I have a number of LED strips that I installed in my kitchen. Currently, the driver is in the basement, supplying power buses and I ran a number of two wire home runs to various points. This, of course, avoids voltage drops.
I just switched from wink last week and realized it would be fun to be able to change the lighting. So I guess the plan would be similar, replacing the two wire runs with .. (four? Five?) with some sort of bus.
I ordered a Hue hub and some bulbs to experiment wIth on some chandeliers and sconces.
So... any thoughts on what I should get? After reading various conversations here, I have some questions. Should I go with Hue? If so, I doubt their power supply could drive everything, but I could research that. It seems that some like Hue hub, while other talk about direct to HE. How would that work? Would I need a rgbgenie driver? Would that basically emulate the Hue?
Why about Sengled? Again, it’s unclear to me how that integrates with HE, or how they are powered.
Finally, any advice of HE UI? Is there an app/UI piece that would let me adjust the lights without needing a vendor specific app?
The RGB Genie stuff works great in Hubitat. They have both Zigbee and Zwave devices so you have options there. There are native drivers for these, and community based "enhanced" drivers for Zwave.
Otherwise, those cheap Zigbee RGBW controllers like the Gledopto work fine, but won't drive too much strip length.
There are lots of ways to set colors in Hubitat. Rules, Modes/Scenes, the dashboard, or even by a separate hardware button if you want.
If you want something more physical, RGBGenie also has color selection touch panels in both Zigbee and Zwave that work with Hubitat. Here is a Zigbee example.
Thank you. Unless the plan changes, my intention is to get the RGBGenie 1002 and use my existing LED driver. I'm going to attempt to use splitters out of the genie to feed each of the home runs going up to the kitchen. Working on locating all the bits now. So far I haven't found any strips without all the extra junk that I don't want. I'll most likely get either that plate that you linked, or a remote.
I am not really clear on your existing setup. You mentioned the driver is in your basement and you are running 2 wires for the light strip to various locations.
With just two wires. You won't be able to control your light strip correctly. Most RGB strip needs at least 4 wires. What you can do is to leave the power supply at the basement and have the driver at the light strip. I have cat5 cable for my Hue strip power and leave the driver at the light strip.
