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2-Wire Dimmer and Wifi bulbs


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Posted

Now I'm aware the 2-wire dimmer does NOT work with normal LED bulbs because of the low wattage and not having the trickle back to power the switch like from an incandescent... same as in the Z-Wave world.  BUT... does anyone know IF a Wifi bulb like a LIFX would function?  

 

Posted
22 minutes ago, simplextech said:

Now I'm aware the 2-wire dimmer does NOT work with normal LED bulbs because of the low wattage and not having the trickle back to power the switch like from an incandescent... same as in the Z-Wave world.  BUT... does anyone know IF a Wifi bulb like a LIFX would function?  

 

Most likely not.  A Wi-Fi bulb is an LED bulb with an RF circuit.  The 2 wire dimmers require an incandescent bulb.

Posted

Some have success by mixing the breeds. One small incandescent in a string of LED bulbs can keep a constant draw, enough to stop the dimmer from flickering. I would  take some experimentation.

LIFX are protocol controlled bulbs and as Techman posted above LEDs.. You wouldn't put them on a dimmer. They require full power at all times.

Posted
1 minute ago, Techman said:

Most likely not.  A Wi-Fi bulb is an LED bulb with an RF circuit.  The 2 wire dimmers require an incandescent bulb.

Yup I know the construction of the LIFX bulbs and other Wifi bulbs.  Just curious is all wondering if specifically a Wifi would have a high enough minimum load to be used and it does not based upon the LIFX specs and the minimum load spec for the Insteon dimmer switch.  Some LED's do however work in the Jasco z-wave dimmer but not many as again it's the minimum load requirement and idle load for trickle back needed to power the switch.

Posted
1 minute ago, larryllix said:

Some have success by mixing the breeds. One small incandescent in a string of LED bulbs can keep a constant draw, enough to stop the dimmer from flickering. I would  take some experimentation.

LIFX are protocol controlled bulbs and as Techman posted above LEDs.. You wouldn't put them on a dimmer. They require full power at all times.

Yeah the idea was NOT to use the dimmer function but only on/off or 0/100.  I have a few caseta switches that are 2-wire that I want to replace to make things uniform in that room and hallway and just pondering things.  Today I use the Caseta and Pico remotes and have that integrated through HomeSeer but I swapped out one of the switches again with a dumb switch to put a lifx in the hallway and just has be re-thinking possibilities.  Ultimately I'm going to re-wire that light and switch anyways just pondering about what if's and I never tried a wifi bulb in one of the 2-wire switches so I thought I'd just ask and see... I suppose I could just go swap the bulb and find out with the caseta switch in the other room.

Posted
1 minute ago, simplextech said:

Yeah the idea was NOT to use the dimmer function but only on/off or 0/100.  I have a few caseta switches that are 2-wire that I want to replace to make things uniform in that room and hallway and just pondering things.  Today I use the Caseta and Pico remotes and have that integrated through HomeSeer but I swapped out one of the switches again with a dumb switch to put a lifx in the hallway and just has be re-thinking possibilities.  Ultimately I'm going to re-wire that light and switch anyways just pondering about what if's and I never tried a wifi bulb in one of the 2-wire switches so I thought I'd just ask and see... I suppose I could just go swap the bulb and find out with the caseta switch in the other room.

Just put one of these bypass devices in parallel with the load https://tinyurl.com/ycbsjnw4

Posted
3 minutes ago, palayman said:

Just put one of these bypass devices in parallel with the load https://tinyurl.com/ycbsjnw4

Actually I have one of the Fibaro models of that (same thing) and I have several of the Lutron LUT-MLC floating around... hmm... and yes this is me procrastinating and being lazy and not just pulling new wire like I know I should! :)  But it's also me "testing" this new Insteon possibilities (not that the wiring/setup is any different than z-wave) but sshhh we're not going to talk about that as this is a "company project" so no fear of WAF decreasing :)

 

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