The Light Switches That Changed My Life

Summary

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The Wirecutter Show

Episode: The Light Switches That Changed My Life

Date: July 7, 2026
Hosts: Christine Cyr Clisset & Caira Blackwell
Producer: Rosie Guerin
Guests: Claire Perlman (Accessibility Editor), John Chase (Smart Home Editor)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into how smart home technology—specifically smart light switches—can dramatically improve accessibility and quality of life for people with disabilities, those with temporary or permanent mobility challenges, and really anyone who wants more control over their home environment. Hosts Christine and Rosie are joined by Wirecutter’s accessibility editor, Claire Perlman, and smart home editor, John Chase, to discuss their collaborative project retrofitting Claire’s apartment. The conversation expands into other accessible smart home products, practical installation advice, and what truly makes these devices life-changing.

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1. The Accessibility Challenge: Setting the Scene

[04:50–09:27]

• Christine recounts her first personal experience with inaccessibility after having a baby in NYC and encountering sidewalks without ramps. This encounter opened her eyes:

  “How do people in wheelchairs or walkers navigate this?… It really opened my eyes to a different world.” (01:06)

• Rosie notes the importance of product design in accessibility, especially as it relates to homes and daily life.
• Claire describes her daily challenge: In her wheelchair and with limited arm function, she couldn’t reliably turn her apartment lights on; the switches were too high.

  “I can actually turn them off, but I cannot turn them on, which is really not that useful.” (05:10, Claire)

• She relied on a helper in the mornings to set up her lights for the day, leading to inflexible routines and frustration:

  “During that time, I have to have them do everything… because I haven’t historically been able to turn [lights] on when I want them.” (05:29, Claire)

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2. Before the Retrofit: Claire’s DIY Workarounds

[06:16–09:27]

• Claire previously used smart plugs and a few smart bulbs in lamps, but with mixed reliability (issues with syncing, unreliable “knockoff” lamp switches).
• She also invented ad hoc solutions, like using her cat's wand toy or a drinking straw to control switches out of reach.

  “I would use like my cat's wand toy to turn on the lights sometimes… or a straw for my drink.” (09:06, Claire)

• She critiques ADA compliance as sometimes missing the mark for individual needs:

  "ADA compliant doesn’t mean accessible to every person, it just means accessible to some people." (08:30, Claire)

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3. The Smart Switch Project: Assessment & Implementation

[09:32–17:33]

• Project kickoff: John Chase and Claire strategized lighting solutions, briefly considered replacing smart plugs with smart outlets, and even eyed a smart thermostat.

  “I don’t go small, I like to go big… but we reined it in and made it a much more reasonable approach.” (09:39, John)

• Obstacles: Their plan to replace the thermostat failed due to hardware incompatibility.

  “Turns out that Claire's thermostat is of a particular type where it wouldn’t work with the model.” (11:43, John)

• Final solution: They installed three Leviton smart switches (a Wirecutter pick) to control her kitchen and overhead lights, as well as resynchronized smart bulbs.
  • The switches allow operation by voice (Alexa) and by hand—flexibility for many users.
  • John notes the cost-effective benefit:

    “You’re not using smart bulbs in those overhead lights… [just] regular bulbs that are being controlled by a smart switch, which is so cost effective and useful.” (13:45–13:47, John)

• Key technical tip: Most smart home devices connect over 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi; connecting/setup problems are often due to conflicting Wi-Fi bands.

  "Most routers have the ability to… turn off the 5 GHz for five minutes, ten minutes, whatever, while you're doing setup… This is such a huge issue, and I don't know why it's not solved at this point." (14:00–15:28, John)

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4. Installation: How Difficult Is It—and Who Can Do It?

[15:57–17:57]

• Setting up smart switches ranges from “handyman” level to full DIY for those who have ever swapped a light switch.
• Essential safety steps include turning off the breaker and checking for neutral wires.

  “If you are a competent DIY person who has done any kind of wired an electrical switch or an outlet before, it’s identical.” (16:35, John)

• A new challenge with older homes: Some don’t have a “neutral” wire, but compatible smart switch options exist.

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5. Life After the Upgrade: Practical Impact

[18:00–19:33]

• Claire describes the mental relief:

  “I don’t have to think about it anymore. It’s freed up so much space to not be thinking about whether the lights are how I want them… It has given me the freedom to change my mind whether I want the lights on or off, which is not a thing I used to have.” (18:00, Claire)

• She notes new flexibility—being able to FaceTime, read, or see her cat—without advance planning or physical workarounds.
• Primary control: Almost always via voice (Alexa), rarely by app.

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6. The Broader Case for Accessible Smart Homes

[19:33–22:50]

• John reflects on the overlooked value of smart devices for people with disabilities, those aging in place, or temporary mobility issues:

  “I feel like there's so much usefulness to it for this audience… It didn’t dawn on me… for a really long time how useful these things are.” (19:17, John)

• Christine notes that many “smart” device features—seen as gimmicks by some—are actually game changers for those with accessibility needs.

  “… these smart features can be quite helpful to a variety of people… you can operate things with your phone.” (20:09, Christine)

• Installation and setup can intimidate users, especially the initial connection/app pairing process. Claire shares:

  “I made my brother come all the way from Manhattan… There's tech brain and physical part… Sometimes you have to get your phone really close to [the device], and that requires some physical ability.” (22:03, Claire)

• But for many devices, especially smart plugs and smart speakers, setup is “very simple.” (22:51, Claire)

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7. Top Smart Home Device Recommendations

[25:06–32:10]

• John’s #1 pick: Smart locks

  “I don’t know anyone… who’s ever come to our home and then been like, I hate this device… It’s just, they're so useful.” (25:34, John)

  • Eliminates need for keys, offers personalized codes, notifies of unusual activity.
• Claire’s favorites: Smart plugs and smart switches
  • Used for lamps, air purifiers, and white noise machines.
  • Operated exclusively by voice.

  “Those aren’t smart devices per se, but she's smartening them up.” (27:10, John)

• Safety: Smart smoke detectors

  “If you only buy one smart device, this is the one to get. … They alleviate most of the reasons that regular smoke detectors are a pain and then therefore get disabled or pulled off the wall.” (27:30, John)

• Blinds & shades: Automated blinds are a game-changer for adjusting light and room temperature without physical effort.

  “You know, if you can’t lift your arm up to pull a shade down, you’re just going to get sun staring in you all day long.” (28:35, John)

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8. Advice for Getting Started

[29:33–32:10]

• Claire’s advice:

  “I would think about my morning… and identify where you are most pissed off about not being able to do something.” (29:49, Claire)

  • Start with the thing that annoys you most (for Claire it was lights, then blinds).
• John’s advice:
  • Don’t buy too many devices at once; baby-step into smart homes.
  • If you plan to control multiple brands, check compatibility (especially with Alexa/Google Home).
  • Buy from reputable brands (“don’t buy rando products”), check Wirecutter’s guides.

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9. Who Benefits Most?

[32:24–33:08]

• Anyone who can’t easily get up and adjust something—this group includes people with disabilities, people aging in place, parents with new babies, or those with temporary injuries.

  “I think it really can be applicable to anyone. … a friend said it erased all arguments with her husband about who had to get up… to go turn off the lights. It’s saving marriages out here.” (32:33, Claire)

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10. Smart Device Reliability & Maintenance

[33:37–35:30]

• Minor hiccups happen (resyncing a bulb may just mean toggling it off and on).
• Most smart devices rely on cloud connections; outages and software updates are periodic but typically manageable.

  “Rare is the 100% uptime device, but more often than not, it's kind of—I have, you know, shades… in my house for almost 10 years.” (33:58, John)

• Longevity can vary—buy from established brands for longer support and fewer problems.

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11. Hosts' Latest Great Purchases

[35:30–36:32]

• Claire: The last thing she really loved was “the perfect strawberries I bought at the farmer’s market” and also “very cute little Egyptian cat earrings” from the British Museum. (35:39, Claire)
• John: Enthusiastically describes his Ryobi power washer and having fun cleaning second-floor windows.

  “The thing’s like a fire hose. It’s wonderful … I know how to party.” (36:23, John)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “ADA compliant doesn’t mean accessible to every person, it just means accessible to some people.” — Claire Perlman (08:30)
• “I use like my cat’s wand toy to turn on the lights sometimes if I really needed them, or a straw for my drink.” — Claire Perlman (09:06)
• “You’re not using smart bulbs in those overhead lights… regular bulbs that are being controlled by a smart switch, which is so cost effective and useful.” — John Chase (13:45)
• “You didn’t have to get up and go over to the switch, you didn’t have to pull out your phone… it mostly just works.” — John Chase (19:17)
• “It has given me the freedom to change my mind whether I want the lights on or off, which is not a thing I used to have.” — Claire Perlman (18:00)
• “If you only buy one smart device, this is the one to get. … They alleviate most of the reasons that regular smoke detectors are a pain.” — John Chase (27:30)
• “I would think about my morning… and identify where you are most pissed off about not being able to do something.” — Claire Perlman (29:49)
• “It’s saving marriages out here.” — Claire Perlman (32:33)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:06 – Christine’s real-world experience with inaccessibility
• 05:10 – Claire’s day-to-day struggles with traditional switches
• 09:06 – Claire’s ad hoc solutions for switching lights
• 13:45 – John explains the value of smart switches versus smart bulbs
• 15:28 – Troubleshooting Wi-Fi setup issues
• 16:35 – Advice for DIY installation of smart switches
• 18:00 – Claire on the impact post-smart switches
• 25:34 – John’s case for smart locks
• 27:30 – Recommendation for smart smoke detectors
• 29:49 – Claire’s #1 tip for choosing upgrades
• 32:33 – Who benefits from smart home upgrades?
• 33:58 – John on device reliability and what to expect
• 35:39 – Fun purchases: strawberries, earrings, and power washers

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Conclusion

The Light Switches That Changed My Life is a relatable, inspiring guide to the real transformative power of accessible smart home technology. Through Claire and John’s project, listeners learn not just which devices can improve daily life, but how to install them, what pitfalls to expect, and how everyone can benefit—whether living with a permanent disability, experiencing temporary constraints, or simply craving convenience.

For more: Check out Claire and John’s reporting linked in the show notes and consult Wirecutter’s in-depth smart home guides.

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Transcript

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[Claire Perlman]

It's just given me a lot more control over everything in my home. I think the, like, biggest thing is that I don't have to think about it anymore. It's freed up so much space to not be thinking about whether the lights are how I want them or whether someone will walk in in a few hours. And I'll be sitting in a dark apartment.

[Rosie Guerin]

Right.

[Claire Perlman]

Which is a weird vibe.

[John Chase]

You're so moody and mysterious.

[Claire Perlman]

It's not inaccurate.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

I'm Christine Cyrcassette.

[Rosie Guerin]

I'm Rosie Garant and you're listening to the Wirecutter.

[Ad Voice]

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[Christine Cyrclassette]

Hey, Rosie.

[Rosie Guerin]

Hey, Christine.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Today we are talking about accessibility. I've thought a lot about this through my work with Wirecutter, but thinking back, I. You know, the first time I fundamentally understood how difficult it can be to do simple tasks in your daily life when the world isn't designed for you was when I had my first kid. I was living in midtown Manhattan, just a couple blocks from where we're recording. Back then, the sidewalks in Midtown didn't have ramps where they meet the road. Some of them did, but a lot of them didn't. And I remember walking with my newborn in her stroller, and this lack of ramps was a total barrier. I couldn't lift the stroller off the sidewalk to cross the street because I was recovering from labor. And I just remember thinking, how do people in wheelchairs or walkers navigate this? This is insane. My mobility was limited, and it really opened my eyes to a different world that many people are forced to navigate.

[Rosie Guerin]

That's so interest. I remember living in New York, thinking a lot about the inaccessibility of so many subway stations in the city. I think about the way products are designed, and that obviously plays a crucial role in accessibility. Today, we're going to lean into the discussion of products. Specifically, we're going to talk about some simple smart home devices that can make a home more accessible for people with disabilities or, frankly, anyone with mobility concerns issues short term, medium term, or long term.

[Ad Voice]

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[Christine Cyrclassette]

We're talking with Claire Perlman, our accessibility editor, and John Chase, our smart home editor. They recently collaborated to retrofit Claire's apartment with smart switches that have allowed Claire more control over the lights in her apartment. She wrote this great piece about this, which we'll link to in the show

[Rosie Guerin]

notes after the break. Claire and John stick around.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred a card that's preferred for a reason.

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[Rosie Guerin]

Welcome back. Today, Christine and I are in the studio with two of our coworkers, and we're going to talk about how smart home devices can make a home more accessible. Claire Perlman, wirecutter's accessibility editor, and John Chase, friend of the show and our smart home editor, Claire. John, welcome.

[Claire Perlman]

Thank you.

[John Chase]

Yeah, great to be here.

[Rosie Guerin]

Happy to have you.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

So great to have you here. So we want to talk about this project that you two worked on today together. You, Claire, you wrote an article about it. John, you helped install these smart switches in Claire's apartment. Claire, I want you to set the scene. What were you dealing with in your apartment in terms of your lighting? Give us the picture of what a day in your life looked like to turn the lights on.

[Claire Perlman]

Yeah, so I'm in a wheelchair, which means I can't do a lot of things, including using my arms to do a lot of things. The light switches in my apartment are a little bit too high, so I can't turn them on. And off easily. I can actually turn them off, but I cannot turn them on, which is really not that useful.

[Rosie Guerin]

So it's less useful than you think.

[Claire Perlman]

Yeah, it really is. So I have someone who comes and helps me in the morning, and they're there for hour, hour and a half. During that time, I have to have them do everything that I need for the next 12 hours. And so that includes having the lights the way I want them, because I haven't historically been able to turn them on when I want them or off easily when I want them.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

So when your helper leaves for the day, the way the apartment was set up was the way it was set up. So if the lights were on in your office, they were on, but if they weren't on in your office, you couldn't really do anything about it.

[Claire Perlman]

No. And I would look very dark in my Zoom meetings.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

I've been on many Zoom meetings with you, and I never thought it looked dark, but I could see where that would be very annoying.

[Claire Perlman]

It was.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Did you have any other smart home devices in your apartment before you and John worked on this project?

[Claire Perlman]

I had a few smart plugs set up, and so those were connected to. One was connected to a lamp, and then another one was connected to an air purifier. I wasn't really maximizing that usage necessarily. I also had a couple smart bulbs that I had in lamps, but they were in and out of being useful.

[John Chase]

She's throwing shade on me right here. When Claire and I met a couple years ago, like, I was. Most of the time people were, like, running away from me with smart home stuff.

[Chase Sapphire Preferred Advertiser]

Like me.

[John Chase]

Exactly, exactly. And Claire was super game to talk about it, and you were curious, and I don't recall if you had an Alexa device. I'm gonna tell anyone. Listening trigger warning. Mute your smart speakers so they don't go off. But Claire was willing to try out some smart bulbs. And so separately from the smart plugs you have, which are basically on off switches, you had a collection of three hue bulbs, but they had gone out of sync. So basically, you know, she would use those to speak to Alexa to say, hey, turn on my bulbs, or whatever. And then sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't work.

[Claire Perlman]

Or, you know, this was partly because I bought a knockoff Noguchi lamp.

[John Chase]

Well, the knockoff was the problem.

[Claire Perlman]

The knockoff was the problem. The switch is like, nah, the design

[Christine Cyrclassette]

gods are coming down to punish you.

[Claire Perlman]

Also, the switch was very janky.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

So, like, in theory, you could use a light bulb, a smart light bulb, to Say, hey, turn the light bulb on smart speaker. And that might have helped with your problem, but those had gone out of sync.

[Claire Perlman]

Yeah. Although they worked for a very long time. I ended up fixing them before you came to my apartment all by myself, so.

[John Chase]

Well, it was a great talk, so I will see you guys later. But the other thing is, I just did differentiate. Those were for often are used for like table lamps, things like that. And the lighting that was controlled by switches is like overhead lighting. And so there was a bank of switches and one of them was actually controlled in two locations and the second location actually was like, I don't know, chest height for me. And so, you know, if you click it onto one spot and then go to click it off at the other or something like that. It was just Claire explained that sometimes she would relegate it to like using her head to turn off a switch, which is not ideal. And your apartment is technically an ADA compliant.

[Claire Perlman]

Yeah, it is supposed to be. I mean, ADA compliant doesn't mean accessible to every person, it just means accessible to some people.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Right. It's kind of like a median standard that is out there and it's, you

[Claire Perlman]

know, it's supposed to be encompassing a very wide variety of needs. There are older people who can't bend over, so they need things are higher up. And that is deeply unuseful for me.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Right.

[Claire Perlman]

So that is the problem with the ada.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Although I love it, it's good we have it. But yeah, it doesn't work. Not all the standards work for everyone. So. Okay, just to encapsulate, you could turn on some of the lights.

[Claire Perlman]

I could turn on some of the lights.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

But these overhead lights were the real issue.

[John Chase]

Yeah.

[Claire Perlman]

And I had devised systems for turning on and off those lights as well. I would use like my cat's wand toy to turn on the lights sometimes if I really needed them, or a straw for my drink.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Right.

[Rosie Guerin]

This is really ad hoc. This is like you get what you get and you are dealing with whatever it is for the rest of the day.

[Claire Perlman]

Right. Which is like not an ideal in your own home. Right.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

That's like a long term solution. Not a great long term solution. Yeah, right.

[Claire Perlman]

Could be better.

[Rosie Guerin]

So you come together, you decide to do this project. Where did you begin? I guess with the lighting problem specifically.

[John Chase]

Well, so Claire described her apartment and her needs. And like the more we talked, I don't go small, I like to go big. You might know that about me. So I was like, yeah, we'll knock down a wall and then, you know, but we reined it in and made it a much more reasonable approach, which was because it's studio like her. She has a kitchenette, and there's these overhead lights, you know, LED lights. They can get quite bright. And she's like, there's times where I've had to, like, you know, they were on at the end of the night, and I just had to sleep with the lights on all night, or they're not on in the morning, you know, and you have to sit around in darkness kind of thing, which is particularly

[Rosie Guerin]

problematic in a studio.

[John Chase]

Yeah, right.

[Claire Perlman]

Yeah.

[John Chase]

It's irksome. And then on top of that, we also. She talked about how she had a heat pump, like an H vac air conditioning system. The thermostat would be the way that you can control it, but you were unable to control it because, one, it's the height of it, but also it's finicky with, like, 25 button presses. We were trying to figure out a way, make a substitution and put in a smart thermostat that would allow her to again, use her voice to change the temperature. So we talked about doing that. We talked about maybe putting in a. Instead of having smart plugs, which are external and, you know, they go into the wall and sometimes they take up space. They're useful and they're great, but you can actually just replace the receptacle itself and have a smart version, a solid

[Christine Cyrclassette]

receptacle, where you would plug something in. You can actually.

[John Chase]

You can make those so that you could individually control them. So the idea, you could be like, hey, you know, Alexa. Hey, Siri. Hey, Google home, turn off my light. That would be. That outlet itself would turn on and off kind of thing. So we went big that way. And then once we got to her apartment, reality kicked in. So, wait, that's a pesky way of showing up.

[Rosie Guerin]

What did you see as limitations or challenges when you went to do the assessment in Claire's apartment?

[John Chase]

You know, just speaking from the usability of this stuff, like, you know, some people are definitely going to. Would need help with any of this, right?

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Either way, like, help installing it and programming and everything like that.

[John Chase]

All of those things. And they're different things, right? Like, some people just, you know, they may not have the use of a smartphone, and a lot of these. Almost everything requires the use of a smartphone to set it up. And, you know, we showed up, and it turns out that Claire's thermostat is of a particular type where it wouldn't work with the model. We were gonna Set in. Like, they just wouldn't be able to communicate with each other. So we ended up just kind of cut and bait on that one and moving on.

[Claire Perlman]

That one was very sad. I was really hopeful that I. Yes. All I want is to be able to turn the AC on and then off in middle of the night whenever I want.

[John Chase]

Oh, yeah, and you're compromised.

[Claire Perlman]

Did you.

[John Chase]

Do you have a fan that you can.

[Claire Perlman]

I've been using my air purifier as a fan, which is not the most efficient.

[Rosie Guerin]

Okay, so what did you end up actually installing then?

[Claire Perlman]

We ended up installing three smart switches. Is that it?

[John Chase]

Well, no, we did. Okay, so we did update. Right. So that's it. Yeah, that's all. And it only took me however many hours. So what we did was we. One, we resynced your bulbs, which you said you did on your own without me. But whatever.

[Claire Perlman]

I did one of them and you did the other.

[John Chase]

Okay.

[Claire Perlman]

Okay.

[John Chase]

For the kitchen lights, we removed the existing switch, like physically removed the switch, and then replaced it with a smart version. This version communicates with, like a plug in WI fi relay. Basically. An important thing that we talked about was that this switch should work just like a regular switch in terms of you can manually turn it on and off so that you're not bound to using the smart features for people who don't want that. But then on top of that, once we installed that, we could then. In this case, she has Alexa speakers. So using the Alexa app, we connected the light switch. This model was a Leviton model. They have a whole bunch of models. And this is one of our wire cutter picks. So we connect them in the app. From then on, she can say. And you give it a name and you can say, alexa, turn the kitchen lights to 50%. It not only turns it on and off, it also does.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

It's like a dimmer.

[John Chase]

Yes, exactly.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Okay.

[Rosie Guerin]

Did that mean you had to change the bulbs themselves? No.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

You're not using smart bulbs in those overhead lights.

[John Chase]

Exactly.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Regular bulbs that are being controlled by

[John Chase]

a smart switch, which is so cost effective and useful, because if you've already got lights in your ceiling, you don't want to have to replace those. And these are the kind that are. These are LED lights. Can lights.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Yeah, like, can lights.

[John Chase]

So she was able to use the existing ones with literally just taking the wires out of one port, putting it back into the other and the switch. It's a very, very simple operation. We did have some issues getting it to sync up initially. I think part of that has to do With. And this is a bugaboo for the smart home in general. When you have WI fi, there's generally 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. They're just different frequencies. And a lot of times networks have both and hers does, you know, each type of.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Is that why you get like, the two different WI fi signals when you're connecting to your WI fi?

[John Chase]

Exactly. Like one is 2G, one is 5G, or something like that? Yeah, exactly. And so 99% of smart home devices connect using 2.4 GHz only. It can be a hiccup because what happens is your phone, which you're using to connect these devices may be connected to the 5 GHz network. And so sometimes not always depends on your router and all modems and all the other kind of stuff. It may be that when you go to set them up, the smart device is like, I can't see you. You know, essentially. And the connection, the pairing will fail. So most routers have the ability to, like, if there's an app associated with it, you can turn off the 5 GHz for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever, while you're doing the setup. Your phone would then be on the same network, and then you can make this happen. This is such a huge issue, and I don't know why it's not solved at this point, but so that I believe that was the failing. So I ended up, like, resetting the switch, turned my phone on and off, and. And then it just connected and it was fine.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

So as a general rule of thumb, maybe a takeaway for this episode is if you're using smart devices, you want to make sure they're speaking to each other over the same frequency on your WI fi. Right. So, like, if you're having Trouble, maybe disable that 5G on your router.

[John Chase]

Yeah.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

I'm saying that, like, I know how to do that, but I'm sure I could figure it out.

[John Chase]

Yeah, you talk about.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

I just call you.

[John Chase]

I like this. I like this. Yeah, yeah, exactly. At any rate, this is a bit of a diversion, but it's an important point. Cause this is often a failing.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

So kind of like following in on that because, you know, this might seem intimidating to some people, right. Installing smart home devices like Claire, you may not have done this without John's assistance. Right. I mean, it might have been a little bit daunting.

[Claire Perlman]

No, it would have taken me two to four more years to finally get around to do this.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

So the first lesson is find a friend who knows how to do this. But I guess my other question is how hard is it actually to install a smart switch? Like if you're not a super handy person, you're not comfortable with electrical wires, do you need to get a handy person to come in and do this? Or if you're like reasonably comfortable putting in a regular switch, you'd be fine

[John Chase]

doing this, I would say. I'm not an expert electrician or anything like that, but I'm very familiar with doing this stuff. I've wired our home with multiple different smart switches, trying them out and testing them over the years. If you are a competent DIY person who has done any kind of wired an electrical switch or an outlet before, it's identical. But it can get complicated if you have more exotic wiring, like a bank of switches, sometimes they'll have like pigtails going on and like joining of like multiple lines and things like that. So it can get a little slightly exotic. It's absolutely handyman level. I don't think you would have to hire an electrician to do it, but obviously the first thing you would do is like go to your breaker, turn off the switch, use a voltage tester to make sure that there's no live like stray currents or anything like that. It's very doable. But even then, like some of the outtakes of the video probably showing me, I'm like, get in there. You, you know, like, because this wiring, it's, you know, it's stif, it's big, it's thick, the existing wiring in the wall and you're connecting onto it. And so, you know, it takes some, some doing.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

And Claire, your apartment is a new apartment, right. So if you're dealing with an older building, you might have a whole other host of things to think about.

[Chase Sapphire Preferred Advertiser]

Yeah.

[John Chase]

So all modern, like code compliant homes have a neutral, what's called a neutral wire in the box. Older homes often don't. There's a few smart home switches that actually can work without a neutral wire, which is pretty cool.

[Rosie Guerin]

Claire, how has this changed your day to day?

[Claire Perlman]

It's just given me a lot more control over everything in my home. I think the like, biggest thing is that I don't have to think about it anymore. It's freed up so much space to not be thinking about whether the lights are how I want them or whether someone will walk in in a few hours and I'll be sitting in a dark apartment.

[Rosie Guerin]

Right.

[Claire Perlman]

Which is a weird vibe.

[John Chase]

You're so moody and mysterious.

[Claire Perlman]

It's not inaccurate, but yeah. I think not having to think about it in the morning when I have other things, like I have work to be thinking about, I have my cat to be thinking about. I have plenty of other things to be thinking about besides whether the lights are exactly how I want them or not. And also, like, it has given me the freedom to change my mind whether I want the lights on or off, which is not a thing I used to have. So it's been really big for that, you know, even at night when the lights are off. But maybe I want to FaceTime with someone or like read a book, see what my cat is doing on the counter at 2am Now I can turn on the light and see and then turn it off again.

[Rosie Guerin]

So what is the routine that you're in now in terms of like you wake up in the morning, are you using your phone? Are you using your voice? What's.

[Claire Perlman]

I'm pretty much always using Alexa. I don't usually use the phone cause I'm too lazy to figure out which app I'm supposed to be doing that on.

[John Chase]

But that's the whole point. Like you didn't. That's the beauty of being able to use voice speakers and stuff like that, I think. You don't have to get up and go over to the switch to activate it. You don't have to pull out your phone to activate it. You don't have to browse to find the right thing. You don't have to do an update of the app or that kind of stuff. It mostly just works. But one of the things that Claire and I kind of keep discussing, I think, and one of my writers, Rachel Saracola, has written guides to accessibility and aging in place that involve smart home devices in particular. I've been covering smart home for almost a decade at this point, and I feel like there's so much usefulness to it for this audience of people who have mobility and accessibility needs and also aging in place, which, you know, they overlap. It didn't dawn on me and I think to our whole team for a really long time how. How useful these things are.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

You know, I helped. I managed our teams that review appliances and kitchen equipment. I think we saw a lot of smart features being integrated into applian. We've seen this for years and at first our reaction was like, why do you need to have a smart feature on an oven or on a washer? You know, it just seems like this is just like added. But we've seen over the years, especially Claire and I have worked on. We have a paid tester group that comes in, we have various people with different mobility issues. And, like, these smart features can be quite helpful to a variety of people, you know, because you can operate things with your phone. And, you know, I think we've seen this across different coverage areas, like, forever. I remember we were like, why would. Would you need a smart toothbrush? But it actually can be quite helpful for certain people to be able to, you know, have these smart devices.

[John Chase]

And it tells you. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like you. There's so many products that. Where you might be like, well, I don't need that. And it's like, well, you don't need that. But other people do, because these products don't tend to be sold. They're not marketed necessarily. One of the things we also talked about, Claire has a wall that's basically a window and glass door, like, the whole back wall of her. Of her apartment. And I was like, you know, maybe our next, you know, our 2.0 version is you get automatic shades which go up and down on a cycle. The sun can be blinding or it can, like, be too hot in the summer, and that's the quickest way to cool down your place. Boom. Block the sun from coming in.

[Rosie Guerin]

Particularly if you weren't able to hook up the smart thermostat.

[John Chase]

Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly.

[Rosie Guerin]

You know, there's an intimidation factor here when approaching some of these installations, and I think it would be a turnoff in terms of judging how much is this worth versus how much am I going to have to learn to enable me to use these seamlessly. Like, what is that learning curve? Like, how do you think about that?

[Claire Perlman]

Yeah, I think it is really hard for people who are not. I mean, even just, like, connecting the app to the thing can be daunting. I made my brother come all the way from Manhattan at one point to do it for me, and it's, you know, I think there's the, like, tech brain part of it, and then there's also the physical part of it. Like, sometimes you have to, like, get your phone really close to the thing, and it's in a weird place in your apartment, and that requires some physical ability. I think there's also, like, avoidance, because it could build up in your head as a scary thing to do. But then once you're actually doing it, it is truly not that hard. I mean, for smart plugs, they were very simple. Plugging in a smart speaker is very simple.

[John Chase]

Right.

[Claire Perlman]

Like, there are things like that where it's like, no, you could do this,

[Rosie Guerin]

we're going to take a quick break. And on the other side, we're going to talk about some other smart home gear that can make a home more accessible. Plus, John and Claire's recommendations for some bang for your Buck products.

[John Chase]

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[Rosie Guerin]

And breathe.

[John Chase]

Oh, sorry.

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I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.

[Rosie Guerin]

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[Claire Perlman]

1-800-contacts.

[Megan Lorum]

Hi, I'm Megan Lorum, the director of photography at the New York Times. A photograph can do a lot of different things. It can connect us. It can bring us to places we've never been before before. It can capture a story in a universal visual language. But one thing that all these photographs have in common is that, you know, they don't just come out of the ether. We spend a lot of time anticipating news stories, working with the best photographers across the globe. These are photographers who have spent years mastering their technical craft, developing their skills as visual chroniclers of our world. You know, getting certified as a scuba diversity and learning how to shoot underwater to document climate change or tremendous cardiovascular training in order to ski on the slopes next to Olympic athletes. This is an effort that takes tons of time and consideration and resources. All of this is possible only because of New York Times subscribers. If you're not a subscriber yet, you can [e-mail] Subscribe.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Welcome back. Before the break, we discussed how Smart Switch has really helped you Claire in your apartment and really changed the game for turning on your lights. Now I want to talk about other devices that can make a home more accessible for most people. Where do you think the biggest payoff is in terms of smart devices? If somebody is trying to decide what to get, what are the devices that you think? Let's start with you, John. The things that are just going to have a huge payoff.

[John Chase]

I am a little biased here because I write The Guide to Smart Locks. But I think that I have smart locks at our home and I don't know anyone who's ever come to our home and then been like, I hate this device. Most often people are like, oh, I'm curious. I kind of want to have this. Because once they see how it works and how functional and how useful it is, I won't go all the way down the rabbit hole. But it's like I have little kids without phones who can get into the home where they don't need to carry a key around. They use a code, that kind of stuff. I get a notification if the door is unlocke at a weird hour. I can also give when my parents come to visit, they have their own code or when we have someone came and fed our pets while we were gone, like they had their own code and that kind of stuff, you know.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

So it's just I think I see these on a lot of Airbnbs as well.

[John Chase]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it's just they're so useful. It's like when you get a smartphone or a cell phone and you forget what it's like to use a regular phone. Like, I forget what it's like to use a key to lock a door anymore. So that, for me, that's a big one. You had a number of devices you said that you used with smart plugs, which I think is really interesting because a smart plug is essentially, it's an on off switch that's really. And they might have extra features in there. You can put them on a timer. They can tell you how much electricity or amperage or whatever is being used. But you had like three or four in your home.

[Claire Perlman]

Yeah, so I had them before we did all the lighting. Basically the only way I had to control any lighting was the lamps. So I used smart plugs with lamps. I also used to use one on my sound machine because I used to live in the East Village and it was very noisy.

[Rosie Guerin]

And are you controlling those with your voice?

[Claire Perlman]

Yes, also voice. Yeah.

[John Chase]

And as just to emphasize what Claire is saying is like, those aren't smart devices per se, but she's smartening.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

She's smartening them up.

[John Chase]

Smarten them up. She's giving them. If they only had a brain.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

If they only had a brain. What about like, safety devices? Like, you have recommendations for smoke detectors.

[John Chase]

Right, Exactly.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Do you think this is a good place for people to start with smart home?

[John Chase]

For a long time we had a piece that if you only buy one smart device, this is the one to get. And like a smart smoke detector is, there's different varieties of them, but at a base level, they alleviate most of the reasons that regular smoke detectors are a pain and then therefore get disabled or pulled off the wall. Like anyone who's had. It's always at 3am, like the 3am chirping thing. Smart detectors will say, hey, my battery's low. Change it in that voice, hey, baby, wake up, wake up. Go, go change my battery. Most fires where people are injured, hurt, or there's mortalities, it's because they either had a detector and it was disabled on purpose or the batteries were dead because they are hard to turn off. You know, you got a 10 foot ceiling, you're not gonna be able to get up there and like hit the mute button and you have to. So these like you can mute using an app. Usually they can interconnect to each other. So if one goes off, they all go off. You know, things like that. It's just, it's just smart.

[Rosie Guerin]

You also mention blinds as a hugely helpful.

[John Chase]

Again, this is one of those ones where they've now expanded to. It's like blinds, shades, cell blinds, and then also retrofit ones that you can add on. You know, if you can't lift your arm up to pull a shade down, you're just going to get sun staring in you all day long. And that really radically can alter the temperature of a room. And also it's just annoying. These are, I have three in our kitchen where sort of around dinner time, a laser beam of sunlight pours in. And so the blinds come down automatically and then they go back up and then they go back down again. And that sounds like a complete luxury. But like if you pull and open and close shades, these are shades, not blinds. But if you pull open them, they're gonna break. Like they always break and they get that flappy like thing going on.

[Rosie Guerin]

The sound of childhood.

[John Chase]

But so those, I love those. And I have it in our kid's bedroom too. In the morning, their alarm goes off, the lights go come on and the shades go up and it's like, all right, it's go time, people wake up. Yeah.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

So, okay, we've talked about some of what you guys see as the most useful devices. If somebody's listening to this, thinking, I am curious, I'd like to try installing some smart devices. How would you advise someone on how to choose what to get? Let's start with you, Claire.

[Claire Perlman]

I would think about my morning, perhaps and walk through it and, and identify where you are most Pissed off about not being able to do something.

[John Chase]

And that's a good way of thinking.

[Claire Perlman]

And so like mine was, I was really annoyed about the lights. I'm also really annoyed when I can't put my blinds up in the morning because I face the east and I want sunlight. So that's next on my to do list for John and noted my to

[Rosie Guerin]

do list for John.

[Claire Perlman]

But. But it's the things that really aggravate you every single day. And they seem little and they're not. That is where various smart home things can come in useful in a million different ways. There's the ones we've talked about, but there's also, for example, I have a smart litter box because one of the things that would drive me insane was a stinky litter box right next to me.

[Chase Sapphire Preferred Advertiser]

Oh my gosh.

[Claire Perlman]

Yeah, horrible.

[John Chase]

Start small. Don't go out there and buy seven different devices. It's sort of like you gotta baby step it a little bit and understand what one of the big concepts within the smart home thing is. Like are you gonna use one device with an app and control? Just that. And then maybe you have another device from another company and that one has an app. You can use apps that control a lot of your devices. And so you have to consider compatibility. Alexa is generally compatible with almost everything. If you wanna consolidate control into a single device so that you can say, hey Alexa, do this. Hey Alexa, do that. If that's gonna be your control scheme, then you'd want to ensure that there's compatibility. If you are only going to get one device, you're just going to get a smart lock and not integrate it with a whole bunch of other devices, which is fine. That's how I do it. Then it doesn't matter as much. But also Nest makes a lot of very nice devices if you'd want to use the Google home app for that. And so then you would do like a Nest doorbell, a Nest camera, that kind of stuff, A thermostat, that kind of stuff. But I do think it's like, like do buy name brands. Like we generally frown upon these kind of rando devices that seem a lot like something else. Don't buy rando products. Establish brands that generally speaking what we cover. If it's not even, it's not a pick, you'll see that we've tested it in our competition and we might give you like consult our guides. We have an excellent team of, I would say the best team out there of people testing.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

So that's the one ad you get to Place in the this.

[John Chase]

In this episode, Smart Home the future is Now.

[Rosie Guerin]

Who do you both think about when you think of folks who could most benefit from smart devices in the home?

[Claire Perlman]

I think it's anyone who can't get up easily and go do a thing. If you need to be able to do something from where you are at that exact moment, then this is gonna be great for you. So that's disabled people, but that's also people aging in place, people with new babies, people who just broke their legs for whatever reason. I think it really can be applicable to anyone. I mean, even I've talked to a friend who said it erased all arguments with her husband about who had to get up when they were already in bed to go turn off the lights. It's saving marriages out here.

[Rosie Guerin]

There's a spectru. I love that.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

And it could also be like, to your point, there's some statistic about how there's some huge amount of people who will be disabled temporarily in their life. Whether it's like you broke your leg, you had a hip replacement. Some of these things could be temporary solutions for those moments. Touch points. All right, one last question for you. I'm thinking about all of the things I could install in my own home, and it sounds like these things are kind of futsy. I know that.

[Megan Lorum]

That.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

John, you're going to tell me that they aren't, but how often do they disconnect or get out of sync? Like the bulbs that you installed, Claire? Like, how much maintenance are you having?

[John Chase]

Like, how stable are they?

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Yeah, yeah.

[Claire Perlman]

Can I just say that my light bulb, that went out of sync, all I had to do was manually turn off the lamp and then turn it back on again.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Ah, okay.

[Rosie Guerin]

So it was not unacceptable.

[John Chase]

No, it's a real thing. So one of the components of smart home stuff is that almost everything connects to the cloud. You connect to the app to control it. The device often connects to your WI fi or to a hub and then the WI fi and then that goes to the cloud because that's where the commands go back and forth and things like that. And so you can get outages. You know, you can have. You have to update the software. Sometimes things go wrong in the same way that things go wrong with your computer or your smartphone or something. So things can go off for sure. I do think Rare is the 100% uptime device, but more often than not, it's kind of. I have, you know, shades. They've been in my house for almost 10 years. You know, I would Say that's one of the things we grapple with in recommending products is we've almost no company will tell you how long they expect the product to last. And so if you're going to spend a couple hundred bucks on something, you want it to last for as long as possible. And you know, like a smoke detector, they have to last 10 years. So you know you're getting 10 years out of it. It's a good investment. But some stuff where it's like, okay, is this going disappear after two, three, four or five years? Like how long are they going to provide updates to the software? How long are they going to support it in the cloud? So that's a real issue as well. Not just the maintenance of it, but the longevity of it. And again, that comes down to a company's reputation. If they've been around for 10 years, that's very different than some company that is based in another country that may or may not be around in two, three, four, five years.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Okay, well, we have our classic last question. I want to ask both of you. What is the last thing that you bought that you really loved? Claire, you go first and then John.

[Claire Perlman]

Okay. The truthful answer for the last thing I bought would be the perfect strawberries I bought at the farmer's market on Saturday. But a more permanent answer would be the very cute little Egyptian cat earrings I bought at the British Museum a few weeks ago.

[Rosie Guerin]

Love Flex.

[Claire Perlman]

And I was lil in London.

[Ad Voice]

Yeah, it is a flex. It was fun.

[Rosie Guerin]

That's awesome.

[John Chase]

I was going to say an update. Last time I was here, however many months ago, I had purchased that Ryobi power washer washer. And I said I was unhealthily excited to use it. It's okay.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

What's the last thing you power washed?

[John Chase]

I mean I decided what's the last

[Rosie Guerin]

thing you power washed that you really loved?

[John Chase]

I doing like the second floor windows, the things like a fire hose. It's wonderful.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

All right.

[John Chase]

I know how to party.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

You really do.

[Rosie Guerin]

I'm happy for you both. Thank you guys for coming. This was really, really great.

[Claire Perlman]

Yeah, great to be here. This was so fun. Thanks.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

Thanks.

[Rosie Guerin]

If you want to find out more about wirecutters coverage or if you want to check out Claire and John's reporting on accessibility, smart home aging in place, check out our website. You can find a link in our show notes. That's it for us. Thanks for listening. The Wirecutter show is executive produced by me, Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddie Mazziello. And Nick Pittman. Today's episode was mixed by Katherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marian Lozano, Alicia Etoupe, Rowan Namisto, Katherine Anderson and Diane Wong. Cliff Levy is Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager. Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor in chief.

[Christine Cyrclassette]

I'm Christine Cyrclassette.

[Rosie Guerin]

And I'm Rosie Guerin. Thank you for listening.

[Claire Perlman]

Mine started chirping with a low battery at 2am Monday recently.

[Rosie Guerin]

Like what are you doing if hold

[John Chase]

my beer it was very I will be over annoying.

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[Rosie Guerin]

It was a mansion.

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And with three times the points on dining, we ordered a wagyu steak dinner

[John Chase]

and that pistachio gelato was too good.

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So we're where should we go next year?

[John Chase]

I've got ideas.

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