Smart Light Bulb Options for ISY

[roberthleeii]

Any recommendations for smart light bulbs I can control from my ISY. I have been using Inovelli z-wave light bulbs with success but would like to know if there are any other options available and worth looking at.  Also i need an option for the smaller light bulbs (?e12? / ?candelabra? style). 

I would love to use zigbee but that does not seem to be an easy option with the ISY ?

any responses are appreciated. 

Thank you in advance,

Robert

[lilyoyo1]

That depends on budget, use, and needs. 

I use hue bulbs and network resources.

There's also a node server for hue which may be easier and also gives 2 way control. 

You can also use other zwave bulbs, magic home compatible bulbs and lifx. 

[roberthleeii]

1 hour ago, lilyoyo1 said:

That depends on budget, use, and needs. 

I use hue bulbs and network resources.

There's also a node server for hue which may be easier and also gives 2 way control. 

You can also use other zwave bulbs, magic home compatible bulbs and lifx. 

thank you for your response!

I have a question that is probably very stupid (sorry in advance): to run the Hue node server i have to have a Polisy at my house? I still don't have an understanding of the node server integrations... ?‍♂️

 

Follow up questions on the Magic home bulbs, those look to be wifi, how does that connect to ISY? (node server too?) Don't wifi bulbs clog up your wifi? I already have too many wifi devices connected to my network.

[upstatemike]

Different people have different experiences with Wi-Fi bulbs. A lot of folks use Lifx because there is an API to operate them locally and they have been rock solid. I on the other hand have 8 Lifx bulbs in my Dining Room AND a Wireless Access Point in the same room. Whenever I go to adjust the Dining Room lights there is always one or two of the Lifx bulbs offline so they can't be controlled. They do the same from Polisy, Home Assistant, and Homeseer so I know it is the bulbs. I usually have about 60 Wi-Fi devices online at any given time (across 8 WAPs) so maybe the environment is too busy for the Lifx bulbs to handle but in any case I will never again mess with Wi-Fi bulbs.

Good news is somebody on Ebay is going to get a bunch of Lifx bulbs for a cheap price as soon as I can budget money to redo the Dining Room with Philips Hue bulbs.

[larryllix]

I use about 25 MagicHome protocol WiFi bulbs and they stay connected mostly unless there is some bad disturbances. Most of the time a simple power cycle makes them reconnect just fine. They respond correctly about 99% of the time. One problem is the 3-4 power blink factory reset algorithm most of them use.

IMHO the key is to send keepalive signals every few minutes so the bulbs and RGBW strips do not lose their connections. However, I use a separate old router, but the main router still must keep all the IP addresses and provide DHCP reservations for all devices, as well as the bulbs and strips. This likely takes a more modern router as I have had a previous unit that just couldn't handle more than 51 devices properly. I find this capability is never discussed in router specs and the support people have no idea what you are actually asking, when asked. The closest answer I have been told was the number of devices each band can handle...not the correct subject matter. I have not found any limits in newer routers yet at about 85 devices.

I use my own software, controlled by four NRs from ISY. Set, On, Off, and Effects NRs are required. I set up a colour factor, RGBlevel, WWlevel, and  CWlevel variable and then use the set NR. Using negative numbers invokes predefined groups of bulbs or RGBW strips for a very fast response from groups without much popcorn effects, due to prepping all bulbs before turning them on simultaneously. My software currently shares my polisy box along with ISY and polyglot2.

IOW: WiFi bulbs can work but drivers need to be well written or poor quality responses may be seen.

 

I used MiLight bulbs for a few years but they require a hub for every four bulbs. Nice colours and good whites.

I used Philips Hue bulbs but they were such poor colours I have abandoned them. One bulb...a Tulip? style gave nice colours but at about 1 watt of light. It's colouring didn't match the other five bulbs that didn't contain a green LED. I abandoned Hue due to extreme pricing and worst RGBW bulb colouring I have experienced. Absolute garbage, but very nice API interface. I wouldn't trust Hue ever again, not to screw their customer base over again.  I can't afford thousands of dollars for bulbs and RGBW strips when I can spend a few hundred for the same MagicHome protocol bulbs available from so many compatible sources now.

[oberkc]

9 hours ago, roberthleeii said:

to run the Hue node server i have to have a Polisy at my house?

Not true, but it might be easier if you did.  You would need the hue hub, in addition to any hue devices.  If you did not have a Polisy, you would control hue bulbs via a "network resource", which is an add-on (download the software) to the ISY.  Once you have the network module downloaded, you would need to create a network resource for any action you would like to take regarding the bulb.  One resource to turn on.  One resource to turn off. Resources for any color or brightness change.  There would be a learning curve and time commitment to this approach.

If you had the Polisy, you would avoid the network resource approach and add a "node server" for the hue hub.  I think of the node server as the intermediary between the hue hub and ISY.  The node server syncs and communicates with the hue hub and, on the other end, the ISY.  Once the node server is in place, the ISY list of devices would include any hue bulb that you have and you could then use in programs and scenes just as you would with any other Insteon or z-wave device.

[lilyoyo1]

11 hours ago, roberthleeii said:

thank you for your response!

I have a question that is probably very stupid (sorry in advance): to run the Hue node server i have to have a Polisy at my house? I still don't have an understanding of the node server integrations... ?‍♂️

 

Follow up questions on the Magic home bulbs, those look to be wifi, how does that connect to ISY? (node server too?) Don't wifi bulbs clog up your wifi? I already have too many wifi devices connected to my network.

To run the hue nodeserver, I'd recommend running polisy since using an Rpi is not supported with V3 of polyglot. However, it's easy to use network resources with hue with your current Isy. Unless you plan on using the hue app, network resources is the way to go. I've been using hue since the first Gen (subsequently upgraded bulbs and bridge) and not once have I had one drop off the network or a signal not go through to a bulb. It's easy to use, well supported by a high number of platforms and simply works. 

First generation hue did have problems with rendering certain colors 10 years ago but that's not the case with newer bulbs. I guess some people don't realize that things do change over the years. That longevity also speaks volumes about what you get with hue devices which may not apply to some fly by night company using magic homes API. 

I have had 3 strips go bad over the years between my house and customer homes. A couple of emails with the required information and a new product was at my door within days. This is the type of experience I expect and appreciate which is also why I continue to use and recommend the hue brand.

My warranty experience with lifx was completely opposite. I purchased 3 strips for testing. Within 2 months 1 went out. After waiting almost 8 months for a new replacement, I was finally able to get a refund on the bad unit. The other 2 has continued to work great. 1 will drop off from my network from time to time but outside of that I've been pleased. Great colors and different effects are wonderful. Besides my warranty situation (I'm assuming that's not their norm) the only downside of the to me is ease of use. While not hard to set up, hue is definitely much easier to use and manage. Especially with network resources. With lifx, should a customer want to change their colors, that requires a service call from me. With hue, they can simply update their scene themselves. This goes for my wife in our own home. If she wants her colors to be different, she just updates the app. I don't have to log into the Isy and change anything. 

As my experience with lifx shows, wifi bulbs are not perfect (no protocol is). Depending on how many bulbs you need, it can pose a problem for your network. A few devices probably won't have an issue. A large number potentially can... Especially after a power outage. Besides that, depending on your network, do you really need to upgrade your router or potentially use multiple routers just to manage things? 

I'm not a fan of magic home bulbs at all. While they may have improved since I last toyed with it (a year ago for my grand nephew's underbed lights), the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. The app was clunky in trying to get the light strip connected and working. Even when using, it would drop off more than I'd like. I got tired of of my niece calling me that i eventually pulled it out and out hue in with no issues since. Granted it could be her network (she used the at&t router) but it still goes back to what I said about needing to buy a new router just for some lights. 

Cost: Hue and lifx cost more but you get what you pay for. There is a consistency that you get across their product lines that you don't get with cheaper bulbs/strips. I know quality matters to me but for some, they are ok with just good enough.

This reminds me of a client that chose not to use me for some strip lighting. He did it himself with some home Depot strips. He called me when he didn't like how things turned out. The strip specific reason was that the light was not consistent. Some whites were slightly off whether it was due to temperature or brightness (with the same settings). You don't have that issue with more expensive lights. 

You can easily find hue on sale at Amazon, especially around the holidays. If you don't need color in a location, cost drops significantly since the tunable white is about 30-40% cheaper than the color options. IMHO, I'd rather save and buy hue over time vs using cheap wanna be knockoffs that use the magic home app. 

[upstatemike]

11 hours ago, larryllix said:

I wouldn't trust Hue ever again, not to screw their customer base over again.  I can't afford thousands of dollars for bulbs and RGBW strips when I can spend a few hundred for the same MagicHome protocol bulbs available from so many compatible sources now.

I am curious about your color concerns with Hue as I have had many color issues with Wi-Fi bulbs. I tried a few like Philips Wiz and some others and found that most of them had no color saturation and could only do pastel shades. They also seem to struggle with deep purple and indigo colors and try to use magenta in place of purple. Can I get the deeply saturated Indigo colors from MagicLight bulbs? If so I might try some.

[Bumbershoot]

 

4 hours ago, upstatemike said:

I am curious about your color concerns with Hue as I have had many color issues with Wi-Fi bulbs.

I switched to LiFX from Hue specifically due to color saturation and brightness.  My wife uses them for viewing artwork, and the LiFX bulbs are distinctly brighter with deeper colors than Hue.

17 hours ago, upstatemike said:

Whenever I go to adjust the Dining Room lights there is always one or two of the Lifx bulbs offline so they can't be controlled.

LiFX bulbs with the latest firmware (v 3.70 currently) behave much better on the network for me than bulbs with older firmware.  This problem has been eliminated in my installation.

[upstatemike]

41 minutes ago, Bumbershoot said:

 

 

41 minutes ago, Bumbershoot said:

LiFX bulbs with the latest firmware (v 3.70 currently) behave much better on the network for me than bulbs with older firmware.  This problem has been eliminated in my installation.

Just checked my Dining Room bulbs and they are at firmware 2.80 which it says is "up to date".  All 8 bulbs show Wi-Fi strength at 5 bars and bulb 4 just keeps dropping and reconnecting every 10-15 seconds... Now bulb 3 just dropped off. This is just too fiddley to live with. I like the colors with Lifx but I like the reliability with Hue better.

I don't know how to force an update to 3.70 if the app says they are already current at 2.80?

[Bumbershoot]

3 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

I don't know how to force an update to 3.70 if the app says they are already current at 2.80?

I'm not sure you can update past 2.80 on older generation bulbs.  About half of my bulbs are new Gen 4 bulbs, running firmware 3.70, and the other half are older generation, running 2.80.  I put the older bulbs where there is a strong WiFi signal (and where there's not much chance of them roaming around on my mesh network), and the new bulbs where the WiFi is weaker.   It took some tinkering, but it's solved the problem.  Gen 4 bulbs, in my experience, handle weaker WiFi quite a bit better.

[upstatemike]

All my bulbs show maximum Wi-Fi signal so I don't think that is the issue. All have reserved IP addresses so no contention there. They just drop for no reason.

With Hue if I change the color of the room all 8 bulbs change at once. With Lifx six maybe seven will change. I'm not saying Robert would have the same issues as me but just making him aware that this stuff happens with Lifx bulbs and probably other Wi-Fi bulbs as well.

[brians]

I don't see a Hue or LIFX nodeserver for PG3 in nodeserver store on my Polisy.

 

 

[upstatemike]

Maybe they will remain PG2. There will likely be several things that don't get moved to PG3 so I think we need to plan on running both.

[roberthleeii]

10 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

To run the hue nodeserver, I'd recommend running polisy since using an Rpi is not supported with V3 of polyglot. However, it's easy to use network resources with hue with your current Isy. Unless you plan on using the hue app, network resources is the way to go. I've been using hue since the first Gen (subsequently upgraded bulbs and bridge) and not once have I had one drop off the network or a signal not go through to a bulb. It's easy to use, well supported by a high number of platforms and simply works. 

First generation hue did have problems with rendering certain colors 10 years ago but that's not the case with newer bulbs. I guess some people don't realize that things do change over the years. That longevity also speaks volumes about what you get with hue devices which may not apply to some fly by night company using magic homes API. 

I have had 3 strips go bad over the years between my house and customer homes. A couple of emails with the required information and a new product was at my door within days. This is the type of experience I expect and appreciate which is also why I continue to use and recommend the hue brand.

My warranty experience with lifx was completely opposite. I purchased 3 strips for testing. Within 2 months 1 went out. After waiting almost 8 months for a new replacement, I was finally able to get a refund on the bad unit. The other 2 has continued to work great. 1 will drop off from my network from time to time but outside of that I've been pleased. Great colors and different effects are wonderful. Besides my warranty situation (I'm assuming that's not their norm) the only downside of the to me is ease of use. While not hard to set up, hue is definitely much easier to use and manage. Especially with network resources. With lifx, should a customer want to change their colors, that requires a service call from me. With hue, they can simply update their scene themselves. This goes for my wife in our own home. If she wants her colors to be different, she just updates the app. I don't have to log into the Isy and change anything. 

As my experience with lifx shows, wifi bulbs are not perfect (no protocol is). Depending on how many bulbs you need, it can pose a problem for your network. A few devices probably won't have an issue. A large number potentially can... Especially after a power outage. Besides that, depending on your network, do you really need to upgrade your router or potentially use multiple routers just to manage things? 

I'm not a fan of magic home bulbs at all. While they may have improved since I last toyed with it (a year ago for my grand nephew's underbed lights), the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. The app was clunky in trying to get the light strip connected and working. Even when using, it would drop off more than I'd like. I got tired of of my niece calling me that i eventually pulled it out and out hue in with no issues since. Granted it could be her network (she used the at&t router) but it still goes back to what I said about needing to buy a new router just for some lights. 

Cost: Hue and lifx cost more but you get what you pay for. There is a consistency that you get across their product lines that you don't get with cheaper bulbs/strips. I know quality matters to me but for some, they are ok with just good enough.

This reminds me of a client that chose not to use me for some strip lighting. He did it himself with some home Depot strips. He called me when he didn't like how things turned out. The strip specific reason was that the light was not consistent. Some whites were slightly off whether it was due to temperature or brightness (with the same settings). You don't have that issue with more expensive lights. 

You can easily find hue on sale at Amazon, especially around the holidays. If you don't need color in a location, cost drops significantly since the tunable white is about 30-40% cheaper than the color options. IMHO, I'd rather save and buy hue over time vs using cheap wanna be knockoffs that use the magic home app. 

Thank you. I think I am going to look into Hue it seems like it will be my easiest way to go and accomplish what need to.

Can you point me to where i can learn about the network resources you mention. I don't really understand what that is... I am a newbie still.

 

[lilyoyo1]

43 minutes ago, roberthleeii said:

Thank you. I think I am going to look into Hue it seems like it will be my easiest way to go and accomplish what need to.

Can you point me to where i can learn about the network resources you mention. I don't really understand what that is... I am a newbie still.

 

https://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/19565-isy-and-phillips-hue-integration-step-by-step-for-dummieslike-me/

[roberthleeii]

16 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

https://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/19565-isy-and-phillips-hue-integration-step-by-step-for-dummieslike-me/

Thank you!!!

[larryllix]

10 hours ago, upstatemike said:

I am curious about your color concerns with Hue as I have had many color issues with Wi-Fi bulbs. I tried a few like Philips Wiz and some others and found that most of them had no color saturation and could only do pastel shades. They also seem to struggle with deep purple and indigo colors and try to use magenta in place of purple. Can I get the deeply saturated Indigo colors from MagicLight bulbs? If so I might try some.

I have defined three shades of purple.called violet, mauve and puroe so I assume almost any hue can be produced from them. My RGBW strip colour also match my bulbs from about four different manufacturers.

My Hue bulbs contain no Green LED at all. They attempted to produce all colours an white shades from 3 LEDs and it couldn't be done. I feel ripped off by Philips and won't touch their stuff anymore. I can't remember now (bulbs are in a scrap ready box in storage right now) but IIRC the LEDs were Red, Indigo and Lime green Yellow. The Reds and blues were good, but the best green was about the same as the old fluorescent tubes from the 60s-70s.

I can give you my  python3 code if you want to send NRs from your ISY. It takes some editing inside the user-spec module to define your IP addresses, and set up 3-4 NRs for ON/Off/Set/Effect. These bulbs contain about 25 built-in effects. I find most useless except for the flashing effect. Great for alarms with no ISY load. Or you can install the MagicHome NR but it still may contain some long delays for multiple bulbs due to using some git-hub interface module technique. I haven't tried a recent version.

[upstatemike]

Not having any trouble doing green with Hue A19 bulbs. How can I reproduce the problem you were seeing?

[lilyoyo1]

3 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

Not having any trouble doing green with Hue A19 bulbs. How can I reproduce the problem you were seeing?

You can't reproduce it since you have newer bulbs. He holds their first gen against them as if they haven't upgraded over the years. 

[larryllix]

13 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

Not having any trouble doing green with Hue A19 bulbs. How can I reproduce the problem you were seeing?

You can't. The first 1,00,00 bulbs were a defective design they dumped on the market. They were replaced with better bulbs after a few years. I don't believe you can ever do all the colours properly with three LEDs. TV's seems to do it but there must be something in the colour selection the bulbs use.

The big difference is $8 per bulb now, vs $50-$60 per bulb in Hue. 15.3' RGBW strips about $30 with controller and PSU, vs (long time since I have seen them) $100 per 3' Hue RGB? strips.