Philips hue questions for new build

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olivernz

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#284162 4-Apr-2021 18:34

Building new house and thinking of going 100% philips hue including all light switches.

1) In a Hue installation does the comms from the light switches to the lights work even if there is no wifi or network connection, just with the bridge?

2) I will certainly have more than 50 lights and 10 appliances. Can you use multiple bridges? Or is there a bigger solution?

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#2686389 4-Apr-2021 19:23

The dimmer switches can be paired directly to the lights/bulbs/strips.

I have 26 strips, lights and bulbs running off one bridge and 8 dimmer switches. So I can’t really comment on the device limit. I also have some of the lights linked to my Harmony remotes.

While Hue is good for retrofit or enhancing, I don’t know if I would set out to use it for a new build. I would probably go with smart switches and controls and dumb bulbs if I was starting with a clean sheet. Mainly because I would prefer to not be reliant on a cloud based control system that the manufacturer could abandon at any time. I am trying to find time for something like Home Assistant to make it more stand alone. As it is, I have retained all the standard light switches which act as isolators for the fixed lighting (Hue downlights and coach lights) so they can be swapped out if Philips abandons the system and there isn’t an alternative. So if you go ahead from new at least give yourself the ability to swap stuff out in the future.

On the positive side at the moment though Hue plays nice with Google Assistant, Alexa, HomeKit, Smartthings, Home Assistant and Openhab as well as its own and multiple third party apps. It provides a great ‘out of the box’ solution that you can program to operate the way you want without reference to an installation company for any programming changes you want to make (and pay them).

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#2686410 4-Apr-2021 20:12

I would have thought for a new build there’d be something better than hue. Maybe Knx or zwave if you had to.

Knx I think is wired. @sumnerboy has been looking at it. I’m not sure of many other wired options that aren’t diy.

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#2686411 4-Apr-2021 20:12

Any company can go bust any time. I would not have a major subsystem of any house reliant on one vendor, an internet connection, etc. What would your partner / kids say if you had no lights for a few weeks if things went pear shaped?

SumnerBoy

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#2686422 4-Apr-2021 21:21

Yeah I am in the planning stages of a new build and looking into lighting systems. I am all but sold on KNX as the 240VAC actuators - I don't have prices yet (and I believe they aren't cheap) but you can get multi-channel relay and dimmer modules that mount directly in your distribution board (DIN mounts) which you wire each light load up to.

You then have the choice of running KNX cable to each light switch and stumping up for KNX switches - which again I don't believe are cheap. You then program up each switch to link it to one of the relays or dimmers. The programming software is not free but around EUR200 for a license to manage you whole home (apparently). This system, whilst not cheap, is pretty robust by all accounts. Each switch "talks" directly to the light (via relay or dimmer) directly over the KNX bus - there is no central controller.

The alternative, which I am looking at doing, is to run CAT6 from each light switch back to a central hub, and then have a big Arduino Mega monitoring each switch for changes - i.e. short press, long press, double-press etc - and publishing these events over MQTT. I will then buy a KNX IP gateway which gives you IP control of any device on the KNX bus. Then I will use Node RED to monitor the switch MQTT topics and send commands to the KNX bus to switch the relays/dimmers. This is a design I came across watching Jon Oxer from Superhouse.tv (from Melbourne).

Retrofitting for sale would involve buying KNX switches and running the KNX bus over the CAT6, or running KNX cable (pretty cheap) alongside my CAT6 from the outset, as a fallback (I will probably end up doing this).

KNX is an open standard so there are hundreds of manufacturers. From pretty basic gear to very high end stuff - Google "Basalte KNX"...

But I haven't been able to find anything else that provides hard wired control of lights, particularly dimmers, that is certified and robust/mature. Would be very interested if someone had some other suggestions!

gregmcc

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#2686477 5-Apr-2021 06:43

olivernz: Building new house and thinking of going 100% philips hue including all light switches.

1) In a Hue installation does the comms from the light switches to the lights work even if there is no wifi or network connection, just with the bridge?

2) I will certainly have more than 50 lights and 10 appliances. Can you use multiple bridges? Or is there a bigger solution?

no wifi or internet connection is required for the hue bridge comms between the switches and lights (just gave it a test right now), it functions fine without if, but you loose the smarts such as sunset/sunrise, home and away etc.

I understand that multiple bridges can be used, i'm not sure what the limit on devices per bridge is.

olivernz

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#2686508 5-Apr-2021 09:41

Thanks for those replies.

I would mainly be controlling lights via node.red and whatever I run over the top of that. So not dependant on cloud. To be wife compatible it needs to switch even if node.red is down.

What I was planning is to save on wiring up light switches (or at least have Cat6 there instead of 220v. And I don't want straight on/off stuff. We have had non-automated Philips leds before and like the light spectrum they produce (as opposed to Lifx and others).

I'll have a look at KNX. That looks interesting.

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#2686618 5-Apr-2021 12:29

I have a few reservations about home automation;

1 - As previously posted, what happens if the manufacturer of your system goes out of business, stops supporting the system, etc?

2- What happens if you design, configure, and install a system and then meet with an unfortunate accident or medical event? Will someone be able to keep the system running for your remaining family?

3 - What effect will the system have on resale value of the property? Will prospective purchasers be scared away?

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Handle9

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#2686732 5-Apr-2021 16:50

SumnerBoy:

Yeah I am in the planning stages of a new build and looking into lighting systems. I am all but sold on KNX as the 240VAC actuators - I don't have prices yet (and I believe they aren't cheap) but you can get multi-channel relay and dimmer modules that mount directly in your distribution board (DIN mounts) which you wire each light load up to.

You then have the choice of running KNX cable to each light switch and stumping up for KNX switches - which again I don't believe are cheap. You then program up each switch to link it to one of the relays or dimmers. The programming software is not free but around EUR200 for a license to manage you whole home (apparently). This system, whilst not cheap, is pretty robust by all accounts. Each switch "talks" directly to the light (via relay or dimmer) directly over the KNX bus - there is no central controller.

The alternative, which I am looking at doing, is to run CAT6 from each light switch back to a central hub, and then have a big Arduino Mega monitoring each switch for changes - i.e. short press, long press, double-press etc - and publishing these events over MQTT. I will then buy a KNX IP gateway which gives you IP control of any device on the KNX bus. Then I will use Node RED to monitor the switch MQTT topics and send commands to the KNX bus to switch the relays/dimmers. This is a design I came across watching Jon Oxer from Superhouse.tv (from Melbourne).

Retrofitting for sale would involve buying KNX switches and running the KNX bus over the CAT6, or running KNX cable (pretty cheap) alongside my CAT6 from the outset, as a fallback (I will probably end up doing this).

KNX is an open standard so there are hundreds of manufacturers. From pretty basic gear to very high end stuff - Google "Basalte KNX"...

But I haven't been able to find anything else that provides hard wired control of lights, particularly dimmers, that is certified and robust/mature. Would be very interested if someone had some other suggestions!

KNX is very robust but it's also very old. It came from EIB which is ancient. You can pretty much run it on TPS, certainly belden is fine.

Expect a very high learning curve and a lot of frustration. It isn't a modern protocol and has some fairly frustrating limitations. Make sure you thoroughly research it. Ivory Egg is probably your best local resource, most of the OEMs don't bother too much in NZ with KNX as it's a market dominated by C-bus.

Edit: The predominant open protocol for lighting in NZ is DALI. Once again a significant learning curve but it's more modern and much better supported. Not sure about domestic products but many large installations use DALI and there are plenty of fixtures available.

SumnerBoy

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#2686737 5-Apr-2021 16:57

I have spoken with ivory egg nz and they have a pretty decent range, but they don't sell direct to the public unfortunately.

It may be old but it seems to be pretty active still, with new products coming out regularly. Some of the new gear is gorgeous, check out Basalte.

I quite like the simplicity of the protocol, not that I have actually used it in anger yet. It can run over cat6 apparently so means you could retrofit to a diy system later if you wanted.

What is steep about the learning curve? Do you have any examples of these frustrations? Sounds like you have had first hand experience with it @handle9?

Handle9

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#2686741 5-Apr-2021 17:08

I work for one the big building automation OEMs. KNX is very important for us in Europe and some markets, far less so in NZ. It has some really nice features, especially how robust it is. It's a very slow protocol so very robust and sparkies can't screw it up, just don't expect nice modern features.

ETS is a powerful tool but it's old and painful. Grouping and zoning isn't very flexible and many points aren't exposed over the bus. Most of the HMIs are kind of crappy as well.

Compared to something like DALI or BACnet it's kind of useless but for simple applications it's ok. All my engineers hated using it, the lack of flexibility drove them nuts but saying that they are all building automation guys and used to a certain level of flexibility.

Personally I'd be very hesitant to use it in NZ, it's just not widely used or supported.

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#2686743 5-Apr-2021 17:15

I should add if you are just using A or E mode then it's relatively straight forward to work with but a bit limited. Once you go into S mode you need ETS and it gets harder.

SumnerBoy

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#2686745 5-Apr-2021 17:21

My plan is to just use the actuators. So have a bank of relays and dimmers and an IP gateway. Then control them via nodered over ip. No knx switches or direct linkages. Does that sound easy enough to implement?

Sorry I am not sure what those different modes are, could you explain? I have plenty to learn!

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#2686748 5-Apr-2021 17:26

SumnerBoy: My plan is to just use the actuators. So have a bank of relays and dimmers and an IP gateway. Then control them via nodered over ip. No knx switches or direct linkages. Does that sound easy enough to implement?

Sorry I am not sure what those different modes are, could you explain? I have plenty to learn!

KNX has three modes. A or Automatic which is plug and play, B or Basic which is configurable but not programmable and S which is (somewhat) free topology.

You only need ETS for S-Mode but you may need to use the OEMs software to configure the devices. That's when the "fun" begins.

Do you have much of a background with structured automation? You may be better off using something like a smart relay / mini plc. Also take a look at C-bus. It is proprietary to Schneider but it is by far the biggest lighting control product in NZ and freely available from the wholesalers (at wholesaler tax of course).

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#2686749 5-Apr-2021 17:32

I have a reasonable background in diy automation. And have written code to interface with a number of different devices and protocols. There are KNX integrations for openhab, home assistant and node red, so I am fairly confident I can "speak" to the KNX bus once I work out the device addresses.

I intend to have DIY low voltage switches wired back to a central controller over cat6. So I just need something that is certified for controlling the 240VAC loads and can be controlled locally via ip.

I have looked at cbus briefly but it didn't seem to provide an easy way to integrate with 3rd party software. Open to be convinced otherwise tho...

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#2686777 5-Apr-2021 17:49

Modern home automation is nothing like "real" building automation. We build products to last at least 15 years so things change very slowly (I've had customers abuse me for not having spares for products we stopped manufacturing in the 1990s). You'll probably find any product designed for this environment a bit limited or frustrating compared to modern products using APIs. You can do it but it's not anywhere near as easy to work with. You pretty much have to adopt the workflow the products are designed for - if you don't it won't work or be janky.

KNX is better than modbus but still a bit of a pain. Something a little more modern like BACnet is discoverable which is much easier - you just browse the network, pick your points and you can then manipulate them.

This is worth a read, it gives you most of what you need to understand the protocol. Also there is a guy from Aus who periodically runs KNX training courses, Ivory egg can help you. You'll have to pay though.

https://www.ivoryegg.co.uk/site_files/29_KNX-Basics_en.pdf?1460454846

There are lots of interfaces available for C-bus but they are aimed at the commercial market rather than HA.

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