Are there any smart bulbs around that aren't such low lumens (> 1200)?

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Are there any smart bulbs around that aren't such low lumens (> 1200)?

mmd

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#262000 28-Dec-2019 22:35

I don't understand why all the smart bulbs around are in the 600 - 1000 lumens range. How are you guys using these in your lounges and dining areas? I have 2 x DETA downlights at 5700K and 1350 lumens and think they're just bright enough, I can't imagine going down to the Philips Hue bulbs that are just 806 lumens.

Are there any smart bulbs around that are of a higher output? Ideally looking for Zigbee / Z-wave so I don't load up my WiFi network.

Senecio

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#2382337 29-Dec-2019 06:35

I have 2 Philips Hue in my living room. Plenty bright enough, in fact they're often at less than 100%.

jonathan18

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#2382362 29-Dec-2019 09:41

Similarly, I've replaced all our downlights in the kitchen/dining with Yeelight bulbs; at 800 lumens they're actually too bright at 100%. (These are RGB ones, so are far, far dimmer when set to coloured.)

I think there's more of an issue in older houses, where there may be only a single bulb in the centre for the whole room, which may have a 3m stud... That was my parents' 1906 villa, where would be a single (200w incandescent) bulb for the room.

mmd

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#2382364 29-Dec-2019 09:59

jonathan18:

Similarly, I've replaced all our downlights in the kitchen/dining with Yeelight bulbs; at 800 lumens they're actually too bright at 100%. (These are RGB ones, so are far, far dimmer when set to coloured.)

I think there's more of an issue in older houses, where there may be only a single bulb in the centre for the whole room, which may have a 3m stud... That was my parents' 1906 villa, where would be a single (200w incandescent) bulb for the room.

Well, a 200w incandescent bulb is equivalent to 3000 lumens.

Even 2 x Philips Hue bulbs wouldn't amount to that (2 x 806 lumens). You'd need 4 fittings to reach that equivalency. Doesn't that seem crazy? Wouldn't we rather just have 2 x much higher lumens bulbs? Or even 1?

boosacnoodle

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#2382411 29-Dec-2019 11:59

It's not clear. Are you looking to replace them with smart downlights?

farcus

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#2382415 29-Dec-2019 12:17

don't know about locally but certainly on Aliexpress there are smart bulbs of 1300 lumens and above (from a quick search)

mmd

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#2382419 29-Dec-2019 12:25

Zigbee / z-wave based? I’ll have to go look! Thanks!

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richms

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#2382422 29-Dec-2019 12:33

farcus:

don't know about locally but certainly on Aliexpress there are smart bulbs of 1300 lumens and above (from a quick search)

They are most likley lies.

Also it seems the latest cost saving that the chinese manufacturers are doing is dropping the LED driver chip and just doing PWM dimming from the microcontroller so its a very unpleasant light from them. At least my ugly orange wemo zigbee lights have a constant light even when dimmed. Also a lack of a gamma table means that the cheap ones dimmed to 1% (as low as alexa/google can go) are still way too bright.

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neb

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#2382499 29-Dec-2019 14:39

farcus:
don't know about locally but certainly on Aliexpress there are smart bulbs of 1300 lumens and above (from a quick search)

That's Chinese lumens. To get them to standard lumens you need to divide by anything from 2 to 10.

If you want more light, could I suggest a short-arc xenon? They're not normally rated in lumens, they really just have two settings, daylight and off.

Jase2985

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#2382517 29-Dec-2019 16:04

i think you just need more light fittings in your rooms. 2 per room is not much if you want the room to be bright

mdf

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#2382629 29-Dec-2019 19:22

LIFX (wifi smart bulbs) go up to 1100 lumens. I've got a few of these and they are fine, though I'm not a huge fan of their app (works better with HA). Gowifi stocks them in NZ and are great to deal with.

SomeoneSomewhere

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#2382702 30-Dec-2019 00:07

It's generally preferable to have more, dimmer light sources than a few bright ones. Multiple sources helps avoid shadows and less light reduces glare.

I'm not sure I'd trust DETA ratings.

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#2382703 30-Dec-2019 00:15

mmd:

Even 2 x Philips Hue bulbs wouldn't amount to that (2 x 806 lumens). You'd need 4 fittings to reach that equivalency. Doesn't that seem crazy? Wouldn't we rather just have 2 x much higher lumens bulbs? Or even 1?

I know what I prefer: Having multiple lights and using reflected light where possible. Makes for a much nicer environment than one very bright light.

To make it worse: Make that bright light be a cheap LED that doesnt have anything close to the full colour spectrum, so everything in the room looks odd, and make it be a blueish light.

Think I will stick with my multiple Philips Hue setup.

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neb

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#2383751 1-Jan-2020 22:07

jarledb:
To make it worse: Make that bright light be a cheap LED that doesnt have anything close to the full colour spectrum, so everything in the room looks odd, and make it be a blueish light.

You could take a geek approach and go to anywhere that sells LED lights, e.g. Bunnings, with a cheap diffraction-grating spectrometer and check the spectrum yourself. You can also check for flicker with something like a fidget spinner. You might get a few odd looks (ahem), but you can find perfect full-spectrum daylight-balanced non-flickering LEDs there, or at least could when I got ours a few years ago.

richms

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#2383753 1-Jan-2020 22:42

Flicker is easy to check for, just put your phone camera right up to it and see for horizontal lines in the image. a couple of big bars is 100Hz ripple from a crap power supply, and 20ish horizontal stripes is PWM dimming on the microcontroller.

Richard rich.ms