Because hubitat exposes zigbee and Z-Wave devices to HomeKit now, that wouldnāt be a problem. Iād control through HomeKit which would send the command to hubitat which would send it to the bulbs.
Iāll look into those integrations though, thanks!
Iāve been using CoCoHue for several years now and really like the additional functionality it provides. I would also recommend Hue bulbs if you want lights that just work. I previously had a mix of Osram and Sengled bulbs and the added time, hair loss, and extra repeaters needed to get them to work reliably wasnāt worth the minimal cost savings. You can save a lot by buying them in 4 packs on Costcoās website.
I saw on either CoCoHue or Advanced Hue Bridge integration that it only sends 10 commands per second, which gave me pause. I am sure its fine, but I don't want to cause issues or slowdowns with that (my house is already fully hue)
At the end of the day there is only one thing I care about functionality wise: The new Hue API.
Thatās per Hueās documentation. Itās not something that I have ever noticed in normal use. I also have a stupid amount of Hue lights, but use a lot of group devices for them. A group command uses Zigbee group messaging, from what I understand, it would only be a single command to control a group of lights.
I define scenes in the Hue App and call those from HE using CocoHue. It opens up the possibility to activate the scene from outside HE if I want to. I assume it would have a similar effect in reducing the number of commands sent to the Hue bridge.
Fair enough. Iāve never been a fan of using scenes for automations. I barely use scenes at all. I have a total of 3 in my current setup. I just prefer calling the bulbs directly. But thatās just what Iām used to and prefer personally
And there's nothing wrong with either option, whatever suits your setup, preference, use cases,.... etc.
Thatās part of the reason if I do switch them Iām considering innoveli. Theyāre z-wave and I suspect (and hope) they behave better as repeaters. (Obviously for my z-wave network not my zigbee network)
Bulbs seem to be pretty chatty, and I think that I read the same was true for z-wave bulbs. Zigbee is usually more tolerant of chatty devices since it has a lot more bandwidth. It probably depends on how many you plan to add.
Around 30.
Iāll do some more research and consider my options though. Donāt need to rush to a decision.
This has probably been mentioned but I would always consider using a smart switch instead or maybe both..
The rabbit hole happens when you realize you really need to keep your smart bulbs powered so end up doing things like using a switch guard to prevent people from inadvertently turning things off OR using a smart switch in "Smart Bulb" mode...
I am doing the latter for 8 recessed and 2 table lamp Sengled bulbs in our den. It's been working great but I have had a couple of recessed bulbs fail (start flickering at higher level, not changing color etc) over the years.
I was using Inovelli bulbs in our bedroom for the sconces but had some trouble with my mesh and they were not completely reliable - the picos operating them would sometimes work, sometimes not. I'm not really sure it was the bulbs though - more likely my ZW mesh was a little wonky. Am now back to using Sengleds in the sconces and have not had any trouble.
For me personally, Iād like to use smart switches. But the power in my house was wonky. Even had an electrican look at it, couldnāt get a solution. Especially in colder months, my lights flicker and randomly change brightness. Because smart bulbs modulate their own brightness, they seem to be immune to the issue. I probably plan to get zooz smart switches and put them in smart bulb mode long term though.
- I would recommend solving your electrical issues first before installing a bunch of smart devices. They can be very sensitive to such fluctuations. Also recommend a whole home surge protector as well. Make sure your HE hub is on a good UPS.
Iām renting. Had an electrician look at it and tell me the vast majority of devices should be fine, as the fluctuations are small, but no solution on the issue. I donāt plan on staying here too much longer, so really not my problem. Had hue lights for 2.5 years now here, and donāt have any issues so far. If I have to replace the items when I move, I wonāt be too heart broken.
I have to say I am a wee bit skeptical of your electricians claims that things should be fine.. maybe they are hiding behind the caveat of "vast majority of devices"..
As an installer I would not recommend or install any smart devices etc until the electrical issues were resolved. I just couldn't take responsibility or the impending support headaches for that. I've worked with a few electricians and generally speaking they aren't really up on details of modern smart home appliances much beyond Lutron (which is another great albeit expensive option).
If the Hue stuff has been working for you then why not just stick with that?
edit: a few devices might work okay in your environment but once you add a bunch you might find things getting more and more glitchy..
Heās not wrong - basically any ac to dc converter makes the issue go away, so my hubs are fine.
As far as whether itās fine with bulbs and plugs, I donāt know, but I do know it would be cheaper to replace them all when I leave then pay an electrican to fix someone elseās problem (and I did tell the landlord and heās shown no interest in fixing it himself)
As for why I donāt wanna use hue - firstly, Iād just prefer smart switches, and secondly, Hubitats native hue integration has a polling rate to the hue hub of one minute which isnāt ideal. But Iāll be using hue for now anyway
Also I currently have 30 odd bulbs, 6(?) plugs and a smart thermostat (Plus a bunch of battery devices that obviously arenāt affected)
Why not use one of the community Hue integrations? Then you can get the changes from Hue pushed to the hub (part of Hueās V2 api).
In general, where possible, I do prefer to use built in integrations. The people maintaining the community ones could, in theory, stop maintaining them at any point, where I feel built in ones are far more likely to be maintained for longer.
That being said, thatās āin generalā and there are always exceptions, so that is my plan at the moment.
The nice thing about open-source is that if someone decides to stop maintaining their thing and enough people rely on it, someone else is likely to step up. Look at HPM, for example.
Download the Hubitat app
