I realized I have some old hue bulbs laying around, and they’re working well enough with my Zigbee controller (no bridge), but if I decide to scale up I definitely don’t want to pay the Hue premium.
Anyone have a Zigbee bulb brand they recommend? I hear Third Reality is nice?
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I’d recommend the sengled ZigBee bulbs. They’re cheap, reliable, and have good colors. Ive been using many for years without issue.
The IKEA bulbs will also work. I’ve tried them in the past, but didn’t like them. I found they were too dim at full brightness. Also, their colors are much much worse then the sengled bulbs, especially the “greens” (I say this in quotes because the best the IKEA bulbs can do is a pitiful color that’s 85% yellow and 15% green).
Late to the party but I’m in the same boat. I used these for my porch and lights ousted the garage. They’re reliable and have help up in heat and cold weather for a year now without issue.
I have my porch light turn on at dusk to a dim white level. When I get home or of the doorbell detects motion, it comes on full brightness. The garage lights switch to holiday colors for things like Halloween and Christmas time.
Overall, they’ve been great to use and were much less expensive than hue. I can’t speak for how good the white temperatures are since they’re just outdoor bulbs for me and in not reading a book on my porch or anything.
I just want to kindly share experience: You might want to consider not making the bulbs smart but rather the wall switches. So you can still use the switch and also Automate it. If you should consider this, there are sonoff zigbee switches, but my experience with zigbee is not the best to be honest. I would rather recomment shelly wifi switches (IMO scaling and maintaining a smarthome wifi is much less pain and more reliable than zigbee.
I second the smart switch strategy, especially when using a fixture with several bulbs.
As for ZigBee however, I’ve been using Home Assistant Yellow with its built-in ZigBee radio and ZHA, and it’s been flawless. Any issues I’ve have been a matter of reinforcing the network by adding a few smart plugs. I got over 60 devices hooked to it at the moment. Z-Wave has been just as problem-free. The really nice thing about having a Z-something network is the ability to use low power devices like battery powered sensors and switches/controls. Want a smart doorbell that plays a chime on all speakers and sends you a phone notification? Stick any ZigBee button to the outside of your door and program the automation. Its battery lasts two years.
Reading this thread as I’m beginning my home. automation journey. When I first asked most people. also said focus on switches / plugs as your smart source.
Would a smart switch be able to do color FX with bulbs? what kind of bulbs would I have to get if this can work?
Not as far as know. The bulbs would have to be smart themselves and connect to HA directly. Switches are more useful when you want to switch a few lamps and don’t want anything but dimming. They can make that cheaper, especially when switching 6+ bulbs. I use Z-Wave (a coincidence, ZigBee works just as well) dimmers for three such fixtures. For smaller 1-2 fixtures or when I need color I use smart bulbs.
