I wanted to add a little bit more ambient lighting, but there is no outlet anywhere. I bought this cheap mini lamp powered by 2x AAA batteries and I was going to stick a Sengled Zigbee bulb in it (after converting it from E12 to E26).
P.S. I am open to better ideas for the lamps by the way. I did at least managed to grab some battery operated under cabinet motion sensor lights that I'm praying work.
I have no idea how long the battery might last. However, it will last a lot longer if you have a light that only turns on when someone is nearby.
I have some undercabinet motion sensor lights on a keyboard stand. They trigger when you wave a hand beneath the light. I am not sure how that would work for your cabinet in the powder room.
Look at Christmas window candles or other battery candles. They last quite a while on 2AA batteries (I can run mine for about two weeks from 4pm-10pm, so somewhere around 50 hours. I control them with Hubitat via a Broadlink IR blaster using the local wifi Broadlink community driver. Just get some battery lights that come with an IR remote if you want to automate a battery powered light.
You may want to look into a USB power bank, and get lights that can run on 5v USB. The power bank will run the lights much longer than a couple batteries will, and you can recharge it.
lol it’s not the only light source. It’s just ambient lighting. There’s wired wall sconce over the sink that’s the main light, but it’s purposely dimmed low.
Well, I’ll find out tomorrow that it won’t work haha. I’ll end up having to return all of this. Do you know any power banks that are super small? There isn’t much space to hide anything on this shelf. I guess I could try finding a decorative box and set the light on top of it and hide the power bank in it. When you say a light that runs on 5V, you mean one that is also IR remote controlled so I can use the blaster, right? Smart bulbs wouldn’t run of those either I assume?
Ahhh then it probably won’t work. I’ll have to try to look for a different battery powered or 5V plug-in light with a remote or something that’s already zigbee/zwave
I bought these for camping this summer. They are standard size bulbs that run off of a rechargeable battery and they are IR controlled.
You can use any lamp, and cut off the wire off of it, since they screw into a standard lamp base. They actually are also 120v bulbs, that switch to battery power if the power goes out, but I'm not using them for that. For camping they were great just using the hooks to hang them.
You could either recharge them as they are, or add a power bank that is always plugged into them to make them last longer. You will need a lamp that IR can see through, so the bulb cannot be totally enclosed, but the IR blasters emit a strong signal so they could probably reflect into a shade if it is open on top or bottom. I control my candle lights all around our main room with an IR blaster, and it gets all of them in one shot, with the blaster on a table on a side wall (10 candles in 10 windows).
Camping, they would run for several hours on the dim setting. With a powerbank, you could probably get a week or more if you only run them for a few hours a day.
I think I may have to stick with remote controlled candles. Do you know the range of those IR blasters? I actually have a Bond Home Bridge that I use to control dumb ceiling fan lights in the guest bedrooms but it’s pretty far away from the powder room. I can try putting it in the office which would be more centrally located for both.
IR needs line of site, so it must be in the same room. However, the signals really reflect off of things and get pretty much everywhere in same room. Ceiling fans usually use RF, which is probably what you are using with the fan light. Radio Frequency goes through walls, but Infrared is just a low frequency light beam that must be "seen" by the IR receptor on the lights.
If the fan is using RF, that will go through walls, so maybe you can put the Bond in the same room as the shelves, and it will still get RF to the Fan in the other room. I am finding on Google the range of Bond RF is 2500 Sq/Feet, which should equate to about 25 feet directly (given 2500sq/ft is a 50x50 room. and if the Bond was in the middle it would be 25 feet in every direction.)
There’s actually another outlet but it’s behind the Murphy door. That would mean it’s literally less than 4 ft away but I have no idea if that door will be an issue.
Probably three or more months. My wife have something similar she bought before Thanksgiving, it’s still going on its first set of batteries, and she doesn’t turn them off.
If I got a Broadlink RM4 Mini, it’s literally less than 2” L x W x H. Surely I can hide that somewhere in here… Oh! It looks like the mini is powered by 5V 1A so I can use that mini power bank.
Yes, I have two RM4 Minis. I my office, I use a very short cable and just sit it on top of the USB power block like a shelf, so no wires dangling from an outlet over to it.
There are also Zigbee battery powered blasters like these. It is the same thing but it is Zigbee instead of Wifi. I bought a USB plug-in version of this on AliExpress, but these seem to be the same thing, but they run on batteries. They are even smaller than the RM4 mini.
You read my mind! I was going to ask which driver you use. I’ll try it out and let you know. I have both the RM4 Mini & the Zigbee IR controller ordered. My preference would be the zigbee one but I’ll use the RM4 mini if I have to.
Quick question… is the “direction” of the IR blaster like the Broadlink or that Tuya more “spherical” than the remotes the LED candles come with? I have the candles set literally 2 feet apart. I can’t stand more than 4’ away because the room is tiny. If I direct the remote straight, it won’t even do anything. I have to tilt it down a little and then do each side one at a time. Is it still that finnicky with the IR blaster? I did notice that it tends to work better when the remote is at a higher elevation like holding it overhead and then tilted down
I was using an RM Pro in my front room, and it would get all the window lights, even the ones that were behind it. I replaced that with the Tuya Zigbee blaster, and it also gets the whole room. I have not found where direction matters too much with them, it seems to just get everywhere.
Both are much more powerful the the remotes that come with the battery candles. I could not control every candle using a candle remote, from the center of the room. I had to walk to at least ten feet from them to use the remote. The blaster goes clear across the room to the windows on the other side, about 25 feet, and gets the windows that are a few feet behind it left and right.
