Smart light recommendations?

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Smart light recommendations?

mgbridges

113 posts

Master Geek

#271899 31-May-2020 15:26

I'm considering smart lighting in my lounge so I can get decent dimming control. I'm not too worried about colour - warmer or cooler white is enough of a range for me. I have Amazon Alexa on my Sonos speakers, so something which integrates with that would be good.

I've had some experience with Philips Hue (a friend has his whole house kitted out with them) but I'm also aware of Kasa and Xiaomi. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm only looking at doing the lounge at this stage but I'll probably want to expand to the whole house over time.

Thanks.

michaelmurfy

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#2495728 31-May-2020 15:50

I use Philips Hue and find it "just works". I know many people are against them. I had Xiaomi lights also but decided to switch these lights to Hue in the end. While the Xiaomi lights were good in colour I found they wouldn't work well in my fittings.

I also tried Lifx which are very good and don't require a hub. If you're quick, you can head grab these from The Market (Referral to give $20, and also I get a $20 voucher: https://themarket.com/nz/referral?rkey=a3a0c98c0036071d858f04133580012d) and use the $60 voucher if you spend over $300 along with get free shipping.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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kendog

325 posts

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#2495906 31-May-2020 19:20

I’m a Philips Hue fan.
Got a couple of light and a light strip, works really well.

JaseNZ

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#2495919 31-May-2020 19:56

Have kitted our house out with Phillips hue and as @michaelmurfy said it just works. Expensive yes but you get what you pay for.

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JoshWright

389 posts

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#2495929 31-May-2020 20:32

As other have said, the Philips Hue range is great.

It's expensive, but if you're not in a hurry to buy my suggestion is wait until it's on sale somewhere, and then take advantage of the price-matching policies at Mitre 10/Bunnings.

disillusioned

31 posts

Geek

#2495947 31-May-2020 21:56

Would also recommend just going with Philips Hue. I started with some Belkin Wemo lights, but wanting voice control via the Google Assistant added a Samsung SmartThings hub. I also dabbled briefly with some Kasa lightbulbs but seemed to run into wifi connectivity issues with the number of smart plugs I had (both Belkin and Kasa). Eventually I caved and decided a move to Hue would be best so the lights don't need their own wifi connection, and can now also use the gentle wake up/sleep feature with Google Assistant too.

If you shop around and/or are happy to buy some accessories from non-NZ retailers, then you can often find some cheaper prices than what's available locally too. E.g. the remotes or bulbs by themselves don't need to be NZ-specific in my experience, so I bought some bulbs and switches from Amazon Australia and UK (before GST/tax changes last year). Once you have the hub and your first bulbs you'll be on your way!

However if you do have some other smart home devices/brands in your house already, think about whether you want to expand your app ecosystem with Hue. Having a variety of different brands and apps could be considered a good thing in some respects, but you might also benefit from ease of use/management by sticking to one or two varieties where possible.

kobiak

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#2495997 1-Jun-2020 01:48

I've got no probs with arlec aka tuya bulbs. Want to get LED strip too sonish. Works with Google assistant.

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geekiegeek

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#2496002 1-Jun-2020 06:40

agree that Hue is easy and just works but there are downsides. The main one that made me go with a Z-wave solution was that Hue requires constant power to the bulb so you can’t use your light switches as normal. i.e. if someone switches the light off at the wall, you can’t use your voice control or any automations you may have created until someone switches the light back on.

aslo look at the types of lights you have in the rest of the house, mine are 80% LED downlights so it made sense to just ad smart dimming to those instead of having to replace them all with expensive Hue bulbs. Z-wave is a little more work to setup initially but in my opinion is more flexible and cheaper then Hue. Z-wave also works with a number of other devices, I have a flood sensor, electric blind controls and temperature monitoring on mine.

you can also mix and match, I have two Hue builds and Hue play bars behind my TV which all works seemlessly with the z-wave stuff. My voice assistant is Siri via HomePods but I did have it all working with Alexa for a while as well.

so in a nutshell, Hue is great but be sure to look at what else is available from the likes of Aeotec and Fibiro so you have an idea of what’s possible before locking yourself into a platform.

mgbridges

113 posts

Master Geek

#2496048 1-Jun-2020 10:43

geekiegeek:

so in a nutshell, Hue is great but be sure to look at what else is available from the likes of Aeotec and Fibiro so you have an idea of what’s possible before locking yourself into a platform.

Thanks, that's really helpful. After a bit of looking at the Aeotec and Fibaro stuff I think I'll probably go with Hue for now, as it suits what I'm trying to achieve. If/when I'm ready for a more comprehensive hoem automation setup then Z-wave definitely sounds like the way to go.