogether as a group with any PC or cell phone.  All you need for Insteon is a $99 hub to network everything together plus you can have X-10 control as well.  And of course still have manual control at the switch also.

Oh btw, the Vera devices can control Insteon and X-10 as well as Z-wave if you add an insteon modem to it.

I am a home automation retailer, I sell all of the above everyday and have done so for almost 10 years now.  This HA market is getting more and more robust every year and these days, all the devices you would need for a good starter HA system can be done for less then a couple hundred dollars!  Check us out at HA World.

Hope that answers some of your questions.  Post back if you have any more.

Since when does z-wave and Insteon handle AV? Do you mean just act as a remote control your AV devices? As far as I know they won't handle true AV automation like whole home audio & video distribution. If I'm wrong please correct me.

Where does Mike3891 ask anything about controlling AV, his question was about lighting control. To which was the responce by uscpsycho

As rehaz1 mentioned, the OP was asking about lighting control, to which I responded.  As far as A/V goes, both Insteon and Z-Wave CAN be integrated with A/V using HA software such as HomeSeer via two-way IR for control as well as triggers for HA events.  Also if you use a gateway controller such as Vera, you can send IR commands to your a/v equipment as well such as turning on a light will fire up all your a/v rack.