Whether you live in a dark neighborhood or in a community with streets well lit by street lights, it's always good to come home to a welcoming. well-lit home.

You may not want the lights on while you are away to save energy and money on your electric bill. That's why your house is dark.

Let's say you're driving home on a dark rainy night. When you get near home you reach up to a keypad clipped on your auto windshield visor and with a tap of your finger you turn on your porch light. You also switch on the outside light next to your front door. You now feel safer as you walk up to your front door -- you can see where you're walking.

Easy home automation and remote lighting control

Easy home automation makes remote lighting control from your auto so convenient you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. You only need two affordable Insteon devices to set up remote lighting control of a plug-in lamp on your porch. If you also want to control your post lamp wall switch you'll need a third device.

1. Insteon RemoteLinc 2. This new device is an attractive small (2.6" x 1.3") keypad. You can get a clip for attaching it to your auto visor. Four separate scene buttons allow you to control up to eight different scenes. (A scene is simply what happens when you activate that scene -- for example, scene 1: your porch lamp turns on; scene 2: your porch lamp and your post lamp switch on.)
2. Insteon plug-in lamp control switch module. Plug this device into a wall outlet near your porch lamp. Then plug the lamp into the device. It should be an Insteon dual-band plug-in switch that can receive the wireless command from your RemoteLinc. In turn, the dual band switch will retransmit your command both wirelessly and over your existing house wiring in case you have other remote responder devices (e.g, other lamps).
3. Insteon hard-wired wall switch. This will replace the wall switch that controls your post lamp. Get an Insteon dual-band wall switch so that it can both receive and retransmit your commands if you want to control other devices.

That's all you need to get started. If you can understand and follow directions that come with the devices, you should have no trouble installing and operating this easy home automation network for remote lighting control.

The beauty of this starter network is that you can expand it to control other functions around your house such as remote thermostat control.

While the Insteon RemoteLinc keypad is limited to a range of 50 feet, add a web-enabled central controller and you can control your lights from anywhere using your iPhone or smartphone connected to the web.