HE Novice Home Automation Device and Sensor Junk List

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HE Novice Home Automation Device and Sensor Junk List.

I came up a list of "MY" home automation sensors and devices that made my junk list. (IMHO)
By reading many extensive reviews from Amazon, product vendors and even reviews from HE Hub forums, these products still slipped through my quality and reliability control and I bought them.
Needless to say, most were sent back or to the city landfill. I don't want any HE forum members to make the same mistakes unless they want to and have plenty of money to burn.
Granted, technology and home automation products are changing every day but just be careful!
Disclaimer: No vendor names and specific product names are mentioned.

Radar Motion Light Bulb:
Good product but this device application must be well thought out ahead of time.
If placed in the wrong location it may pick up movement through the walls and
cause the bulbs to stay on always or come on and off continually.
My neighbors thought I had a disco on my front porch! Having a device that
senses people "back through the walls" is a critical security breach to me.

"Wi-Fi" color changing LED bulbs:
Tried to save some money and bought the cheaper "Wi-Fi" instead of quality and more expensive Zigbee (3) or Z-Wave+ LED color Bulbs. No matter how I tried - the colors with the Wi-Fi color bulbs would not show the proper and consistent true colors. Yellow would look like orange or visa versa. Blue would look like green. In this case, you get what you pay for!

Security Cameras with 2K 1080 P versa 4K high definition cameras:
This is really a technology change over the years.
For just plain video observation 2K cameras work well and are extremely cheap.
For police to do their job easy - 4K high definition cameras is a must!
Note: Most Doorbell Cams, now days, also employs 2K but are gradually changing to 4k.

Doorbell Camera's with only "pixel" motion indication:
Any camera that uses "only" video pixels, to me, for human security detection is junk to me.
Over the last two years, I had so many false alarms that I just gave up on adjustments and junked the doorbell cam. Now days, "quality" Doorbell cams employ not only camera "pixels" but also PIR (Infrared) and radar motion in one unit to cut down on false alarms.

There you have it - my HE Novice Home Automation Device and Sensor Junk List.
Forum members - Please do add to this list and state your reason. :grinning:

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Depends on the quality of the WiFi bulbs. LiFX WiFi bulbs, for which there is a built-in Hubitat integration, are by far the best color bulbs I have come across. Matter of fact, I've replaced every zigbee RGBW bulb in my house with a LiFX equivalent.

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I thought by paying ~ $20 was "noise bleed territory" but having to pay ~$34 for a quality, LIFX bulb
gives me a pause with my MasterCard. Shopping around might save some money?

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Yeah they are expensive but the quality is top notch. I had 4 color plus with infared before and gave them to my brother cause of my wifi mesh issue for my HUE/smarthings hubs

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Just to weigh in, I've been messing with smart home stuff in the UK for a few years.

At this point in my journey I'm now utterly satisfied with my c7, a handful of zigbee, 2 z wave dimmers and a stack of wifi-based nodemcu's.

The vast majority of my motion sensors, contact sensors, and various relays are WiFi-based via these.

No problems whatsoever. But that wasn't the case with a crap router. Decent router : new game. All good.

/input

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I would recommend the 1100 lumen RGBW LIFX over the 800 lumen bulbs. The difference in price is just $10, but there's a dramatic (~30%) increase in brightness, and ergo, range.

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where can I find one of these?

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Go to Amazon and type in "Radar Motion Sensor Light Bulb"