I will stick with Hue.
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For Zibee bulbs, I am using the Sengled classics. Just 4 in lamps and one Edison on the back deck. They work good. I have had no issues with them. But I moved my Zigbee to Channel 26 to avoid wifi co-channel and the smart electric meters on Channel 25. They only go down to 5% which is too bright to use as a night light. I find that the dumb dimmable LEDs with an in wall dimmer switch works the best. I get those LED bulbs so dim they can not be seen unless in a darkened room.
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Are you talking about sengled ? So far my experience has not been good. I really want them to work as HA monitors the power consumption also. I haven't noticed this available from the other bulbs.
I love hue also , I just can't spent 50 a bulb for the entire house.
So far I have had a great experience with third reality Zigbee bulbs.
No, I am referring to bulbs in general. Sengled, Innr, or the Third Reality all have not performed well in HA. I connect all my bulbs directly to Hubitat. Now, I do have the Third Reality Night Lights in HA and they work well. It is just physical bulbs I have an issue with.
Hue. You can always take out a home equity loan.
Seriously though, they're rock solid. I have about 12 white bulbs, 10 white ambience downlight retrofits, 16 color downlight retrofits and 9 slim color downlights. All are paired directly to HE, no Hue hub.
Yes, it was painful but I never plan on moving ever again and I didn't want to cheap out on lighting. The house we bought has a lot of recessed downlights, and every one needed a new trim ring and a new bulb of some sort. The cost of the Hue retrofits really wasn't bad after factoring in all the new trim rings I didn't have to buy.
Most of them have been installed for about 2 1/2 years now, and I've never had one single problem, no glitches, no nothing. They just work. I like them so much I'd buy the company, except I don't have any money left after I bought their bulbs. Really though, despite the brutal costs I honestly don't have any regrets.
I don't know why someone else can't come out with a line of zigbee bulbs with the same quality and reliability as Hue for a better price. Perhaps in this case, you really do need to charge what they do to build a product with this level of reliability, I don't know.
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I agree they are quality , and curious why you didn't use their hub ? I had no issues syncing it to hubitat.
The reason I don't have them , I like color bulbs in every room of the house.
So far I have been extremely happy with the performance of 3rd reality. So much so , I finally redid all my home automation to HA with hubitat acting as my zwave hub.
Sorry for the delayed reply.
Because it didn't add anything of value (to me) and you can't directly associate zigbee switches with Hue lights unless they're both on the same zigbee network. and you can't add non-Hue devices to a Hue hub.
All of the Hue downlight retrofits in my house are controlled by wall switches. I couldn't continue to use the original dumb switches of course, since the Hue fixtures need to be powered on 24/7. Removing the wall switches was not an option because I feel very strongly that home automation should augment your home, not replace basic functionality. If the switches are removed, how does a normal person turn on the lights (we are not normal people here).
The solution was to replace the dumb switches with Inovelli 2-1 zigbee switches and directly associate the switches to the zigbee group (created in HE) that controls the downlights. Those switches will always work to turn on/off and control the dimming level of the lights, regardless of whether the HE hub is up and running or not. Other brands of zigbee switches may be able to do this as well, I'm not sure.
Having the lights in my house depend on a hub for basic functionality is a deal breaker for me. If I get run over by a bus, the vast majority of lights and switches in my house will continue to work, at least manually. They may not go on and off on schedules, etc. but that's ok. If the HE hub fails for any reason (or is simply unplugged), my house will simply revert to a dumb house, it won't revert to the stone ages.
I'm late to the party here. Is there anything complex or odd about pairing a Hue bulb directly to A C-8 hub?
No, not really. I don't think the bulbs stay in pairing mode too long though, so if it doesn't pair with your hub, remove power from the bulb for a couple of seconds then turn it back ok.
I would pair the bulb to the Hue app on your phone using Bluetooth first, then check for any firmware updates. The only drawback of using HE instead of the Hue hub is that you can't do any firmware updates to the bulbs. If you can't get it to pair with HE after doing that, use the phone app to reset the bulb.
