Recent discussions have raised some interesting questions around how people interact with their lights, whether through grouping of lights, definitions of scenes or various automation options....
So..... Putting aside any HE options..... (my expectations are low )
How do you want to interact with your lighting setup?
Do you like to coral your lights into rooms / zones so you can control then (as a group)?
Do you like to define scenes....?
Do you want to define How complex are the your automations for triggering these scenes or groups of lights?
IFTTT
It depends on which side of the bed I got out of....
I guess what I am trying to emphasise is it is important to push aside all the noise and focus on what you are wanting to achieve. Then look to the solution for this target...
I have a mixed bag of control via Simple Automations (e.g. pantry light that is just an on/off switch with motion), Rule Machine for more complex stuff (bathrooms where I'm looking at whether or not the fan is on and accounting for whether it was turned on by a person or based on humidity), and have dipped my toe into Room Lighting.
For the lighting itself, I have a mixed bag of smart bulbs and switches. The smart bulbs are all grouped by fixture and by room using Groups and Scenes, for now. I do have two bulbs I use standalone for notification purposes.
As for control, my main method is through the automations mentioned. Bedrooms/common areas have next to no automations in place so they are manually controlled.
Most of my lights are automated. When someone enters most of our rooms and the illuminance is lower than a threshold, the lights should turn on. All of the rooms are setup to turn off the lights after a preset number of minutes when no motion is detected.
I use mostly @bertabcd1234’s Lights On Motion Plus app for this, but in a few rare instances, I’ve set up a RM rule.
All the lights can also be controlled via a “normal” switch. So if someone doesn’t get it or if there is an issue with the automation triggering, the lights can be turned on or off manually.
I also have outside lights that turn on automatically at dusk and then off at a preset time.
I’ve been tweaking all of these in the past year, and at this point everything seems to be working smoothly, which is nice!
All lights are 100% automatic based on time, motion and real iluminance.
Of course, each light has an ability for manual control.
All rules are RM only.
No Alexa, Google, etc.
No smart lights, only smart dimmers (all lights are dimmable).
Few addressable led strips controlled by Pixelblaze integrated with HE.
May forget something...
Most of it is time based or motion. To keep the wife acceptance factor above 70% everything works with physical switches as well. Tried some voice control as well that never works properly "hey google,... heY GOOOGLE, HEEEYYY GOOGLE"!!!
What works very well for us is the homebridge in between hubitat and our apple devices. Use that a lot.
Like others, I prefer automation, so everything is based on motion, time, and illuminance. I have a good mix of switches and bulbs, but I prefer switches when possible to maintain normal/expected behavior. Bulbs are mostly just for lamps, basement, and outdoor where switches aren't an available option. All automations have a "manual" override, so if a light gets turned on manually from a switch or button, it won't automatically turn off until it's turned off manually. That's handy for using a switch to turn on a light outside or in the basement where you don't want it turning off on you a few minutes later. Lamps have a little Aqara button next to them that cycle through different dimming levels. Everything is available through Hey Goo Goo, but the landscape lights are the only things that don't have some sort of manual control.
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