Start with the water heater, the air conditioner and outdoor lighting. These three deliver a saving or a convenience you notice every day, unlike smart bulbs — which are the usual starting point and the usual disappointment.
Why not start with bulbs
Smart bulbs are the most advertised entry to home automation and the least satisfying. A bulb only works when the wall switch feeding it is on, so anyone flipping that switch out of habit disables it. In a household with more than one person, this happens constantly.
A smart switch or an inline relay behind the existing switch keeps the physical control working normally and adds app and schedule control on top. Nothing breaks when a guest uses the wall switch.
1. The water heater
The clearest saving in most Egyptian homes. A water heater left on all day consumes power maintaining a full tank nobody is using.
An inline smart switch on the heater circuit lets you schedule it for the hour before people shower, and switch it on remotely when plans change. The behaviour change is nil — hot water is there when needed — and the consumption difference is immediate.
Choose a switch rated well above the heater's actual draw. Heaters are high-current loads and this is not a place to run a device near its limit.
2. Air conditioning
An infrared bridge learns your existing air conditioner's remote and puts it under app and schedule control, without replacing the unit.
Two genuinely useful patterns: cooling a room for fifteen minutes before you arrive rather than leaving it running all day, and an automatic shutoff overnight so a unit does not run until morning because someone fell asleep.
3. Outdoor and stairwell lighting
Lights that should follow daylight are a poor fit for human memory. A schedule tied to sunrise and sunset handles them permanently, and the times shift automatically through the year.
Add a motion sensor for stairwells and entrances so light appears when someone arrives rather than burning all night.
What happens in a power cut
Worth understanding before you build on it. When power returns:
- Schedules resume once the device reconnects to Wi-Fi.
- Devices with a configurable power-on state can be set to return to on, off, or their previous state. Set this deliberately — a heater defaulting to on is a real cost.
- Cloud-dependent automations pause until the internet returns, even though the local network is up.
Prefer devices that keep working from the wall switch regardless. Automation should add control, never be the only way to turn something on.
Build in a sensible order
- One switch on the heater. Live with it for a week.
- Add air conditioning control.
- Add outdoor lighting on a sunset schedule.
- Only then expand into sensors, cameras and scenes.
Buying a large kit at once means configuring a system you do not yet know how you will use.
See smart switches, SONOFF devices and sensors.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to rewire?
Usually not. Inline relays fit behind existing switches; smart plugs need nothing.
Do devices work without internet?
Local control and the wall switch keep working; remote access and cloud automations need internet.
Which app runs everything?
Most SONOFF and compatible devices use eWeLink, which handles a mixed set from one app.