Recent, not complete sighhhh, kitchen renovation and my designer included these under cabinet lights. I am looking for a way to automate them so I can add them into scenes etc. Could anyone make recommendations on how I could acheive this please? Thanks in advance!
You'll likely need an appliance module ( not a lighting one) to fully cut power to the unit to automate on/off...that's the simple route. There are lots to choose from. You may also be able to use something like the Fibaro RGBW, but it really depends on that LED driver. There are no 0-10V dimmers in the zigbee or zwave world currently working in NA that I'm aware of. Hopefully someone with more experience with LED light drivers/automation will pipe in here.
If you want to control them on motion, then there are quite a few wireless motion sensors to chose from as well. I have a mix of older SmarThings, Ecolink (highly recommend!), Hue and Fibaro motion sensors in the house.
If it's not too late, I'd suggest going with IKEA Tradfri LED drivers and lights as they can be included to a Hubitat hub directly to control and dim the lights fully. The hardware is great quality and price is ok too. We used the Tradfri LED drivers/LED lights and GU10 Tradfri (for overhead lights) so the kitchen lighting can be fully automated to control brightness, hold off the overhead lights at night, etc.
These two recent reno's were done using the Tradfri cabinet lights (LED drivers and lights) and the GU10 Tradfri bulbs for overhead. It's a very cost effective way to automate lighting...
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Unfortunately they have already been installed. Thank you for your input!
The challenge with Ikea LEDs is they usually have very low CRI (Color Rendering Index). At worst, low CRI tends to make everything look a bit green. Ikea lights are usually 80 CRI. After you spend all that money on a new kitchen, it is nice to have high CRI lighting. Some places sell as high as >95, but in 2022, >90 seems the minimum, and maybe even >92. And no, this is not related to color temperature (incandescent vs daylight, etc.)
I had under cabinent lights in my house prior to purchasing it. What I ended up doing was installing a Sonoff Zigbee DIY Smart Switch (BASICZBR3) in the power circuit between the wall and the driver. It has worked well so far. It was controlled by motion with a simple Smarthings Motion sensor that was placed discretely. I also recently put in some additional rules so that it only activates between sunset and sunrise, and then i can do manual controls from a Zooz Scene controller.
One nice things about having the 12v power installed is that there are also controllers you can put in that circuit from Gledapto. It will allow you to take the 12v power and then attach to other types of light led strip light sources if you chose to. Ofcourse that is additional cost though.
All you need to do is insert a plug-in on/off controller (Z-Wave or Zigbee, pick your poison) in the outlet where these lights are plugged in and plug the power cord of the lights into the controller. You don’t need an appliance capable version. This is only a 40W load. I wouldn’t try to use a dimmer, but on/off control should be very easy.
A smart plug will work to, but the Sonoff diy device is $5 which ia cheaper then any smart plug.
With LED loads, some of the light-only "dimmer" smart plugs allow enough leakage voltage through to cause flickering of LEDs. Hence the suggestion for an appliance type plug that has a relay internal which actually cuts power completely to the device.
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It's a fair point...I did a commercial installation (about 9000 square feet) with high CRI lighting (in that case Philips TL950 old school flourescent) and the only comment from any of my staff when we retrofitted to LED...it's "brighter", although technically the lights were far worse for CRI.
CRI is not really a relevant measure any more for LED...CQS or TM-30 (the next likely standard) is more relevant these days.
I'm not familiar with led driver bricks like that but would a Shelly RGBW2 for independent control and dimming work for this case?
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