No Z-Wave, just cheap lights

Since I'm automating stuff anyway - I think I've found a couple of things that aren't worth automating.

In my washroom, there's a light which is usually on (it's the 'nightlight' for the kids and the rest when they come downstairs at night, plus it lures the gulf mosquitoes that sneak in into a spot far away from the humans).  It's dark when I leave, usually dark when I come back, so it's on 24x7.  I was thinking of putting a Z-Wave switch there, but a switch is $32, and the old fluorescent light was only taking $30 a year in power anyway even using a hippie wind power provider, so best case it would take two years to pay off the switch anyway.

Fortunately (?), the starter went out on the old fixture and made this easier.  A replacement starter and fresh bulbs would be $30 anyway, so I trashed the old fixture and got a low end LED fixture to replace it.  The new fixture takes less than 10 watts and is, well, blinding.  It's cold to the touch and looks like a small sun in the ceiling.  It actually look pretty good.  It's as good looking as the old school 'eye ball' lights that are trendy in a lot of houses, but without letting the attic gush into your home all winter.  And I got it delivered for $30.

This new fixture takes a whopping $7 a year to run 24x7 - so cost wise I would need almost 10 years of automation to pay for the switch.  Needless to say, I'm not replacing the switch.  I'll probably stick more of these cheap lights in as the old fluorescent bulbs die off until something better comes along.

Unless it's for fun only - unless something is over 50 watts it seems like a waste to blow money on a Z-Wave switch to automate it.  So for my house, the only things left are kitchen and the bathrooms - all of which are left running constantly with so many people running back and forth in the house now.   Bang for buck, under cabinet lighting and  upstairs bathroom seem the best bets.

I'm also waiting on my Echo to show up, which is supposedly easily to integrate with SmartThings over REST - so stay tuned.  :-P