8 ms·

So what would you recommend we use instead?

by xutopia 11y ago

pc86 11y ago
Apparently Philips Hue bulbs.
CrazedGeek 11y ago
If the important part of the bulbs to you is the remote control (and not the color changing part), any generic ZigBee Light Link or Z-Wave light bulb paired with a home automation hub (like Wink or SmartThings) will work fine.
- jevinskie 11y ago
  The Wink hub (at least the current generation), is permanently rootable thanks to a flash-ROM uboot glitching trick. I have one but haven't bothered to root it yet. My goal is to use it for ZigBee wardriving. :) DerbyCon presentation by Crypt0s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl4PdLQW-8I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl4PdLQW-8I
ocdtrekkie 11y ago
I would strongly recommend that any home automation device you buy has a direct method that it can be interfaced with and programmed in a local way. If a device is only programmable by a web API, rule it out. You may also wish to consider looking for devices which are based on a switch, rather than a bulb. Controllable bulbs do not play nice with the state of physical light switches, and in the case of multi-bulb fixtures, bulb solutions may be excessively expensive. Meanwhile, a smart switch plays nice with physical users and can control as many bulbs as you want.
- fixermark 11y ago
  Any recommendations for your favorite smart switch? I installed a few INSTEONS in my house and got bit badly when they just stopped communicating. The most frustrating thing is that there's no diagnostic tool, so I can't tell if the switches are broken or if their signals are getting sent but aren't understood by intended recipients. Next time I get deeply into home automation, I'll make sure to use a kit that includes tools for sensing wifi signal and diagnosing bad connections.
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    I am using INSTEON myself. The bite there is that they :are: proprietary, though the PLM is openly programmable (I'm writing my own INSTEON controller) and not reliant on a web API of any kind. They can't disable functionality on me. I haven't had a bad experience :yet:, but I'd jump on a good open protocol with the same type of functionality. (RF/powerline dual-band is a huge perk, IMHO, and I prefer the non-use of Wi-Fi/Bluetooth.)
- gregmac 11y ago
  I never understood the desire to control lights without using a wall switch. I say this having had X10 and later Insteon installations in 3 different houses over the past 10 years. Even today, I have the ability to control nearly all the lights on the main floor of my house with an app on my phone. I actually use this feature maybe once or twice a year, being generous. Even if my phone is on me and already unlocked (due to being in my house), I have to pull it out, swipe the screen, launch an app, wait for it to load, then find the lights I want and click to turn on. Or I can press the switch on the wall next to me. Or, even better, a timer/motion sensor has already turned on the light for me and I don't even have to think about it. This is what real home automation is all about.
  - wvenable 11y ago
    I bought some bulbs to create a light alarm -- automatic wake up by slowing increasing the light in the room (and nice soft coloring too). I actually use the wall switch to turn them off an on the rest of the time. I might get some more bulbs (mi.light) if I start finding more uses but for now it seems pretty niche.
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    I certainly use remote activation when I'm not home, for instance, I have cameras so I can check on my pets, and I turn on the lights so I can see better when it's dark. (They're infrared cams, but that's questionably useful sometimes.) But yeah, 90% of the time, if I am turning on a light, I'm hitting the physical switch. So a bulb that is ignorant of my switch's position isn't a lot of use to me. Because if I want to turn that bulb on... my switch is probably already off. And the bulb can't work if the physical switch is off.
  - detaro 11y ago
    > Or, even better, a timer/motion sensor has already turned on the light for me and I don't even have to think about it. This is what real home automation is all about. And doesn't involve a wall switch. Of course, a fully integrated system with switch/dimmer modules in the electrical system is nice, but not really an option in many situations (e.g. renters). Control purely by a phone is certainly not ideal, but is a simplest useable solution you can build on, with additional hardware, apps for special functions, ...
CaptSpify 11y ago
I personally use these: http://www.amazon.com/Mi-Light-Dual-Color-Dimmable-Light/dp/B00P4VFOQ0 http://www.amazon.com/Mi-Light-Dual-Color-Dimmable-Light/dp/... as they have an open api. I'd love to see a real open-source one though
wvenable 11y ago
I just bought some Milight compatible bulbs, hub, and remote. It's less advanced and plug-and-play as the Philips system but hacker friendly. I'm currently coding up my own light wake-up alarm system (which is the reason I bought it).
pjmlp 11y ago
Normal dumb lamps?
mikeash 11y ago
How about a cheap dumb bulb from Home Depot or similar?
rosser 11y ago
I recently bought a pile of these: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-most-affordable-wi-fi-smart-bulb/x/167775#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-most-affordable-w... They're much less expensive than Hue, support IFTTT integration, and seem to be much more open in spirit than Philips' offering.
- odbol 11y ago
  It seems a little disingenuous to recommend a product that hasn't even shipped yet. You have no idea if they work, or if they'll even be built.
rlpb 11y ago
I've been looking into this but haven't committed to buying anything yet. Insteon doesn't seem well enough documented for third party controller implementations to me, although there are third party controllers available. Z-Wave (distinctively different from Zigbee) are the main contender for me right now. They seem to have the most interoperability but it is still a closed protocol in that documentation isn't freely available. But access higher up in the stack does seem easier. It looks like I'll be able to act as a controller, rather than being forced to talk to one. I like Insteon's dual signaling and bridging capability (between radio and signaling through the mains) but it has very limited security and it looks tricky for me to put a controller together myself (which as a developer is my test for openness). X10 (supported by Insteon devices) has no security and is quite limited, so I don't want to invest in that now.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  INSTEON documentation is actually somewhat decent. But fragmented. There's some great third party software, there's some great third party hardware. The thing that excited me into building my own INSTEON controller, is that you can directly control a light with about 20 lines of VB .NET code: http://madreporite.com/insteon/plm_basics.html http://madreporite.com/insteon/plm_basics.html Since I've been so unhappy with home automation software I've found, not doing exactly what I want, I've started building my own in VB .NET. The basics, plus what I specifically want it to do. X10 is outright terrible. It was designed before nearly as much signal interference existed on powerline, so now you need tons of phase couplers and filters to get a good signal. INSTEON's mesh network (and dual-band powerline/RF) jumps signal issues far better. INSTEON's newer devices also drop support for X10, FYI.
  - rlpb 11y ago
    > INSTEON documentation is actually somewhat decent. But fragmented. Any help, please? For example, let's say that I want to buy a USB interface (for a controller), a motion sensor, and a light switch (eg. a micro dimmer). I want to plug the USB interface into a modern Linux distribution and speak to it to read motion and the switch and control the light (and configure the switch to operate the light directly without the controller). Where do I find documentation on: * What drivers I'll need for the USB interface to get to something I can talk to from userspace, whether this is Free Software, whether I'll need external drivers or not and where I might get these. * The protocol to speak to the USB interface from userspace. * The protocol to speak to each of the devices over the interface. I've spent hours looking, and I only feel that I have half the answers. For example the dimmer is documented at http://www.insteon.com/developer/#devdocs http://www.insteon.com/developer/#devdocs but the motion sensor is not. And I still have no idea about the USB end.
kels 11y ago
I have 12 LIFX bulbs that I really love. No base station needed and it has a local and web API.
- timothyb89 11y ago
  Same here, I love mine as well. As a plus, the company seems to be pretty open-source friendly, and they've published official APIs and full protocol documentation over the last few months.
egypturnash 11y ago
LIFX. $60/bulb, just like the Hues, but they connect via wi-fi so there's no hub needed. Better blues and greens than the Hues, as well. I've tried them and the Hues. I gave the Hues away to my ex. I've got eight LIFX bulbs in my apartment, and would happily buy more if I was in a bigger place that needed more lighting.
on_and_off 11y ago
I can only recommend you not to buy LIFX bulbs. I have one and it has been widely unreliable from day one. It does not default to on when you use the light switch, so you always have to use the app to interact with it. Half the time, the app fails to detect it. The rest of the time, it can take random amounts of time for it to respond. It also likes to randomly light up red in the middle of the night or to flicker very rapidly (absolutely unbearable). I have just removed it and replaced with a dumb light.
- aktive0 11y ago
  I have LIFX bulbs and do not experience this issue at all. In fact, if I've turned the bulb off via software, I can flick the physical switch off, then on and the bulb comes on. Their app is amazing and they are constantly adding new features and have a great api to boot.
- timothyb89 11y ago
  Bulb detection used to be a big frustration for me as well, but they've 100% resolved my issues with it in the latest firmware update (now a few months old). I'd previously had issues with detection after power-on since WiFi would take ages to connect, but now its down to a pretty impressive 5-6 seconds from cold start and is far more reliable. Random color changes or flickering sounds like a defective bulb, I'm sure they'd replace it for you if you contacted them.
  - on_and_off 11y ago
    maybe they have corrected it in an ulterior hardware/software revision, I have the Kickstarter version and judging from the comments at that time it was at least a widespread issue. I am not really willing to throw more money their way though.
dnr 11y ago
Another vote for Z-Wave. As others have said, the lack of being "open" means that stuff actually interoperates. I'm using a Razberry with an older Raspberry Pi as the controller, and Linear brand in-wall dimmers and lamp modules, plus a motorized drapery system from Somfy. The software that comes with the Razberry acts as a basic controller, but I wrote my own web front-end that talks to their controller over local http. It's all very customizable, and has been very reliable. (I don't know if there are Z-Wave colored lights, though, mine just dim.) http://razberry.z-wave.me/ http://razberry.z-wave.me/
- gergles 11y ago
  Domoticz and OpenZWave are actually way more powerful than Razberry, and I'd highly recommend investigating that so that you don't need to keep updating your own controller. Domoticz also has a pretty good scripting (lua) support built-in, so you can automate stuff in a really simple way.
  - dnr 11y ago
    I'm just using razberry as an api to send z-wave commands and occasionally get status updates. I'm writing all my own logic and scripting and stuff in my web front-end (using coffeescript on node). I'm sure I'm duplicating effort, and of course no one will ever reuse my code, but now that I've wrapped the basics of the razberry api, it's easier for me to just code more logic than to learn someone else's framework. (I'm also integrating a handful of devices I built myself from esp8266's, that communicate over basic http over wifi. I wonder if those could be integrated into one of those frameworks easily?)

So what would you recommend we use instead?

by xutopia 11y ago

So what would you recommend we use instead?

pc86 11y ago

Apparently Philips Hue bulbs.

CrazedGeek 11y ago

If the important part of the bulbs to you is the remote control (and not the color changing part), any generic ZigBee Light Link or Z-Wave light bulb paired with a home automation hub (like Wink or SmartThings) will work fine.

jevinskie 11y ago
The Wink hub (at least the current generation), is permanently rootable thanks to a flash-ROM uboot glitching trick. I have one but haven't bothered to root it yet. My goal is to use it for ZigBee wardriving. :) DerbyCon presentation by Crypt0s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl4PdLQW-8I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl4PdLQW-8I

ocdtrekkie 11y ago

I would strongly recommend that any home automation device you buy has a direct method that it can be interfaced with and programmed in a local way. If a device is only programmable by a web API, rule it out. You may also wish to consider looking for devices which are based on a switch, rather than a bulb. Controllable bulbs do not play nice with the state of physical light switches, and in the case of multi-bulb fixtures, bulb solutions may be excessively expensive. Meanwhile, a smart switch plays nice with physical users and can control as many bulbs as you want.

fixermark 11y ago
Any recommendations for your favorite smart switch? I installed a few INSTEONS in my house and got bit badly when they just stopped communicating. The most frustrating thing is that there's no diagnostic tool, so I can't tell if the switches are broken or if their signals are getting sent but aren't understood by intended recipients. Next time I get deeply into home automation, I'll make sure to use a kit that includes tools for sensing wifi signal and diagnosing bad connections.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  I am using INSTEON myself. The bite there is that they :are: proprietary, though the PLM is openly programmable (I'm writing my own INSTEON controller) and not reliant on a web API of any kind. They can't disable functionality on me. I haven't had a bad experience :yet:, but I'd jump on a good open protocol with the same type of functionality. (RF/powerline dual-band is a huge perk, IMHO, and I prefer the non-use of Wi-Fi/Bluetooth.)
gregmac 11y ago
I never understood the desire to control lights without using a wall switch. I say this having had X10 and later Insteon installations in 3 different houses over the past 10 years. Even today, I have the ability to control nearly all the lights on the main floor of my house with an app on my phone. I actually use this feature maybe once or twice a year, being generous. Even if my phone is on me and already unlocked (due to being in my house), I have to pull it out, swipe the screen, launch an app, wait for it to load, then find the lights I want and click to turn on. Or I can press the switch on the wall next to me. Or, even better, a timer/motion sensor has already turned on the light for me and I don't even have to think about it. This is what real home automation is all about.
- wvenable 11y ago
  I bought some bulbs to create a light alarm -- automatic wake up by slowing increasing the light in the room (and nice soft coloring too). I actually use the wall switch to turn them off an on the rest of the time. I might get some more bulbs (mi.light) if I start finding more uses but for now it seems pretty niche.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  I certainly use remote activation when I'm not home, for instance, I have cameras so I can check on my pets, and I turn on the lights so I can see better when it's dark. (They're infrared cams, but that's questionably useful sometimes.) But yeah, 90% of the time, if I am turning on a light, I'm hitting the physical switch. So a bulb that is ignorant of my switch's position isn't a lot of use to me. Because if I want to turn that bulb on... my switch is probably already off. And the bulb can't work if the physical switch is off.
- detaro 11y ago
  > Or, even better, a timer/motion sensor has already turned on the light for me and I don't even have to think about it. This is what real home automation is all about. And doesn't involve a wall switch. Of course, a fully integrated system with switch/dimmer modules in the electrical system is nice, but not really an option in many situations (e.g. renters). Control purely by a phone is certainly not ideal, but is a simplest useable solution you can build on, with additional hardware, apps for special functions, ...

CaptSpify 11y ago

I personally use these: http://www.amazon.com/Mi-Light-Dual-Color-Dimmable-Light/dp/B00P4VFOQ0 http://www.amazon.com/Mi-Light-Dual-Color-Dimmable-Light/dp/... as they have an open api. I'd love to see a real open-source one though

wvenable 11y ago

I just bought some Milight compatible bulbs, hub, and remote. It's less advanced and plug-and-play as the Philips system but hacker friendly. I'm currently coding up my own light wake-up alarm system (which is the reason I bought it).

pjmlp 11y ago

Normal dumb lamps?

mikeash 11y ago

How about a cheap dumb bulb from Home Depot or similar?

rosser 11y ago

I recently bought a pile of these: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-most-affordable-wi-fi-smart-bulb/x/167775#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-most-affordable-w... They're much less expensive than Hue, support IFTTT integration, and seem to be much more open in spirit than Philips' offering.

odbol 11y ago
It seems a little disingenuous to recommend a product that hasn't even shipped yet. You have no idea if they work, or if they'll even be built.

rlpb 11y ago

I've been looking into this but haven't committed to buying anything yet. Insteon doesn't seem well enough documented for third party controller implementations to me, although there are third party controllers available. Z-Wave (distinctively different from Zigbee) are the main contender for me right now. They seem to have the most interoperability but it is still a closed protocol in that documentation isn't freely available. But access higher up in the stack does seem easier. It looks like I'll be able to act as a controller, rather than being forced to talk to one. I like Insteon's dual signaling and bridging capability (between radio and signaling through the mains) but it has very limited security and it looks tricky for me to put a controller together myself (which as a developer is my test for openness). X10 (supported by Insteon devices) has no security and is quite limited, so I don't want to invest in that now.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
INSTEON documentation is actually somewhat decent. But fragmented. There's some great third party software, there's some great third party hardware. The thing that excited me into building my own INSTEON controller, is that you can directly control a light with about 20 lines of VB .NET code: http://madreporite.com/insteon/plm_basics.html http://madreporite.com/insteon/plm_basics.html Since I've been so unhappy with home automation software I've found, not doing exactly what I want, I've started building my own in VB .NET. The basics, plus what I specifically want it to do. X10 is outright terrible. It was designed before nearly as much signal interference existed on powerline, so now you need tons of phase couplers and filters to get a good signal. INSTEON's mesh network (and dual-band powerline/RF) jumps signal issues far better. INSTEON's newer devices also drop support for X10, FYI.
- rlpb 11y ago
  > INSTEON documentation is actually somewhat decent. But fragmented. Any help, please? For example, let's say that I want to buy a USB interface (for a controller), a motion sensor, and a light switch (eg. a micro dimmer). I want to plug the USB interface into a modern Linux distribution and speak to it to read motion and the switch and control the light (and configure the switch to operate the light directly without the controller). Where do I find documentation on: * What drivers I'll need for the USB interface to get to something I can talk to from userspace, whether this is Free Software, whether I'll need external drivers or not and where I might get these. * The protocol to speak to the USB interface from userspace. * The protocol to speak to each of the devices over the interface. I've spent hours looking, and I only feel that I have half the answers. For example the dimmer is documented at http://www.insteon.com/developer/#devdocs http://www.insteon.com/developer/#devdocs but the motion sensor is not. And I still have no idea about the USB end.

kels 11y ago

I have 12 LIFX bulbs that I really love. No base station needed and it has a local and web API.

timothyb89 11y ago
Same here, I love mine as well. As a plus, the company seems to be pretty open-source friendly, and they've published official APIs and full protocol documentation over the last few months.

egypturnash 11y ago

LIFX. $60/bulb, just like the Hues, but they connect via wi-fi so there's no hub needed. Better blues and greens than the Hues, as well. I've tried them and the Hues. I gave the Hues away to my ex. I've got eight LIFX bulbs in my apartment, and would happily buy more if I was in a bigger place that needed more lighting.

on_and_off 11y ago

I can only recommend you not to buy LIFX bulbs. I have one and it has been widely unreliable from day one. It does not default to on when you use the light switch, so you always have to use the app to interact with it. Half the time, the app fails to detect it. The rest of the time, it can take random amounts of time for it to respond. It also likes to randomly light up red in the middle of the night or to flicker very rapidly (absolutely unbearable). I have just removed it and replaced with a dumb light.

aktive0 11y ago
I have LIFX bulbs and do not experience this issue at all. In fact, if I've turned the bulb off via software, I can flick the physical switch off, then on and the bulb comes on. Their app is amazing and they are constantly adding new features and have a great api to boot.
timothyb89 11y ago
Bulb detection used to be a big frustration for me as well, but they've 100% resolved my issues with it in the latest firmware update (now a few months old). I'd previously had issues with detection after power-on since WiFi would take ages to connect, but now its down to a pretty impressive 5-6 seconds from cold start and is far more reliable. Random color changes or flickering sounds like a defective bulb, I'm sure they'd replace it for you if you contacted them.
- on_and_off 11y ago
  maybe they have corrected it in an ulterior hardware/software revision, I have the Kickstarter version and judging from the comments at that time it was at least a widespread issue. I am not really willing to throw more money their way though.

dnr 11y ago

Another vote for Z-Wave. As others have said, the lack of being "open" means that stuff actually interoperates. I'm using a Razberry with an older Raspberry Pi as the controller, and Linear brand in-wall dimmers and lamp modules, plus a motorized drapery system from Somfy. The software that comes with the Razberry acts as a basic controller, but I wrote my own web front-end that talks to their controller over local http. It's all very customizable, and has been very reliable. (I don't know if there are Z-Wave colored lights, though, mine just dim.) http://razberry.z-wave.me/ http://razberry.z-wave.me/

gergles 11y ago
Domoticz and OpenZWave are actually way more powerful than Razberry, and I'd highly recommend investigating that so that you don't need to keep updating your own controller. Domoticz also has a pretty good scripting (lua) support built-in, so you can automate stuff in a really simple way.
- dnr 11y ago
  I'm just using razberry as an api to send z-wave commands and occasionally get status updates. I'm writing all my own logic and scripting and stuff in my web front-end (using coffeescript on node). I'm sure I'm duplicating effort, and of course no one will ever reuse my code, but now that I've wrapped the basics of the razberry api, it's easier for me to just code more logic than to learn someone else's framework. (I'm also integrating a handful of devices I built myself from esp8266's, that communicate over basic http over wifi. I wonder if those could be integrated into one of those frameworks easily?)