Why are there no Z-Wave RGBW Bulbs?

💡 Lighting Room Lighting
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I am 100% Z-Wave and prefer to reinforce my mesh with a Z-Wave rather than Zigbee/Wifi smart bulb. Can't find any- even the popular ones like the Aeotec and not available anywhere. Anyone know why Z-Wave bulbs seem non-existent?

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Z-waves color implementation is a cruel joke.

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Chip cost and availability too. Sengled had one but they don't make it anymore. Honestly Lifx bulbs are where it's at. even though they're wifi, they're 100% local and native to Hubitat. They have superior color and brightness as well.

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Abus make one... look for those. Not cheap mind you!

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iNovelli make one.

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Ninjaed again... @aaiyar, in the time it took me to get a copy of the link you got it posted... :slight_smile:

I have a couple of the Inovelli ones that work great and I also have a Hank RGBW Z-Wave Plus bulb that works pretty well... although I am not exactly sure where to get those anymore. I originally got mine from Monoprice but it is not listed there now.

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Ya I have 3 of the Inovelli's and they work great if you can find any.

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Used to be available on Amazon. I didn’t see it there today, but it still available elsewhere, such as:

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Like Mike mentioned above, Z-wave color is pretty awful compared to Zigbee (not sure about Wifi).

It is clunky, and seems a lot more limited in colors or how smoothly it changes colors.

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I found a link for that one but did not include it because there was no availability in the US.

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Unless their direction gets completely derailed by the takeover by Feit (I doubt it but still possible). They also really need to work on their lineup. I almost picked them for my recent "upgrade" project but that was mainly around the flush mount downlight they were getting ready to release being pretty cheap. Once that was nixed, the overall cost landed me on Hue.

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Yeah, that sucked. I had pre ordered some but it was cancelled. Hopefully they bring them out when the take over is stable.

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This is something I cannot understand.
Light sourse is an RGB(WW) LEDs (3 to 5 individual channels).
Final color is deined by mixing light from individual RGB(WW) LEDs
with different Brightness. Brightness is controlled by PWM
(Pulse Width Modulation). PWM value is an Integer.
Now the question is:
Why and how delivering 3 to 5 Integers to the PWM Controller depend
on used communication protocol?

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Study the zigbee color schema and youll see why i said what i said.

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I actually own a Z-wave RGB bulb.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DC569FL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I found that it did not work well and switch over to INNR repeating Zigbee bulbs. They work great and I would recommend them as your solution. The hub does both Zigbee and Z-wave well so there is no issue using both. I have used both for many installations.

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I tried searching for zigbee color shema but did not find any direct description.

I am EE and my point was/is: light source is an RGB (for simplicity I will refer
to only 3 channels) LED. Brightness is controlled by PWM. Let say, 8bit per
channel. This way 24bit integer can produce whatever color with whatever
brightness. This is a lightning control hardware. Transport protocol (it could be anything, i.e. Zigbee, ZWave, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.) function is to deliver this 24bit value to the lightning controller. Right?

Now, all these Color Schemes whatever they are finally translated into native RGB
values because Color LED can understand only RGB.
Unfortunately very often this transition is done in a wrong place such as
whatever lightning controller. As a result each lightning controller is
very unique with a lot of built-in specifics. The correct place is an application.
Everything what is needed from the controller - is an ability to control each
LED individually. But for some reason this is usually and unfortunately not a case.
Every controller (or driver) I tried had some built-in smartness preventing
to achieve the desired result. This is specifically true for the RGBW(W)
controllers. For instance it is/was impossible to turn on all LEDs at the same time.

I am glad, I discovered Pixelblaze.
Now for all my color lightning I am using Addressable LED Strips controlled by
Pixelblaze. There is a very nice HE Pixelblaze Driver, created by @zranger1 .
With this Lightning HW I can control each individual LED in the Strip the way
how I want it without any restrictions.

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