So I am debating about switching my front porch lights over to RGB controlled bulbs. I would like to ability to change the color of my lighting outside for holidays and maybe some other motion based lighting effects.
I live in Chicago; today it is 4 degrees Fahrenheit, and the winters are brutal. Kasa bulbs have a cold working condition of 4 degrees but it gets a lot colder here especially at night when the bulbs would be actually used.
Any recommendations/experience with RGB bulbs in winter?
I find most of the "recommended" temperature ranges to be more suggestions than anything else. I have Hue RGB bulbs that have been in my outside lights for years and have survived temps ranging from 0F to 104F. Granted, Charlotte, NC winters aren't as brutal as Chicago winters (I'm from Cicero originally; I remember way too many brutal winters), but in terms of exposure, most bulbs perform pretty well even in really cold regions.
One thing I will point out, protection for the bulbs and also having repeaters helps A LOT. My farthest bulb is about 75' from the hub, and it's outside. I have two wall plugs outside (one in my carport and one further down my driveway in a protected enclosure) that really help with signal strength, especially when it's raining and/or snowing out. My Zigbee bulbs have always outperformed my Z-Wave bulbs in various weather conditions (Zigbee uses DSSS as opposed to Z-Wave using FSK).
I've got one A19 Gen1 color that has been going since 2013. It's in my crawlspace and has seen temps as low as -4F and as high as 122F (when I lived in Phoenix, AZ) as is still going strong. Granted, it's only 600 lumens, but it still puts out enough light for my needs.
Ikea Tradfri bulbs go up to 1000lm, but I believe that's only for the white bulbs. The brightest I've seen for RGB bulbs is 800lm (except for the MagicHome WiFi bulbs that supposedly will do 1000lm on the 80w model).
Nope. There are 3 bulb generations as well. Gen1 = 2012-2014/5; Gen2=2015-2016; Gen3=2016-now(). Supposedly, they are working on a Gen4 bulb that will be have both Zigbee and WiFi radios in them. But, that was a rumor back in 2017 and I've never seen anything about it since.
There is one other thing that just came to mind, and that is to build your own "bulb" using Pixels (either strips or individual LEDs). I have Pixel LEDs on the outside of my house using NodeMCUs as the drivers. They are controlled via MQTT and NodeRed. It was actually a really fun project to build.
For 2 years Hue Gen3 Color bulbs work fine here in Minnesota. We've had -25 below zero temps and they haven't skipped a beat. Love that I can change them to Red and Green for Xmas. My only wish is they were 75 (18 lumens) or even a 100 (25 lumens) watt equivalent.
