zlacker

How is this easier than just having a dimmer switch inside the bedroom door?

That's what I've done in our house. Lots of dimmers. Some are "rocker switches with a slide along the side," other are more digital "push button to turn lights on to the last setting, small rocker to adjust light level, you can always come up from 0 by using the rocker" types.

>>Syonyk+(OP)
Having moved twice with a toddler, and gone without voice activated lights in the nursery for a couple of days, it's huge. Usually I am carrying them up the stairs, with both hands; they're squirming, set them directly on the diaper changing table, and then plop them (again, both hands) into the crib. There is almost never a time when I am not holding thing(s) with both hands in that room.

Or in another case, most of the lights are low in the living/play room, and I forgot to turn down the nursery lights, they're already winding down, walking up the dark stairs and into a dim nursery helps keep them chill. Walking into a blinding daylight blue room and then turning down the lights is liable to add an extra 20 minutes to our bedtime routine.

I will never not have voice activated lights so long as I can afford them.

>>Syonyk+(OP)
A dimmer switch has some inconveniences:

* it requires you to physically go to the switch (inconvenient whilst holding a squirming child);

* it controls only one hard-wired fixture - there is no master physical dimmer for all light sources (overhead, standlights, bedside lamps or whatever else) in a room;

* it's harder to install a switch than to screw in some smart bulbs

>>hadloc+m9
And I don't believe in "sharing my home activity data with third parties," so I won't have voice activated anything.

I'll just note that most of what you complain about with dimmers isn't a problem with the correct dimmer - I don't have any dimmers that require coming to full brightness before dimming them down, no matter where they were last set.

>>Syonyk+Qf
Home Assistant can facilitate local offline voice control if online 3rd party smart speakers are a problem

https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/voice_remote_loc...