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I have had smart lights in my apartment for years - Philips Hue uses Zigbee. Every time I am in a hotel or a guest somewhere, I feel like I am visiting the 19th

I have had smart lights in my apartment for years - Philips Hue uses Zigbee. Every time I am in a hotel or a guest somewhere, I feel like I am visiting the 19th century. Touching light switches seems savage to me now. I walk in a bathroom, and the light needs to come on, and it needs to be very dim after 10pm.

rootusrootus 3y ago
You're braver than I am. I won't use Hue bulbs because I require that my automation setup fail gracefully back to plain old 'just works the way it used to' functionality. It'd be just my luck that the server, hub, or Internet would fail right when I needed the lights to work and I'd be stuck in the dark.
- Toutouxc 3y ago
  My lights are all set to turn on after a power cut. That way if Home Assistant dies, I can flip any light switch off, then on, and it will work normally. My area doesn’t have any actual power cuts though.
- renegade-otter 3y ago
  Not really - these lights are always on, so if the hub croaks, your lights can still be turned on/off the old-fashioned way. I actually got touch guards installed on all the switches so the guests don't press them - you can still poke it with a pencil and toggle. In almost 10 years, I have never had to do it. The only drawback is that if the power goes in and out - all the lights come on. This is where remote functionality is useful, if you are away.
- extrapickles 3y ago
  Hue bulbs by default emulate a dumb led bulb. This is configurable so you can have them be “dumb” in a way that you prefer, eg: customize color, brightness or do whatever you told them last. I have several that some of the time I use a regular light switch to turn on/off and you wouldn’t know they weren’t standard led bulbs.
- filterfiber 3y ago
  > I won't use Hue bulbs because I require that my automation setup fail gracefully back to plain old 'just works the way it used to' functionality. Maybe there's a setting that was changed? When I mess up my HA setup mine just work as "regular light bulbs" with the light switch.
  - DavideNL 3y ago
    Correct... (note that you can configure the bulbs to not automatically switch on/off when they get switched on/off with a physical switch.)
Marsymars 3y ago
> I walk in a bathroom, and the light needs to come on, and it needs to be very dim after 10pm. You can do this without connected devices, depending on the configuration of your bathroom! You can get night lights that plug into an outlet, turn on when it’s dark, and brighten when they sense motion. I have some Casper ones (that also let you disable the motion sensing): https://www.amazon.com/Casper-Sleep-Glow-Night-Light/dp/B09LHZKB16 https://www.amazon.com/Casper-Sleep-Glow-Night-Light/dp/B09L... You can also configure you bathroom with multiple lights where some are connected to dumb motion sensors. e.g. Panasonic makes bathroom fans with a primary light and a night light - you can connect the night light to something like a Lutron Maestro motion sensor that goes in the wall where your light switches are. (Or if you want to get fancy, you can get a ceiling-mounted motion sensor and a radio-capable Maestro switch/dimmer that can communicate only locally with the motion sensor.)

rootusrootus 3y ago

You're braver than I am. I won't use Hue bulbs because I require that my automation setup fail gracefully back to plain old 'just works the way it used to' functionality. It'd be just my luck that the server, hub, or Internet would fail right when I needed the lights to work and I'd be stuck in the dark.

Toutouxc 3y ago
My lights are all set to turn on after a power cut. That way if Home Assistant dies, I can flip any light switch off, then on, and it will work normally. My area doesn’t have any actual power cuts though.
renegade-otter 3y ago
Not really - these lights are always on, so if the hub croaks, your lights can still be turned on/off the old-fashioned way. I actually got touch guards installed on all the switches so the guests don't press them - you can still poke it with a pencil and toggle. In almost 10 years, I have never had to do it. The only drawback is that if the power goes in and out - all the lights come on. This is where remote functionality is useful, if you are away.
extrapickles 3y ago
Hue bulbs by default emulate a dumb led bulb. This is configurable so you can have them be “dumb” in a way that you prefer, eg: customize color, brightness or do whatever you told them last. I have several that some of the time I use a regular light switch to turn on/off and you wouldn’t know they weren’t standard led bulbs.
filterfiber 3y ago
> I won't use Hue bulbs because I require that my automation setup fail gracefully back to plain old 'just works the way it used to' functionality. Maybe there's a setting that was changed? When I mess up my HA setup mine just work as "regular light bulbs" with the light switch.
- DavideNL 3y ago
  Correct... (note that you can configure the bulbs to not automatically switch on/off when they get switched on/off with a physical switch.)

Marsymars 3y ago

> I walk in a bathroom, and the light needs to come on, and it needs to be very dim after 10pm. You can do this without connected devices, depending on the configuration of your bathroom! You can get night lights that plug into an outlet, turn on when it’s dark, and brighten when they sense motion. I have some Casper ones (that also let you disable the motion sensing): https://www.amazon.com/Casper-Sleep-Glow-Night-Light/dp/B09LHZKB16 https://www.amazon.com/Casper-Sleep-Glow-Night-Light/dp/B09L... You can also configure you bathroom with multiple lights where some are connected to dumb motion sensors. e.g. Panasonic makes bathroom fans with a primary light and a night light - you can connect the night light to something like a Lutron Maestro motion sensor that goes in the wall where your light switches are. (Or if you want to get fancy, you can get a ceiling-mounted motion sensor and a radio-capable Maestro switch/dimmer that can communicate only locally with the motion sensor.)