The Register: Philips kills dependence on its Hue hub, pointing to a Bluetooth world.
I get why they do this, but don't really like it. It's yet another set of devices which use the 2.4ghz band... Thus cause for more and more interference. So I really hope the will make it so that you can choose to turn the bluetooth or zigbee radio off. I'm curious which version they are going to implement, since only 5.1 has mesh functionality.
1 Like
Welcome to the Hubitat Community!
Bluetooth is 2.45 GHz. Interference is not a concern at that frequency and power level.
This is a play by Phillips for sales, nothing more. This isn’t mesh compatible. Perhaps with an upgrade, but all this is right now, is a way for consumers that don’t understand smart home to control a bulb with their phone and hopefully want to explore (and buy) a Hue Bridge and many bulbs/accessories.
5 Likes
This is very interesting. Given the fact Hue family is AC connected - no issues with battery life, why zigbee/zwave protocols were invented. Also - every mobile phone has Bluetooth nowaday , so connectivity should be really smooth.
I'm looking forward to get mobile phone manufacturers install zigbee/zwave chips inside their devices.
This is the way I see it too- a "Gateway drug".
Consumer: "This is so cool and pretty, but I want to control my lights when I'm away from home."
Phillips: "Oh, okay. Have we got the solution for you!"
2 Likes
I doubt mobile phone manufacturers will ever do that. They would have done it already by now. And with Bluetooth already in place, I suspect the momentum will be in that direction.
1 Like
Why would they do that? The number of people who have a zigbee or z-wave controller to pair it to is very small compared to the cell phone market as a whole. Plus, it is only good when you are in range of the controller. You phone could only control the lights while you are in range? That would also mean, in the case of Zigbee, that only one person could control the lights. You can only have one coordinator on a zigbee network.
6lowpan is interesting as it eliminate the need for low power devices to depend on hubs and instead a bluetooth /ethernet or Wifi Gateway and these devices can talk directly without the need of a hub.
One of my customers deployed a custom 6lowpan solution after z-wave did not provide what it needed. Much higher bandwidth. Ability to create several paths via modules that have both wifi and Bluetooth so there are multiple points of entry and exit to the IP network. This also reduces the number of repeaters and increases the distances that can be tolerated between the devices as wifi acts as a gateway for them. This potentially gives the ability to also have redundant controllers so that if your primary hub goes down your secondary hub can take over because everything is IP addressable. High Availability.
No that was by accident.
Okay...my apologies.
