So am confused regarding the smart lights in my new house. Should I be going for Z wave / Zigbee downlights or go for inline dimmers (Would I need 1 per downlight)? I don't want to go with smart switches.
With inline dimers can I change the color?
Also, can you please recommend any products in Australia which I can connect to Hubitat without any device to be flashed as am not able to figure out the custom drivers part of HE yet? I saw this on googlehomestore Melbourne, would this integrate directly with HE?
Easiest solution is Hue, chuck in a Hue Hub, use the HE Hue app and away you go. Keeps the light off of the hub which I quite like and means the family can use the HUE app if they want to. Not the cheapest solution but slots straight into any setup.
1/ expensive bulbs and automation that gets broken every time sometime turns them off at the wall switch.
Or
/2 expensive dimmers and cheap bulbs that just work. Zwave or Zigbee, just pick one and and enjoy the ride.
It sounds like you want to smarten up the lights but still keep the normal dumb switches, which makes sense. That is easily done, but it’ll be the most expensive option.
Like others have said, I would go with Hue throughout which gives you full control of the lights (depending of course on which bulb you go for). Other smart bulbs will work as well, but with the Hue hub you’ll keep the lights on their own Zigbee mesh, the Hue hub is well supported by HE and the Hue app is excellent.
To be able to use normal light switches with smart lights that are not supposed to have the power to them turned off, I would use in-wall Aeotec Nano switches. You will need one per light circuit/light switch or you get the Aeotec Dual Nano switch which can do 2 circuits/light switches. The Nanos will be installed in the flush box behind the light switch and will be connected to the light switch (but not the lighting circuit because you don’t want them to physically turn off the power to the lights). The light switches will only be connected to the Nanos (because again, you don’t want the power actually turned off) so the light switches will only act as a switch input to the Nanos and there will be no mains power required to be run to the light switches.
In HE you would set up your automation to wait for the Nanos to report that the switch has been pressed and then HE will tell Hue which lights to turn on.
Now, that’s the expensive way of making a traditional light switch smart, but it will work (there will be a slight delay before the lights turn on/off so it won’t be the normal instant action you’d see from a normal light switch). The other way is to replace the traditional light switch and Nano with a wireless Zigbee or Zwave wall switch instead. That will be the cheaper option but the you are also relying on battery powered wall switches (which can be a pain with their batteries needing replacement). On the other hand, if you go down the Nano path you will have a strong Zwave mesh in the house for other Zwave devices to use.
The world is you oyster! You can do anything you’d like. It just comes down to money
I think the delay is just to do with the nano switch, I have one they are Slloooooooow! You idea has merit though, but I would suspect the the Fibaro version or maybe the qubino one is much faster.
I have a Fibaro dimmer 2 doing downlights in the room then the 2nd input controls the ZigBee RGBW lamp in the middle of the room.
I get the best of both worlds then, the downlights work with or without the hub but are switched but normal looking switches (push to make) and the RGBW lamp is for everyday use also controlled by a normal switch.
The nano switches arent slow, but the reason the nano dimmer is is that it waits to see if you are going to change the dimmer level or just power on/off the lights.
they are by a country mile slower than anything else in my house. It takes the nano dule switch like 3 or 4 seconds to respond that they are on or off. To turn them ON/OFF they are maybe 500-600ms. Everything else is 200 ms max.
Sorry, I was talking about the nano dimmers, they are very slow when operated by the physical switch. The nano switches are instant when operated by switch.
The Nano Dimmers are faster when operated by the Hub (eg via app), mine are almost instant on, but take maybe 1-2 seconds to fade off depending on the brightness level at the time.
My nano switches are almost instant for both on and off when operated by the Hub.
My family use Alexa t turn our Dimmers on/off etc so it's not really an issue for us ATM. However, it'll be interesting to see how out guests find it - my parents-in-law usually mute the Echo in the guest room and use physical switches.
another solution is to put in a switch and just use it for control via hubitat and hard wire the lights on so they dont get turned off..
or just replace the switch and put in an automation to turn it back on after someone turns it off so the lights keep power.. I have down all different ways in different houses.. the last is the trickiest.. here is my rule for that.
, expensive bulbs controlled by expensive switches that do not break the automation but can control the bulbs through the hub
