I'm trying to limit my smart home network to zwave + wifi, and avoid zigabee and Bluetooth.
Thats all easy enough, except when it comes to lighting.
It looks like my options are either lifx (wifi) or yeelight (zwave?) - both of which are still maturing in terms of compatibility with hubitat. LIFX has the better reputation while yeelight is cheaper. Given that the whole point of LED lights is long term purchases, I'm leaning towards LIFX....
Just not sure of eventually having every light on wifi...any other options out there? How many people feel comfortable investing in yeelight(s) for the long term?
You didn’t mention it specifically, but you seem
to be referring to smart bulbs only? There are a couple other brands that make z-wave bulbs, but you’re right that zigbee bulbs are more common.
Have you considered z-wave wall switches though? There are many of those devices.
Is there a reason you're trying to avoid Zigbee? I'd definitely avoid most Zigbee bulbs if connected directly to Hubitat, but if you have them on a separate network like Hue and use them via the Bridge, they generally work fine. (You'd also probably be fine if your only Zigbee devices are smart bulbs, and you'd definitely be fine if you use Sengled bulbs that aren't "repeaters." The problem, concisely stated, is that many Zigbee smart bulbs wreak havoc on your Zigbee network, a mesh network, by not properly repeating messages for, at least, non-bulb devices.) I'm assuming your concern is interference, as all work in the 2.4 GHz range, but you can carefully choose channels to minimize this possibility (or just wing it like most people; I can't control what my neighbors do but haven't had any problems).
But for your actual question: there are far fewer Z-Wave choices, and most Wi-Fi bulbs aren't supported either (Yeelight being the exception). I probably wouldn't do Wi-Fi unless you don't plan on having more than a few bulbs. And Lifx wasn't natively supported the last time I looked. There are a few Z-Wave options but far less than Zigbee--Aeon and Monoprice are two Z-Wave smart bulbs I can think of. If you only want on/off and dimming, you might also consider smart switches instead, either whole switch replacements or something like the Aeon Micro or Nano Switch/Dimmer that you can hide behind the real switch (or fixture).
Why are you trying to avoid Zigbee smart bulbs? You could simply use smart outlets and switches instead. Then you can stay Z-Wave.
If you're trying to avoid Zigbee bulbs because you're concerned about them interfering with other stuff, the only thing they would interfere with would be other Zigbee devices and since you don't have any, there's no issue there. Sengled are inexpensive and don't repeat Zigbee signals, so they're a safe bet if that's a concern.
I would definitely not fill my house with WiFi bulbs.
[Edit] LOL, what Robert said , only faster than I did.
If you're going to use wifi, make sure your WiFi setup can handle it. Many cheap home routers will get bugged out by having many clients, ask me how I know.
Over 50 wifi devices beat my router to a pulp, with wife and kids screaming the wifi stinks.
I would go with others who have advised to use smart switches. You'll save a ton of money since those smart bulbs are expensive and don't last forever, or at least no where's near how long a switch can last. Plus there's the pain in the rear of "who keeps turning off the switch to the smart bulb", ask me how I know....
Lifx would be my option once HE gets a native integration for them.
In the meantime, Aeotec and Monoprice both make Z-Wave Plus bulbs. I don't know how well they work though.
As others have asked, why the decision to not include Zigbee? Wifi is fine and all, but once you start hitting 30 to 40 devices on your network, you're going to see congestion and overall degradation on your network unless you have enterprise level networking equipment (like Cisco, Ubiquiti, etc) that can handle the load. Most consumer level networking gear can realistically handle about 40-50 clients at a maximum and even then, that's with the higher end home routers.
Smart switches are a smarter approach, IMO.
Only a single path of control - through the switch (either physically on the switch or via automation through the switch )
As others mentioned, if someone turns off your existing light switch to a Smart bulb, then it’s not going to be able to work for you and people will comment !
I've got some smart switches, and I don't disagree with you.
What I did was actually just disable the switches by bypassing them entirely in the gang box. The reason I did that is that my house was built in 1955 and they put switches in the stupidest of places. So, I had two choices; Add wiring and switches where we needed them or go with smart bulbs. I was lazy and went with the latter and then added remotes/button controllers where we wanted to have switches.
Some mention they would use LIFX if there was a native integration. I am curious about LIFX Master which I use and I don't have the app loaded on my phone at all. I figure it had to be once you set it up in the phone app the bulbs had there IP address saved. The LIFX Master App finds all of mine and I can control them all as well.
I also use hue bulbs through the bridge for firmware updates and that seems to work really well.
Not a ding against our excellent devs here in the community (I run a ton of their apps already), but for something as popular as Lifx, I'd rather see HE have a native integration before I invest in buying Lifx bulbs.
+1 for Hue bulbs. Nearly all my bulbs are Hue running on a Hue hub.
yeelight is wifi like lifx.
Z-Wave color bulbs are just not well supported, and not plentiful, this has more to do with Z-Waves color command implementation than anything else.
Zigbee nailed color control as well as group commands, hence better support and better offerings.
If you aren't going to deploy any other Zigbee devices other than bulbs pairing them to HE works just fine as they seem content routing commands to each other.
I have a separate HE hub in my production network with nothing but Zigbee bulbs on it, everything else Zigbee is running on the other prod hub.
That's pretty much how I have my lights setup. Every bulb (aside from a few) are on my Hue hub and everything else Zigbee is on my HE (contact sensors, motion sensors, water sensors, outlets, etc).
I still don't find it's reliable with a separate hub once you add multiple brands to the mix. Lightify and EcoSmart are probably the two worst in my mesh.
well I have Osram/Lightify and Hue, no issues.
I occasionally loose one that's the furthest from the hub, but I have no repeaters other than the bulbs deployed, so it's like 10 bulbs so far.
When I added hue and Osrams bulbs to my main hub i started loosing sensors within a few hours.
Early on i made the decision for the Philip's hue. It saves me a lot of headaches. And for €40 and support for some 3rd party friends of hue like innr and IKEA, bulbs become easy to manage. For YE it's like they were directly connected just in a different zigbee network. Just be sure not to use the same channel on your Zigbee HE Stick...
That's definitely the right approach. I got rid of all my other bulbs and moved most all the compatible bulbs to the Hue Bridge. Better late than never I guess.
, only faster than I did.
