Zigbee bulbs in nz

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Arachan

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#322653 8-Sep-2025 23:02

Hey all

Doing a bit of searching and can't seem to find anything decent thought I'd try here in case someone knows.

I'm after some smart bulbs, my criteria is:

240v compatible
Zigbee not wifi
RGB (like a super warm white)
Not hue prices

How do cheap aliexpress bulbs do? I notice they don't state whether they are zigbee repeaters, fair to say they aren't?

Found this other thread, am hoping things have improved since: https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=73&topicid=306401

Cheers

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#3412703 8-Sep-2025 23:35

I have just been through the same process, and eventually decided to buy a Hue one as the reviews of all the others I found were not so good. I did want something that was going to last. The best price I could find for the one I wanted (B22 2700 K 1600 lumen with Zigbee dimming) was $49.99 from Noel Leeming, and the local shop had them in stock.

On a recent visit to Bunnings, they seemed to have several other varieties on the shelf also.

everettpsycho

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#3412704 8-Sep-2025 23:35

Zigbee is new to me and so far while learning about it I've been using only AliExpress stuff. Touch wood I've got an E14 and E27 bulb both of which have no problems using the sonoff stick on home assistant.

In the visualisation in home assistant they seem to be making a mesh and both report as a router. I've picked up a USB power led strip too that also shows the same but that's to be set up soon. It's no worse than the tuya WiFi stuff and if bulbs start to fail I definitely think I will look to transition more to zigbee instead of using WiFi again. The switches I've got are ok but the 4 way one isn't the best quality I've ever felt.

All works offline and locally though which has been nice, a bit more responsive than some of the cloud based stuff we have throughout the house.

Handle9

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#3412705 8-Sep-2025 23:49

If you can hang fire until the end of the year ikea has a really nice range of e27 zigbee bulbs. They are very good and relatively well priced.

Most of them are not RGB but warm white / cool white.

MarkM536

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#3412707 9-Sep-2025 00:43

Handle9:

If you can hang fire until the end of the year ikea has a really nice range of e27 zigbee bulbs. They are very good and relatively well priced.

Most of them are not RGB but warm white / cool white.

I am excited for Ikea opening, just to see what range of Zigbee products they can bring to the NZ market will be.

pdh

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#3412790 9-Sep-2025 08:16

Hue has just announced a lower-cost range.
Not sure when we'll see it here.

Australia & the UK can provide a good source for Hue - when local pricing gets too silly.
Even USA - for dimmers, switches & motion sensors (which are not reliant on mains).

Arachan

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#3412806 9-Sep-2025 08:55

Thanks all.

Personally I can't stomach $50 per bulb for Hue. I'll try some cheap aliexpress ones and see how they go, glad to hear they act as routers.

On IKEA, I hear they're transitioning away from zigbee, it may be that when they open in nz they only have the new range and not zigbee.

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Batwing

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#3412831 9-Sep-2025 10:12

I've got a whole lot of cheap AliExpress ones, they're so dim though I ended up switching some back to regular led bulbs

richms

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#3412832 9-Sep-2025 10:22

My aliexpress ones are starting to die on me, all the bluetooth, wifi and the zigbee ones - usual thing where they start to flicker a bit when running till heated up, and then will not even boot enough to connect, and then they start flashing the LED at about 1 flash per couple of seconds as the CPU starts and then crashes.

The ones that are holding on are still all good.

We will have ikea soon, apparently their newer lamps will be zigbee or matter over thread so will be interesting to see what we end up on offer. When I last was in AU and looked they only had a whole lot of ugly warm white crap available. Not sure if that has changed at all.

the only lamps I have that do not mesh are the older sengled ones - they all will hog the connections to the USB stick and break the network if I have them deployed since nothing else can connect to the stick to mesh out to other things. If I power them on after the rest of the network has stabilized then it works ok for a while, till it doesn't.

TBH with ZHA's inability to form more than one network, even with POE connected radios I am regretting setting up with it. Moving to zigbee2mqtt is on the to-do list so I can form separate zigbee meshes for different areas to get the reliability up. It just cant handle you powering on 3 fixtures with ~40 bulbs in them at once and have the network stabilize in a reasonable timeframe like the wifi or bluetooth tuya bulbs do.

Richard rich.ms

richms

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#3412834 9-Sep-2025 10:25

pdh:

Hue has just announced a lower-cost range.
Not sure when we'll see it here.

Australia & the UK can provide a good source for Hue - when local pricing gets too silly.
Even USA - for dimmers, switches & motion sensors (which are not reliant on mains).

Signify (who are hue) are using the wiz brand for low cost lamps in the US, keeping hue as the higher end brand. Not seen any change in the wiz products we get here, which is just the limited range at Bunnings and mitre10. The wifi wiz lamps all seem to work ok for me, lasting ok.

Richard rich.ms

mdf

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#3412847 9-Sep-2025 11:38

FWIW, went through this a few years ago. My foray into buying all sorts of cheap Zigbee options ultimately ended in just getting Hues. Which is way more expensive in money and time than just going for the best of breed solution from the start. Ikea may disrupt things (I have heard good reports), but if you want something right now with decent light, plenty of customisation and integration, and that goes in the middle of the night without having to reboot or diagnose something, I would be recommending Hue.

huckster

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#3412969 9-Sep-2025 14:05

Have a hunt thru here - https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/#

I was waiting for the Tradfei(?) to come and I thought Bunnings had some too but now I am not sure...

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mattenz

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#3413012 9-Sep-2025 17:15

Don't plug uncertified rubbish from Aliexpress into 240V

Handle9

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#3413014 9-Sep-2025 17:27

huckster:

Have a hunt thru here - https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/#

I was waiting for the Tradfei(?) to come and I thought Bunnings had some too but now I am not sure...

Tradfri is ikea

huckster

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#3413016 9-Sep-2025 17:43

Yes, Tradfei is Ikea. Not long to wait for those now.

Bunnings used to sell some Sengled Zigbee bulbs. That was the brand I couldn't remember until I got home and checked.

jarledb

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#3413018 9-Sep-2025 17:50

Looks like a decent selection on the Australian IKEA site, would expect the same selection here.

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